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FTC Busts Domain Name Scammers
coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission said today it had permanently killed the operations of a group that it said posed as domain name registrars and convinced thousands of US consumers, small businesses and non-profit organizations to pay bogus bills by leading them to believe they would lose their Web site addresses if they didn't. As with so many of these cases however, the defendants get off paying back very little compared to what they took. With today's settlement order, entered against defendants Isaac Benlolo, Kirk Mulveney, Pearl Keslassy, and 1646153 Ontario Inc., includes a suspended judgment of $4,261,876, the total amount of consumer injury caused by the illegal activities. Based on what the FTC called the inability of the settling defendants to pay, they will turn over $10,000 to satisfy the judgment."
That would be DROA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Registry_of_America
I got their invoices all the time. Good for a laugh at least. I'm sure they scammed thousands.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
In the latter one, the taxpayers fund your stay. In the former, you have to fund your stay WHILE paying back what you owe. They were outlawed because people would never be able to get out of debtor's prison.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Debtor's prison does not exist in the US, for historical reasons. (Basically, at the time our constitution was written debtor's prison was being, or had recently been, significantly abused in Europe as a political tool to squelch opposition. Our founding fathers did Not Want That Happening Here, so they proscribed debtor's prison entirely.)
The provision that prevents our congressmen from being stopped and prosecuted if they are on their way to a session of congress exists for similar reasons. Also the third amendment in the Bill of Rights.
However, we *can* throw somebody in prison for a crime, and I'm pretty sure fraud on this kind of scope qualifies. Unfortunately, our courts are generally pretty soft on white-collar crime. But that's not a constitutional issue, just a practical and social and judicial one. Come to that, our entire judicial system is pretty severely broken at this point.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Not to detract from the humour.... If you incorporate without a name, you get to be known by the serial number associated with your incorporation.
There was a similar scam in Canada, with some registrar sending out renewal notices to other registrar's customers. I forwarded one to the RCMP fraud division, and they said it wasn't technically illegal so they wouldn't do anything.
Why is it that these guys get their judgement whittled to $10,000 for doing an active crime with victims, while some guy who left a directory full of songs on LimeWire gets stuck with a multi-million dollar
Money buys good lawyers. Good lawyers can make a person innocent or incriminated on demand. Legal battles are like real battles in one respect though -- the result isn't predictable and guaranteed just by using overwhelming force. A low-power, underfinanced, disadvantaged opponent can sometimes be very resourceful. Vietnam won, in the end. The music industry isn't winning, in spite of lawsuits. Microsoft is still winning, though, nobody's managed to circle the wagons quite efficiently yet.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
The settlement order, entered against defendants Isaac Benlolo, Kirk Mulveney, Pearl Keslassy, and 1646153 Ontario Inc., includes a suspended judgment of $4,261,876, the total amount of consumer injury caused by the illegal activities. Based on the inability of the settling defendants to pay, they will turn over $10,000 to satisfy the judgment. The default judgment order was entered against defendant Steven E. Dale and includes a judgment in the amount of $4,261,876.
Qxe4