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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
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.