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FTC Busts Domain Name Scammers

Posted by Soulskill on from the wrists-have-been-slapped dept.

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."

3 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. DROA by vlm · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  2. Re:Another pointless FTC slap on the wrist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Riddle me this: 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 amount that the only way it can be discharged is an immediate bankruptcy... and most likely a judge would turn that down?

    Yes, IP violations are crimes, but scamming people out of money is a far greater crime than downloading the latest remix of "Oops I Did It Again."

    I wish the FTC would have gone whole hog on these people, wage garnishment, tax return attached, property seized, etc. so the fine is paid.

  3. Re:Blame Canada by greed · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.