A foreign hosting & design company (from India) is trying to blackmail me by sending me threatening emails claiming that he will spam my clients, partners and other companies not to do business with me unless I transfer money to them.

What can be done about this?

Do not reply to him. He'll know he has "a live one" and keep hammering on you.

Most of these types of threats really have no merit, or they use simple technologies to "email spam" your users. Your users (as are most who have email anywhere) are used to spam....so even if his emails were cleverly crafted, he'd likely not make it anywhere but the "deleted" mailbox.

I'd do "nothing"

:)

Guys, what about http://spamcop.net and similar services ? Do you think it is a bad idea to submit a few spamreports ? I don't think. At least the spammer's host will be blacklisted and you won't get emails from it while it is in a blacklist.

LOL, you sure like that "spamcop" thing don't you Cyber. You posted in two threads about that guy. Not a bad idea though, assuming the user/host subscribes to the spamcop database to filter inbound emails. :)

Most popular MTA supports RBL lists. At least the user can ask their support team to enable the feature. I think such addon won't overload the server at all, moreover their server will be less loaded because the bulk emails won't be delivered.

spamcop.net sounds like a great idea. I am going to contact them

Yikes...Does not sound like a web hosting company I would like to be with. Have you tried contacting the authorities in the country that the web hosting company is based out of?

Contacting spamcop about something that someone claims they might do in the future is just silly; particaulrly considering that spamcop frequently lists gmail servers. If they are not willing to make exceptions for Google, do you you really think they are going to care or be willing to do anything regarding your situation?

Just leave it alone ....

If they are threatening to do damage to yourself, your client, or your business, I would think there could be some legal action that you could take against them. I do belive that is illegal?

John,

I say ignore the guy, he's provoking you to reply back.

John,

I say ignore the guy, he's provoking you to reply back.
I agree with you

Figure how much the blackmail will cost you vs how much sending an assassin to take care of business will cost you and go from there weighted with legal fees and a restraining order. I kid you not it is cheaper to kill people than follow the law.

i saw an incident a year or to ago with similar circumstances, as suggested already you should ignore it, in the case i witnessed ignoring it did do the job and it soon stopped.

Figure how much the blackmail will cost you vs how much sending an assassin to take care of business will cost you and go from there weighted with legal fees and a restraining order. I kid you not it is cheaper to kill people than follow the law.

HAHA! I can't believe they are blackmailing you. That is crazy. I guess you see new things happen everyday. Honestly, I wouldn't even know what to do in that case. However, threats are just threats. I am sure its coming from someone who will not fulfill them. Good luck!

I kid you not it is cheaper to kill people than follow the law.

This is almost as offensive as blackmail itself. Some of us base our decisions on moral standards and besides, the cheaper way is almost always never the better way.

This is almost as offensive as blackmail itself. Some of us base our decisions on moral standards and besides, the cheaper way is almost always never the better way.

He never said he advocates or recommends killing someone - he was making a point.

To the OP - ignore the threats and blacklist his IP/Email from your network or server(s). Don't reply to him and don't waste anymore of your time worrying about it.

--Tina

Here is an update.

This company has sent emails to my customers and then cc the emails to me, saying that he will send more emails if I do not transfer x amount.

I contacted the local police and the police in India. The local police don’t really know what to do with this. They are not used to blackmailing by internet and that fact that it happened from India was even a bigger surprise. I contacted the police in India and they where not surprised. It seems that it is common and they gave me full instructions on what to do, what form to fill in and so on. They are also willing to cooperate with my local police and service providers. So now it its turning into a police case. The Indian police told me that based on the evidence I had it was not hard to arrest this person.

Nice work Johnburk! Please keep us all updated with everything that goes on with it. Best of luck!

AH-Tina. I realize he didn't specifically say he advocated it, I was also making a point in an open forum.

Good luck Johnburk. Often, being proactive is better than sitting waiting for a potential problem to go away (or not). I feel it puts you more in control of the outcome. The probability and risks have to be weighed. The fact that he went as far as contacting your clients indicates a much higher probability of further abuse, rather than just empty threats. I am sure we will all be following this thread, to see how your approach works out. Thanks for updating us.

All the best.

That was a joke, though it's true. Do you know how much starting a lawsuit and prosecuting some unknown spammer from India might cost you?
Johnburk (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/member.php?u=87326) vbmenu_register("postmenu_4154355", true); , I think you shouldn't get provoked by him.
Is there any news in your story?

I have to agree with others, just ignore the user and blacklist their ips from your network.

This is easy to handle as it's a legal matter. Do what you have done in notifying the police, but you might also send a copy of such correspondence to the FBI (assuming you are in the US) who are probably better to equipped to deal with computer crime than most local police forces.

Not sure if this is something practical but how about sending a advance email to all of your clients to ignore any such msgs. and you are already trying to implement spam filters and loged a complaint with the police.

I contacted the local police and the police in India. The local police don’t really know what to do with this. They are not used to blackmailing by internet and that fact that it happened from India was even a bigger surprise. I contacted the police in India and they where not surprised. It seems that it is common and they gave me full instructions on what to do, what form to fill in and so on. They are also willing to cooperate with my local police and service providers. So now it its turning into a police case. The Indian police told me that based on the evidence I had it was not hard to arrest this person.

That was a good move. The Indian police does have a cyber crime unit and from what I know, they work on everything from phishing to credit card fraud..

Normally I would file a complaint witht the bandwidth provider, however in India it may be goverment owned.

Jim Austin // Ziren LLC

Normally I would file a complaint witht the bandwidth provider, however in India it may be goverment owned.


No, all major ISPs in India are privately run.
And yes, that would be a good idea too. Although what normally happens is the Indian police would ask the ISP for records and track down the abuser.

A foreign hosting & design company (from India) is trying to blackmail me by sending me threatening emails claiming that he will spam my clients, partners and other companies not to do business with me unless I transfer money to them.

What can be done about this?

You can post the relevant "Recieved:" SMTP headers that identify the source to the NANAE newsgroup [0], and ask for suggestions there.

The folks who post regularly in NANAE are mostly helpful, knowledgable spam-fighters (and a few kooks who are basically spammers that are angry because the blacklists got in their way, heheh) who I'm sure many will be interested in knowing about this problem.

But be warned, NANAE is not for the faint of heart. It's probably best to describe it as the opposite of what should be used to introduce new users to usenet.

[0] news.admin.net-abuse.email

A foreign hosting & design company (from India) is trying to blackmail me by sending me threatening emails claiming that he will spam my clients, partners and other companies not to do business with me unless I transfer money to them.

What can be done about this?

The best you can do is to ignore him. Any attempts to talk to him will make it worse !

Modify your exim to use respectable rbls.

After 1-2 hours they start to churn out spam out of their servers, theyll get blacklisted very probably, and you will be able to weed out their trash waiting in exim queue, and get it done with.

spamcop.net is "famous" for blackmailing people. Here is how scammers use it: they sign up for an email list, and then they report is for spam. spamcop.net is completely useless for stopping real spam, only legal websites suffer because they provide their contact info and become vulnerable to the thieves at spamcop.net.

That was a good move. The Indian police does have a cyber crime unit and from what I know, they work on everything from phishing to credit card fraud..

All crap. It is not in a good state. Let me tell you that. When the main crime investigation agency's website gets hacked(CBI) by a bunch of kids, you know it's not in good condition.

I'd say if you have the details of the company, you could probably destroy their reputation by posting on various forums and marketplaces, especially those where they advertise.

Otherwise as many have said before me, Spamcop is a good option.

Otherwise as many have said before me, Spamcop is a good option.

SpamCop is part of the problem in my opinion.