Results 1 to 16 of 16
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09-14-2006, 11:14 AM #1Newbie
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Serious problem with NameCheap.com
This just hasn't been my week…
A few years ago I signed up with a service that alerts you whenever something is posted about you or your business on Google or other search engines. Imagine my horror when I opened up the latest report and see my name listed in association with a 491 fraud alert!
My credit card number was stolen last month and among the fraudulent purchases the perp made was several domain names with NameCheap.com. At the time I thought little of it as my credit card compnay quickly shutdown the card and alerted the retailers of the fraudulent charges made. I have since discovered that this individual proceeded to open up a fake banking site to defraud unsuspecting people. Thankfully a watchdog website shutdown the site, but also listed all the WHOIS data of the domain as a public service - which unfortunately contained my name and home address along with an obviously fake number. I contacted the watchdog site and explained the situation and offered to send my credit card company's fraud resolution report to them. Thankfully, they quickly took down the information.
My next step was to contact NameCheap.com to have my information removed from their database. Anyone who finds one of these fraudulent domain names listed on the web will still see my name and address attached to it. I have sent 2 emails to the supposed "support" email address without any action being taken or a response being sent back to me.
My next step was to call the international number listed on the WHOIS data, to no avail.
My last step was to go to the California Secretary of States address to look for the business's contact info there but the company that is supposedly based in California is not even registered with the state.
As far as I can tell, there is NO support at this company which brings it's legitimacy into question, regardless of how many thousands have registered names with them. The bulk of their clientele is probably hackers and phishers - but that issue is moot, I simply want my information removed from the WHOIS record of these fraudulent domains. If it takes legal action to proceed I am willing to go that route as this could do harm to my business and my good reputation. But I am open to suggestions from the forum before I take this route.
All I want is my information removed from the WHOIS record of these fraudulent domains.
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09-14-2006, 11:20 AM #2.
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I would try e-mailing them first. They should have contact information right on their site.
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09-14-2006, 11:21 AM #3Newbie
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Originally Posted by MrRadic
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09-14-2006, 11:26 AM #4.
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Originally Posted by GiantRedwood
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09-14-2006, 11:58 AM #5Newbie
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Thank you for the tip about ICANN.
I did submit a report with them, but the following caveat is posted on their site:
"Although ICANN's limited technical mission does not include resolving individual customer-service complaints, ICANN does monitor such complaints to discern trends"
Is InterNec another source that I should contact? Or are these 2 one in the same.
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09-14-2006, 01:45 PM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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That sucks... I hope it gets resolved in your favor quickly!
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09-14-2006, 02:05 PM #7Web Hosting Guru
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If I recall correctly, the support email listed on the namecheap site is for normal support. They have a "Fraud Prevention Team" that handles these, although a direct means to contact them isn't listed. I was forwarded to them a couple months ago for an issue. Perhaps you should state in the email to support that you wish to speak with their fraud prevention team?
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09-14-2006, 02:10 PM #8Junior Guru
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was it less than 5 days ago?
Namecheap has to delete such domains and there is no cost to them.
Anyways, you should contact namescheap for whois update. If your name is used as the registrant, you have the ways to update the other information with them.
Can you tell me the address of the reporting company you used to get that notification? This sounds like a very useful tool.MBT
SiberName.com is an ICANN/CIRA/Eurid Accredited Registrar. since 2000.
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09-14-2006, 02:41 PM #9Newbie
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RESOLUTION...hopefully
Again, thank you to MrRadic for suggesting I contact ICANN.
I took it one step further and called ICANN. They were very easy to deal with and they provided me with the direct phone number for eNom.com for whom NameCheap.com is a reseller. I found some very interesting information about eNom at Wikipedia.com, but I digress. The tech person I spoke to put a voice mail through to NameCheap so I am awaiting confirmation that my info has been removed.
Thanks to all who have offered advice and a wish for a speedy resolution. I'm waiting now and checking the the offending WHOIS record every hour.
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09-14-2006, 02:51 PM #10Web Hosting Guru
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Glad to hear of your progress, best of luck and keep us posted on the outcome
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09-14-2006, 02:53 PM #11Newbie
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Mbulent - I'm sorry I had missed your question. I ran a search for ICANN + Report Registrar and found the following address on InterNic's website: http://reports.internic.net/cgi/regi...lem-report.cgi
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09-14-2006, 03:31 PM #12Web Hosting Master
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Glad to hear you should be having this resolved. I've personally been very happy with namecheap thus far and in the times I've emailed in saw pretty quick response times, it's unfortunate yours weren't replied to.
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09-14-2006, 04:17 PM #13Newbie
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Originally Posted by DarkRogue
To be fair, I made certain the third email I sent said ATTN: Fraud Prevention Team, but honestly it's been nearly 24 hours since I first made them aware of this situation - and still no response. What does it take to get their attention? You would think fraudulent activity would have warrented some type of response by now whether or not I had written "Fraud" in the subject line or not.
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09-14-2006, 05:05 PM #14Web Hosting Guru
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I know, sometimes NameCheap takes forever to respond, although it seems to me that the general word of advice around here is to address it to "Michael K" of namecheap support. He's also the guy I ended up with handling my case and he responds within minutes usually. The other rep I got took hours and days :/
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09-14-2006, 06:24 PM #15Newbie
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Finally!
Good News!
As of this moment the WHOIS report on the fraudulent domain name has been cleared of all of my information. Now all I have to worry about are the Google caches that still show the data but I think those will be gone in 4-6 weeks.
Thanks to all for your advice and well-wishes. And thanks to ICANN. What a wonderful change from the usual to call an internet oriented company and have an actual human answer the phone on the first ring.
...now I'm going to go take some Advil and have a nap.
Cheers!
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09-14-2006, 06:54 PM #16.
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Congrats, sounded like a tough mission! Glad I could help in some way.