I posted this to the IOZ mailing list today, but I’m posting it here also.. maybe I can warn a few more people.
Today this woman (which claims to be in London) working for Profile Business Services phones me up and tells me a South African guy called Mr. Du Plessis wants to register 7 domains at 100 Pounds each (10yr registration). The domains are:
frogfootnetworks.com
frogfootnetworks.net
frogfootnetworks.biz
frogfoot-networks.com
etc..
She asks if I know the guy and if we’ve asked him to register the domains for us: No.
Then she is very nice and offers me the first option to buy these domains
for 700 Pounds.. before Mr. Du Plessis can register them.
She gives me her co. name and the list of domains, but she is not willing to give me contact details for Mr. Du Plessis. I say I’d have to get back to her.
So I find the website for http://www.profilebusinessservices.com/. I look around the site, lots of nifty graphics, no real functionality, no contact numbers on the contact page.
root@blue[/]# whois profilebusinessservices.com
–8< ---------:- snip -:---------8<---------:- snip -:---------8<--
Registrant:
frenton, nick ukpbs@yahoo.co.uk
pbs
23 margaret
st
london, uk W1W 8LF
GBRecord created on 02-Nov-2006.
--8<---------:- snip -:---------8<---------:- snip -:---------8<--
So, this “fake” company who has been around since Nov 2006 is going to
register 7 domains for me, which I don’t really want.. sure.
VoIP becomes cheap and phones become spamming and scamming devices.
They are now doing the same thing as atlasbusinessonline.com, except that Mr. Dupliess is now Mr. Dubois
Glad to have found your comments, as this afternoon I had exactly the same call from Donna Clark 08700677703 extension 1452. Said a guy who probably knows me wanted to register .info. -.co.uk and -.com and .eu and .eu with a dash in the middle ot the name also. Said he wanted to register them for 10 years, so he must be serious.
I could have first option on them. Obviuosly the most cost effective way is the 10 year option. Cheapest option was going to be £50 per domain name.
They had ‘pre-registered the domains and exactly the same, I could have the first option on them.
I did some hcecking and found they were not registered or pre registered.
So I had to register them to stop the scam the next time. Cost £60 instead of £200 though.
As you say, sounded very helpful. Fife accent.
Just happened to my company too. We were called by atlasbusinessonline.com. I’ve reported it to the OFT, but as I couldn’t extract any concrete contact details (I only have e-mail, website and phone no.) I don’t suppose it’ll go far.
we have just had a similar call from a company called Atlas Business Online (Adel Watts ext 2310) asking if I had asked a Mr Proudlock (a UK resident) to register 12 variants of our current domain name.
She (Adel) would not give any further details under the “Data Protection Act” which she emphasised was designed to protect the guilty and not the innocent” !!
However, she belived that Mr Proudlock had picked her Webb Site company as they were a small company based in Nottingham and would take the fee without asking any further questions!
She also stated, that as my company has been a registered company for 120 years, I could safeguard the variants of my domain name by pre-empting Mr Proudlock for a fee of £1,200 that would give me protection for 10 years. it was was also stated that I had only 2 hours to make the decision as they would contractuarlly have to process Mr Proudlock’s registration.
The above telephone number is answered by an automatic machine that states “that all lines are currently busy and please contact by e-mail” (mail@businessonline.com)
Thanks for the above comments and I hope our experience also help others faced with the same scam
We have just had a similar experience, this time a call from ‘Julia’ at Altlasbusinessonline.com who had a Swiss based person who reportedly was trying to buy 9 domains based on our [Swiss] company’s name. we were given 30 minutes to preemptively purchase these domains at £900 for 10 years.
In 8 calls I was only able to get through twice. The line was IP quality, with call centre background noise. when I told ‘Julia’ that we had asked for legal advice, she ‘checked’ and told me we were too late anyway.
Hi
We had a call from Emma Page from atlasbusinessonline.com our company administrator took the call and explained to me the conversation “Somone was trying to buy our unused domains” .net etc.
I checked wit UK2.net and these were still free so purchased all of these just in case b4 she called me back inc ltd.uk (Which you need to have a company reg for) took about 5 mins and 4 domains for a total of £18 inc VAT!
She called back with a similar stort to the above somone was wishing to registar our domains .eu.org.net etc. She said that she could give me first refusal on these, I said that I would buy from UK2 net. She said that it was locked and that ltd.uk did not need a co reg number! Obvious then that she was telling a lie. Looking at their prices it is 20x fold what UK2 is, + no address. Luckily for me a few minutes after her call several e-mails arrived from UK2 advising of the ownership of these to our company. I have also reported them to OFT so this may help.
Cheers…Martyn
I have had the same call today from Donna at Atlasbusiness tele 0870 0677703 on line saying someone from Wiltshire wanted to buy very similar domains like mine i.e .net or .eu. and according to theri legal department they were advised to contact me to see if I was willing to purchase them (about 4) for £900, which is what the person from Wiltshire was willing to pay. Must think we were born yesterday. Would like to know how we can stop such a scam.
Just got phoned by Emma Page from Atlas Business Online. Looks like there scam is now moving abroad too.We are a company located in The Netherlands. She told us that another Dutch company is trying to register our unused domains. I googled the phone number she gave me (+44 08700677703, ext 2311) and found this page and proved my suspicions. Glad I found your comments!
A Shaun Macey called me from Atlas Business Online informing me that a company in Bath wanted to register similair domains to my company. He then passed me onto Donna, the legal rep apparently, to convince me further. I had my suspicions anyway, and I was lucky enough to have found these comments while they were on the phone to me! They never got as far as offering me a price!
Just had Shaun Macey on doing the same thing - I had googled them already as he tried to get me earlier today. I told him that he was a con-merchant and not to call again. He hung up.
I just had a call too - Amy Jones (+01 1144 8700677703 ext. 2369) from Atlas Business Online claims that a Greg Hamilton in the USA is trying to register a host of domain names to my company (based in Ohio). I am glad I found these comments!
we just had the same thing?
Everyone report it to….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_online_purchasing.shtml
Looks like it is not limited to the UK, got a call from Mike Duran, @ x1740. He left a message that there was an important matter concerning the website of one of my clients. I had already figured out it was some sort of scam, but this blog has confirmed it for me. I guess there is no need to call him back, I’ll just wait for his next call.
Atlas Business has just called our company earlier to advise that someone was trying to register part of our name in their website. they thought it was only courtesy to contact us and let us know. They advised that they would hold off the application process until 5pm today to let our legal department get in contact. I thought that was a bit strange. the website in question was to be registered for 10 years along info.com infonet.co.uk info.net and could not provide me with anymore info except it was an unsecured website. I advised that we have a watchteam that look out for these websites and if it goes ahead will only be told to take it off. The contact number i was given is 0870 0677703 and contact name given is Julia Morris. Companies need to be made aware of this scam.
I just had a call from Julia Morris in London, claiming the same story of a certain person trying to register available websites with our company name. Can any one who previously got this call, please contact me at Gerrievdm@ist.co.za.
Add one of our clients to the list, too.
Had a phone call yesterday afternoon from our client’s MD, saying that Pat Taylor, from AtlasBusinessOnline.com, Tel 0870-067-7703, had just been on the phone to advise him that somebody was trying to register a number of domains similar to his own and she was being courteous by advising him !
She also offered to register the domains on his behalf instead.
Total cost if he had taken what was on offer from Atlas would have probably been nearly £1,000 - for domains that he neither needs nor wants !
By way of comparison, if we registered these domains for him instead through any number of professional domain resellers out there, then the cost would have been probably a THIRD of Atlas’s.
In short, it’s a scam, so leave well alone.
We just had the same thing from Amy Jones of Atlass Business Online (08700 677703). They’re gonna sell the domains unless I call her with card details in the next 10 mins!!! Oh no!
Seriously though, I think some people will fall for this, just lucky we managed to sus her out!
[...] colleague Jason a few minutes to find out about this scam. And scam it is. A blogger named “Swimgeek” came across the same thing a short while ago, although the U.K.-based firm was called [...]
Same thing just happened to us. I got her to emai me the details of her “offer”. Here is our blog about it.
http://www.wellingtonfund.com/blog/2007/05/04/domain-name-scam-alert/
What can we do to stop them?
I have just had the same thing happen from a differnt company called Net Business On-line. He offered all the domain names under question for £700.
I asked him to send me an e-mail to confirm and from that I now have their contact details.
Net Business Online
12 Pavilion Road
Nottingham
NG2 5FP
Tel: 0870 067 9070
Fax: 0870 067 9071
I will contact OFT. Any other sugestion on who I should contact?
Just had the same thing happen with Net Business On-line. Mr. Grant from USA is trying to register our domain in England. Luckily the call found its way through to the legal department. Our contact was “Kate Mitchell” telephone number 44-870-067-9070.
I got the call from Atlas Business Online and they were reportedly operating from, Nottingham. I am a domain registrant myself so spotted it straight away. The person’s name who was going to register my domains was Mr R Walker.
I reported to Trading Standards and many other places including FastHosts who are hosting their very limited, but fairly plausible site http://www.atlasbusinessonline.co.uk
Please also remember that an 0870 number is generating lots of lovely income for the companies involved, what ever their names are.
You will start paying 3p+ per minute as soon as you hear a recorded message and it starts ringing again. The longer they leave it, the more money they make. Now if they were to simply disconnect the phone from that number ….
http://www.saynoto0870.com
Just had the same call myself only this time it was Anna Patterson and the number was 0870 067 9070, a guy in Nottingham is trying to register 8 domains @ £800 over ten years, i can buy them all to head him off for ‘only’ £400 if i act today…total cost of those same domains if bought via my usual source? £100 or thereabouts…beware!
The Co name they’re using today is netbusinessonline.net
I’ve just had a call from a ‘Kathy Curtis’ from a Net Business Online telling me that a Mr Walker from Wolverhampton was trying to register 7 different variations of my company name for a ten year period and that to stop this I needed to pay £700.00 to ‘head Mr Walker off’.
I was immediatley suspicious and when I started asking questions ‘Kathy’ got very nervous and transferred me to her floor manager who told me Net Business is a privately owned company and the owner is Andrew Reid. Their contact address was given as 12 Pavillion Road, Nottingham, NG2 5SP and their contact number is +44 0870 067 9070, yet our caller ID said the call was an international call.
I’m about to call trading standards and Fast Hosts but beware!!!
Add us to the target list. Was just informed by a charming Kate Mitchell, representing NetBusinessOnline of the UK that a certain Mr. Mason of Waltham, MA, USA, was attempting to register 12 variants on our company’s domain name. Further, Mr. Mason was planning to set up e-mail and a re-direct address around these domains, seemingly for nefarious purposes. Kate spoke with her manager, Rachel, and was able to offer us the opportunity to register the domains for 10 years at 100GBP each, if we took quick action.
Do these people have no morals?
They were hosted with FastHosts but are now with ThePlanet.com in the USA. The following domains have been reported to abuse@theplanet.com
http://www.atlasbusinessonline.com
http://www.atlasbusinessonline.co.uk
http://www.netbusinessonline.com
http://www.profilebusinessservices.com
Feel free to do the same yourself, it will help the cause.
We just got the same from Net Business Online. I received a call from Meg Thompson. I told her I would have to get back with her and check around. She gave me the phone number +44870067970 ext 129. Of course when I called back all I got was voicemail. Oddly enough the voicemail was in the same woman’s voice.
The story was that a Mr. Baker was trying to purchase our domains for 10 year periods and wants to redirect to another site…she said it was very suspicious sounding. The total they were going to charge for all of the domain names was around $2,400 USD.
Glad I found your site before I did anything further.
It looks like the websites have finally died a death and they have moved onto another company name or another scam perhaps?
Yup - def. a scam.. best thing to do is visit a webhosting company yourself and check if the domain is registered.. if it’s not, then register it if you’re at all bothered, otherwise, just tell them you’re competent enough to learn to register a domain name and to go away! :p
Thanks for the headsup. has happened to a couple of our customers, but under a fake name, and there website is back
A couple of months ago some friends of mine parted with nearly £800 for 3 or 4 domains, for a one year registration only. They received a phone call from http://www.isplobal.org (aka http://www.atlasbusinessonline.com http://www.atlasbusinessonline.co.uk
http://www.netbusinessonline.com
and http://www.profilebusinessservices.com)
The story line is similar to those mentioned above.
ISP Global acted as a third party and purchased the domains from namecheap.com. I worked out it probably cost ISP about $40 to purchase the domains for my friends.
They seem to operate under a number of different website names, including all those mentioned above. All very similar style sites, adorning fake awards. There are no company registration numbers or address on any of the sites.
These scammers are still very much in operation.
Website address in no.31 should read http://www.ispglobal.org
Just had a call similar to all of these from a Laura Watson saying that there were a bunch of domains similar to our own company names that a Mr Charles Watson in Dublin was trying to register for 10 year periods. Total cost was £1500 but we could prevent him today by registering them.
Definitely got my spam radar twitching and glad to come across this page. The phone number I was asked to call back on was 0870 7169330 ext 19. (Even the extension seems dodgy!) Anyway, same routine, I phoned and she was “in a meeting” however she called back within about 2 mins.
Buyer Beware!
They are still in operation, now under http://www.netwidedesigns.com, 0870 716 9330
Sarah Louise Parker 0870 716 9330 Ext. 76 just called. A man, who does not work for us BUT, she was afraid, could have been a competitor…. had been approached their company trying to register 6 variations of our website domain and email and wanted to divert all the traffic to his ‘personal’ website, which poor old Sarah Louise Parker didnt know anything about..
Quick call to our web designer confirmed that whilst we were born - it wasnt yesterday and certainly not on a banana boat!
Just had phone call from a Holly Cook from http://www.netwidedesigns.com. Same story - this time from a John Cohen wanting to register 15 variants of our company name. Got phone call back from Kay Walker, legal adviser - same no. 0870 7169330. She never asked for money but I guess it would have come - I asked her lots of questions she said that the md was David Hill , and gave address in Sheffield as per website. She said they don’t have to register with nominet and that it is a private trader and they don’t need to give company registration no. I politely thanked her for letting us know.