In the event you’ve ever owned a website title, the probabilities are good that sooner or later you’ve obtained a snail mail letter which seems to be a invoice for a website or website-related providers. In actuality, these deceptive missives attempt to trick folks into paying for ineffective providers they by no means ordered, don’t want, and possibly won’t ever obtain. Right here’s a have a look at the latest incarnation of this rip-off — DomainNetworks — and a few clues about who could also be behind it.
The DomainNetworks mailer could reference a website that’s or was at one level registered to your title and deal with. Though the letter contains the phrases “advertising and marketing providers” within the higher proper nook, the remainder of the missive is deceptively designed to appear to be a invoice for providers already rendered.
DomainNetworks claims that itemizing your area with their promotion providers will end in elevated site visitors to your website. It is a doubtful declare for a corporation that seems to be a whole fabrication, as we’ll see in a second. However fortunately, the proprietors of this enterprise weren’t so troublesome to trace down.
The web site Domainnetworks[.]com says it’s a enterprise with a put up workplace field in Hendersonville, N.C., and one other deal with in Santa Fe, N.M. There are a number of random, non-technology companies tied to the cellphone quantity listed for the Hendersonville deal with, and the New Mexico deal with was utilized by a number of no-name website hosting firms.
Nevertheless, there’s little related to those addresses and cellphone numbers that get us any nearer to discovering out who’s operating Domainnetworks[.]com. And neither entity seems to be an lively, official firm of their supposed state of residence, not less than in line with every state’s Secretary of State database.
The Higher Enterprise Bureau itemizing for DomainNetworks offers it an “F” score, and contains greater than 100 opinions by folks indignant at receiving certainly one of these scams by way of snail mail. Helpfully, the BBB says DomainNetworks beforehand operated beneath a distinct title: US Area Authority LLC.
DomainNetworks has an “F” status with the Higher Enterprise Bureau.
Copies of snail mail rip-off letters from US Area Authority posted on-line present that this entity used the area usdomainauthority[.]com, registered in Could 2022. The Usdomainauthority mailer additionally featured a Henderson, NC deal with, albeit at a distinct put up workplace field.
Usdomainauthority[.]com is now not on-line, and the positioning appears to have blocked its pages from being listed by the Wayback Machine at archive.org. However looking out on an extended snippet of textual content from DomainNetworks[.]com about refund requests exhibits that this textual content was discovered on only one different lively web site, in line with publicwww.com, a service that indexes the HTML code of present web sites and makes it searchable.
A misleading snail mail solicitation from DomainNetwork’s earlier iteration — US Area Authority. Picture: Joerussori.com
That different web site is a website registered in January 2023 referred to as thedomainsvault[.]com, and its registration particulars are likewise hidden behind privateness providers. Thedomainsvault’s “Often Requested Questions” web page is sort of just like the one on the DomainNetworks web site; each start with the query of why the corporate is sending a mailer that appears like a invoice for area providers.
Thedomainsvault[.]com contains no helpful details about the entity or individuals who function it; clicking the “Contact-us” hyperlink on the positioning brings up a web page with placeholder Lorem Ipsum textual content, a contact type, and a cellphone variety of 123456789.
Nevertheless, looking out passive DNS information at DomainTools.com for thedomainsvault[.]com exhibits that sooner or later whoever owns the area instructed incoming e mail to be despatched to ubsagency@gmail.com.
The primary consequence that presently pops up when trying to find “ubsagency” in Google is ubsagency[.]com, which says it belongs to a Las Vegas-based Search Engine Optimization (search engine optimisation) and digital advertising and marketing concern generically named each United Enterprise Service and United Enterprise Providers. UBSagency’s web site is hosted on the identical Ann Arbor, Mich. primarily based internet hosting agency (A2 Internet hosting Inc) as thedomainsvault[.]com.
UBSagency’s LinkedIn web page says the corporate has workplaces in Vegas, Half Moon Bay, Calif., and Renton, Wash. However as soon as once more, not one of the addresses listed for these workplaces reveal any apparent clues about who runs UBSagency. And as soon as once more, none of those entities seem to exist as official companies of their claimed state of residence.
Looking out on ubsagency@gmail.com in Constella Intelligence exhibits the deal with was used someday earlier than February 2019 to create an account beneath the title “SammySam_Alon” on the inside adorning website Houzz.com. In January 2019, Houzz acknowledged {that a} information breach uncovered account data on an undisclosed variety of prospects, together with consumer IDs, one-way encrypted passwords, IP addresses, metropolis and ZIP codes, in addition to Fb data.
SammySam_Alon registered at Houzz utilizing an Web deal with in Huntsville, Ala. (68.35.149.206). Constella says this deal with was related to the e-mail tropicglobal@gmail.com, which is also tied to a number of different “Sammy” accounts at completely different shops on-line.
Constella additionally says a extremely distinctive password re-used by tropicglobal@gmail.com throughout quite a few websites was utilized in reference to just some different e mail accounts, together with shenhavgroup@gmail.com, and distributorinvoice@mail.com.
The shenhavgroup@gmail.com deal with was used to register a Twitter account for a Sam Orit Alon in 2013, whose account says they’re affiliated with the Shenhav Group. In accordance with DomainTools, shenhavgroup@gmail.com was answerable for registering roughly two dozen domains, together with the now-defunct unitedbusinessservice[.]com.
Constella additional finds that the deal with distributorinvoice@mail.com was used to register an account at whmcs.com, a website hosting platform that suffered a breach of its consumer database a number of years again. The title on the WHMCS account was Shmuel Orit Alon, from Kidron, Israel.
UBSagency additionally has a Fb web page, or possibly “had” is the operative phrase as a result of somebody seems to have defaced it. Loading the Fb web page for UBSagency exhibits a number of of the pictures have been overlaid or changed with a message from somebody who’s actually dissatisfied with Sam Alon.
“Sam Alon is a LIAR, THIEF, COWARD AND HAS A VERY SMALL D*CK,” reads one of many messages:
The present Fb profile web page for UBSagency features a brand that’s just like the DomainNetworks brand.
The brand within the UBSagency profile photograph features a graphic of what seems to be a magnifying glass with a line that zig-zags by bullet factors inside and out of doors the circle, a novel sample that’s remarkably just like the emblem for DomainNetworks:
The logos for DomainNetworks (left) and UBSagency.
Constella additionally discovered that the identical Huntsville IP deal with utilized by Sam Alon at Houzz was related to one more Houzz account, this one for somebody named “Eliran.”
The UBSagency Fb web page options a number of messages from an Eliran “Dani” Benz, who’s referred to by commenters as an worker or associate with UBSagency. The final check-in on Benz’s profile is from a seashore at Rishon Letziyon in Israel earlier this yr.
Neither Mr. Alon nor Mr. Benz responded to a number of requests for remark.
It might be troublesome to imagine that anybody would pay an bill for a website title or search engine optimisation service they by no means ordered. Nevertheless, there’s loads of proof that these phony payments typically get processed by administrative personnel at organizations that find yourself paying the requested quantity as a result of they assume it was owed for some providers already offered.
In 2018, KrebsOnSecurity revealed How Web Savvy are Your Leaders?, which examined public information to indicate that dozens of cities, cities, college districts and even political campaigns throughout the US obtained snookered into paying these rip-off area invoices from an analogous rip-off firm referred to as WebListings Inc.
In 2020, KrebsOnSecurity featured a deep dive into who was possible behind the WebListings rip-off, which had been sending out these snail mail rip-off letters for over a decade. That investigation revealed the rip-off’s connection to a multi-level advertising and marketing operation run out of the U.Ok., and to 2 brothers dwelling in Scotland.
