In case you’ve ever owned a website identify, the probabilities are good that in some unspecified time in the future you’ve acquired a snail mail letter which seems to be a invoice for a website or website-related companies. In actuality, these deceptive missives attempt to trick individuals into paying for ineffective companies they by no means ordered, don’t want, and possibly won’t ever obtain. Right here’s a take 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 might reference a website that’s or was at one level registered to your identify and tackle. Though the letter consists of the phrases “advertising companies” within the higher proper nook, the remainder of the missive is deceptively designed to appear like a invoice for companies already rendered.
DomainNetworks claims that itemizing your area with their promotion companies will lead to elevated site visitors to your web site. 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 tough to trace down.
The web site Domainnetworks[.]com says it’s a enterprise with a submit workplace field in Hendersonville, N.C., and one other tackle in Santa Fe, N.M. There are a number of random, non-technology companies tied to the telephone quantity listed for the Hendersonville tackle, and the New Mexico tackle was utilized by a number of no-name internet hosting corporations.
Nonetheless, there’s little linked to those addresses and telephone numbers that get us any nearer to discovering out who’s working Domainnetworks[.]com. And neither entity seems to be an lively, official firm of their supposed state of residence, a minimum of in keeping with every state’s Secretary of State database.
The Higher Enterprise Bureau itemizing for DomainNetworks offers it an “F” score, and consists of greater than 100 evaluations by individuals offended at receiving one in all these scams through snail mail. Helpfully, the BBB says DomainNetworks beforehand operated underneath a special identify: 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 Might 2022. The Usdomainauthority mailer additionally featured a Henderson, NC tackle, albeit at a special submit 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 a protracted snippet of textual content from DomainNetworks[.]com about refund requests reveals that this textual content was discovered on only one different lively web site, in keeping 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 companies. Thedomainsvault’s “Incessantly 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 companies.
Thedomainsvault[.]com consists of 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 kind, and a telephone variety of 123456789.
Nonetheless, looking out passive DNS information at DomainTools.com for thedomainsvault[.]com reveals that in some unspecified time in the future whoever owns the area instructed incoming e mail to be despatched to ubsagency@gmail.com.
The primary consequence that at present 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 concern generically named each United Enterprise Service and United Enterprise Providers. UBSagency’s web site is hosted on the similar Ann Arbor, Mich. based mostly 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 on ubsagency@gmail.com in Constella Intelligence reveals the tackle was used someday earlier than February 2019 to create an account underneath the identify “SammySam_Alon” on the inside adorning web site Houzz.com. In January 2019, Houzz acknowledged {that a} information breach uncovered account info on an undisclosed variety of prospects, together with consumer IDs, one-way encrypted passwords, IP addresses, metropolis and ZIP codes, in addition to Fb info.
SammySam_Alon registered at Houzz utilizing an Web tackle in Huntsville, Ala. (68.35.149.206). Constella says this tackle 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 tackle 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 keeping 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 tackle distributorinvoice@mail.com was used to register an account at whmcs.com, a internet hosting platform that suffered a breach of its consumer database a number of years again. The identify on the WHMCS account was Shmuel Orit Alon, from Kidron, Israel.
UBSagency additionally has a Fb web page, or perhaps “had” is the operative phrase as a result of somebody seems to have defaced it. Loading the Fb web page for UBSagency reveals a number of of the pictures have been overlaid or changed with a message from somebody who’s actually disenchanted 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 emblem that’s just like the DomainNetworks emblem.
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 way of bullet factors inside and outdoors 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 tackle 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 seaside 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 tough to consider that anybody would pay an bill for a website identify or search engine optimisation service they by no means ordered. Nonetheless, there’s loads of proof that these phony payments usually 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 companies already supplied.
In 2018, KrebsOnSecurity printed How Web Savvy are Your Leaders?, which examined public information to point out that dozens of cities, cities, college districts and even political campaigns throughout the USA bought snookered into paying these rip-off area invoices from an identical 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 operation run out of the U.Ok., and to 2 brothers dwelling in Scotland.
