EXTREME CAUTION WARNING re amazing new way for stealing your domains!

[David G]

Here is part of the email:

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Registerfly.com <[email protected]> to (me). STANDARDIZED FORM OF AUTHORIZATION. DOMAIN NAME TRANSFER - Initial Authorization for Registrar Transfer. Re: Transfer. eNom, Inc. has received a request from (MY PERSONAL NAME WAS HERE), (MY REGISTRANT FIRM NAME WAS HERE) on 14 Mar 2005 for us to become the new registrar of record......
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What is amazing here is that this latest attempt to steal a name is quite unique in that from what it appears the thief had actually opened a new acct at RegisterFly (eNom resller?) under my exact personal name and business name.

Can only guess that he was hoping since the name seemed to be going into an acct under my exact same identity that it must have been a transfer I initiated and was hoping I would think I simply forgot about it so would approve the transfer request.

Another possibility is he was under the impression it would automatically transfer after 5 days and since it seemed to be going into the same registrants acct that no one would pay any attention to it being fraud, or perhaps it would not be investigated too.

I have never tried to transfer this name anywhere, never offered it for sale, and do not have an acct at Regiserfly and never had an acct there under my personal name or business name so this being anything other than fraud is highly unlikely.

Perhaps by coincidence I purchased this name here at DNF from a member about a month ago and at the time it was not registered with enom or registerfly. At that time it was successfully pushed to my GoDaddy acct without any delay or problem. Tried calling Registerfly support about this but gave up after many calls and lots of wasted time spent on hold.

Watch out for this as it appears to be the latest and possibly best way to steal your domains. Of course, anyone can open an acct under any name they wish. All this thief seems too have done is open a new registrar account using the exact same Whois data he found on the domain he was trying to steal. I am sure the major difference is he substituted his own email address, likely a free email acct address.

Watch out for this and please report any instances of this happening to you as it easly could be wide spread.

 

[JayK]

Thx. Another good reason to keep 'em all locked with a good registrar

 

[sufi]

Thanks.. will be careful

 

[VisualDigits]

That is just wrong, can you find out who's behind this?

 

[Theo]

This needs to be a sticky under Legal

 

[Anthony Ng]

RegisterFly (eNom resller?)

Yes, RegisterFly is an eNom reseller.

 

[DomeBase]

Thanks for posting this, Trader. Very sobering.

 

[Prosperous]

Agreed. The sneaky stuff they come up with to try and get their hands on someone else's virtual property... %+|

 

[NevadaDave]

Thanks for this information, Trader!

 

[Stinos]

They will always find new ways to steal domains

 

[Dave Zan]

One thing that bothers me about the new transfer policy is that although the
gaining registrar is required to gain authorization, it hardly says a thing about
the registrar's reseller being the gaining party.

We've always known that the gaining registrar tries to secure authorization.
But if the request is made with a reseller, in some cases they just go straight
to the registry somehow, thus circumventing the requirement of getting
confirmation from the transfer contact.

Case in point: panix.com . Good thing Melbourne IT fixed that problem.

But what about the other, lesser known registrars?

 

[ForumDomains]

Keep all your valuable names locked in a registrar that offers locking as a free option!