Beware the latest domain name scam

April 2005

On the face of it, the Federal Bureau of Domain Names (FBODN) website looks like an ethical US governmental organization. But don’t be fooled; the FBODN is just a cloak for yet another e-business hoax.

With its use of of American icons, imagery and references to the US federal government, the FBODN looks and sounds very much official, but as Nigel T Packer, internet marketing consultant at Swansea-based Business for Business, recently discovered, it is anything but.

The FBODN contacted Packer to offer him a domain name for his company with the suffix .info. He explains: “They purported to advise me that they were approached to register my website address and that my details had been given to them. They were checking with me to ensure that I was the person ordering this name.”

“Excellent customer service, I thought, but then they went on to try to sell me the web site address as they put it: 'Ensure no one can use the web address to build a hooky website and make false claims and pass themselves off, destroying my company's good reputation'.”

Packer became suspicious when he was quoted a relatively expensive registration fee of £30. Research revealed that FBODN had recently fallen foul of auDA, the administrator of .au domain names.