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by Wandfarbe 2139 days ago
I stoped 2 webshops which basically sell expensive stuff 20% off by wire transfer (bank transfer?!) which then never send the goods of course!

I did the following:

- I found out where it was hosted and send them an email explaining them why and how that shop is a scam

- I found out where they hosted the domain and wrote the registrar an abuse email

- I wrote an email to the banks where the bank accounts where active

The scammer had a webchat module active and he/she did wrote back to me, nothing came out through that, nonetheless:

next day, both webshops were gone due to being taken offline from the hosters.

I do believe, that they do have a chance because literaly no one cares. I have seen mentioning of one of those two shops older then 6 month. I pissed at them with very little effort in a very short time.

I do hope i helped out.

3 comments

Abuse email/report to the registrar is also my goto. Usually results in a quick response
You'll get a response but it'll always be a polite "fuck off" unless you have some sort of actual authority (are you the trademark holder? are you LE? do you have a court order?). You'll have better luck contacting the hosting provider because they're actually responsible for the content.
I attended a meetup at our local registrar (SIDN) where they explained how data analysts on their payroll detect such fake webshops and how they then actively block those domains on DNS and registrar level.
I'm assuming you don't mean "employee payroll" right?
English is not my native language. I meant "they work for SIDN at SIDN". Employees.
I like to think it helped out, but at the same time, these people are professionals and will have automation to generate new instances and scam campaigns easily. At least it should be more difficult for them to set up new bank accounts though, they need ID for that, and / or a network of mules, and those are finite resources.
I think the bank thing is done through students quite often: "Hey, I can't get a bank account as I'm a refugee fleeing a war, please help by receiving £5000 cash, we'll give you £100. Say it's a gift from your Aunty to buy a car with."

I've seen reports of this in the UK at least, maybe they managed to stop it.

At least in the US the people who accept the offer can be charged as money mules.
I think that's true in UK too, but often the people aren't aware how wrong what they're doing is.