Hi.
Someone rang me from the Netherlands yesterday (Not a customer) and informed me of a website using our name and address on their website
I checked and he was correct.
The website is here
http://www.camerap(remove this)lazastore.cc.cc/
What should I do?
Thanks for your help
Regards
Ken
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11 replies to this topic
#2
Posted 24 November 2009 - 09:59 PM
Ken44, on 24 November 2009 - 05:24 PM, said:
Hi.
Someone rang me from the Netherlands yesterday (Not a customer) and informed me of a website using our name and address on their website
I checked and he was correct.
The website is here
http://www.camerap(remove this)lazastore.cc.cc/
What should I do?
Thanks for your help
Regards
Ken
Someone rang me from the Netherlands yesterday (Not a customer) and informed me of a website using our name and address on their website
I checked and he was correct.
The website is here
http://www.camerap(remove this)lazastore.cc.cc/
What should I do?
Thanks for your help
Regards
Ken
Start from the start, email them and ask what they are playing at.
Presumably they'll not respond positively, identify where they are, explore the possiblity of legal action from there.
Possibly contact their web host.
I'm not sure what else there would be?
Steve...
#3
Posted 25 November 2009 - 01:58 AM
Hi Steve
Thanks for your reply.
I have emailed them but they have not yet replied.
How do I find out who is their web host?
How do I find out where they are?
I find it funny that a stranger from Holland should ring me about this. Also that site has a lot of base64 stuff in the source code. What are they trying to do?
Regards
Ken
Thanks for your reply.
I have emailed them but they have not yet replied.
How do I find out who is their web host?
How do I find out where they are?
I find it funny that a stranger from Holland should ring me about this. Also that site has a lot of base64 stuff in the source code. What are they trying to do?
Regards
Ken
#4
Posted 26 November 2009 - 09:53 PM
To find out more details about who owns a domain go to http://who.is and enter the domain name and press enter.
#5
Posted 26 November 2009 - 10:00 PM
Ken44, on 25 November 2009 - 01:58 AM, said:
I find it funny that a stranger from Holland should ring me about this. Also that site has a lot of base64 stuff in the source code. What are they trying to do?
www.jyoshna.com. Currently using OsC with STS, Super Download Store, Categories Descriptons, Manufacturers Description, Individual Item Status, Infopages unlimited, Product Sort, Osplayer with flashmp3player, Product Tabs 2.1 with WebFx Tabpane and other bits and pieces including some I made myself. Many thanks to all whose contributions I have used!
#7
Posted 29 November 2009 - 04:03 PM
@Ken44, I'm confused by your original post. Are you saying that
* someone else has a store, using your business name and address on their website, and is selling stuff?
* your domain has been hijacked and taken over by someone else?
In the first case, that's business fraud. Unfortunately, if they're in a different country, it might be rather difficult to take legal action against them. About all you can do is get their hosting service to take them down, and maybe go to ICANN and get their domain name seized if it violates trademark law. It sounds like their business consists of confusing and deceiving customers into thinking that's your store? I take it that they collect payments but don't actually deliver anything? Do you have your own website? Make sure it ranks well (higher than the imposter site) and put a warning on the page that the other guy is a fraud. You could try contacting Google and the other major search engines and get the other guy de-listed, as they're fraudulent. It would help your case to have a paper trail of your dealings with ICANN and the hosting service.
In the second case, where you've lost control of your domain name, what happened? Did you let your domain registration lapse and someone else scooped it up? That's your problem. If they continue to claim to be you (business name and address), you can still take the steps listed above to try to shut them down, even if you've lost control of the domain. If the DNS server system or your registrar was hacked and control of your domain was stolen, you need to deal with your registrar, hosting service, ISP, ICANN, and the police. Some registrars have been very sloppy about controlling access to domain names, and don't verify who you are before changing domains (do it on a verbal or email request). If that's what happened, transfer your domain to another registrar right away.
I am not a lawyer. I only play one on TV.
* someone else has a store, using your business name and address on their website, and is selling stuff?
* your domain has been hijacked and taken over by someone else?
In the first case, that's business fraud. Unfortunately, if they're in a different country, it might be rather difficult to take legal action against them. About all you can do is get their hosting service to take them down, and maybe go to ICANN and get their domain name seized if it violates trademark law. It sounds like their business consists of confusing and deceiving customers into thinking that's your store? I take it that they collect payments but don't actually deliver anything? Do you have your own website? Make sure it ranks well (higher than the imposter site) and put a warning on the page that the other guy is a fraud. You could try contacting Google and the other major search engines and get the other guy de-listed, as they're fraudulent. It would help your case to have a paper trail of your dealings with ICANN and the hosting service.
In the second case, where you've lost control of your domain name, what happened? Did you let your domain registration lapse and someone else scooped it up? That's your problem. If they continue to claim to be you (business name and address), you can still take the steps listed above to try to shut them down, even if you've lost control of the domain. If the DNS server system or your registrar was hacked and control of your domain was stolen, you need to deal with your registrar, hosting service, ISP, ICANN, and the police. Some registrars have been very sloppy about controlling access to domain names, and don't verify who you are before changing domains (do it on a verbal or email request). If that's what happened, transfer your domain to another registrar right away.
I am not a lawyer. I only play one on TV.
#8
Posted 29 November 2009 - 10:25 PM
Hi Phil
Thank you for your suggestions. Some useful ideas there.
Your first case is correct.
They have taken Our Ltd Company Name and Registered address and are using them on their website. But they are using their own phone number and email.
Their website is in Korea but they are using our address in the UK.
Regards
Ken.
Thank you for your suggestions. Some useful ideas there.
Your first case is correct.
They have taken Our Ltd Company Name and Registered address and are using them on their website. But they are using their own phone number and email.
Their website is in Korea but they are using our address in the UK.
Regards
Ken.
#9
Posted 30 November 2009 - 01:18 AM
I wonder how they expect to get anyone's business with a UK name and address, and a Korean phone and email? I was wondering if they simply "scraped" your site, but that wouldn't have pulled over your PHP code. Maybe they're idiots who stole your graphics and text, but are so bad with English that they don't realize that they're advertising your store? Very strange. Just out of curiosity, if you make a small change somewhere, say, "Beware of Koreans!" and put it on your store, does that soon show up on their store? Are they using their own product database, or did they somehow steal yours?
Are your name and address in graphics, rather than text? It's possible that they're "hotlinking" to your site and "borrowing" your graphics. You could look at the HTML to their store page (View > Page source) and see if they're storing their images locally on their server, or just pointing to yours. If they are hotlinking, you could have a little fun with them. In your .htaccess file, you can enable "hotlink protection" that kills attempts by their site to load your graphics. Even better, you can redirect requests (say, for your store logo) to an image that does a little Korea-bashing, if you get my drift.
Are your name and address in graphics, rather than text? It's possible that they're "hotlinking" to your site and "borrowing" your graphics. You could look at the HTML to their store page (View > Page source) and see if they're storing their images locally on their server, or just pointing to yours. If they are hotlinking, you could have a little fun with them. In your .htaccess file, you can enable "hotlink protection" that kills attempts by their site to load your graphics. Even better, you can redirect requests (say, for your store logo) to an image that does a little Korea-bashing, if you get my drift.
#10
Posted 01 December 2009 - 08:33 PM
Hi Phil
They have not used my website code or my pictures
They have their own website (selling similar products)
All they are using are our name and address and they are not ‘hotlinked’.
I have emailed them and asked them to remove our details before I take further action.
Regards
Ken.
They have not used my website code or my pictures
They have their own website (selling similar products)
All they are using are our name and address and they are not ‘hotlinked’.
I have emailed them and asked them to remove our details before I take further action.
Regards
Ken.
#11
Posted 01 December 2009 - 10:18 PM
Ken44, on 01 December 2009 - 08:33 PM, said:
Hi Phil
They have not used my website code or my pictures
They have their own website (selling similar products)
All they are using are our name and address and they are not ‘hotlinked’.
I have emailed them and asked them to remove our details before I take further action.
Regards
Ken.
They have not used my website code or my pictures
They have their own website (selling similar products)
All they are using are our name and address and they are not ‘hotlinked’.
I have emailed them and asked them to remove our details before I take further action.
Regards
Ken.
I don't know if this has been said already as I can't follow the tread as know-one is using the 'reply' button.
Its a con, they are using your name/address to legitamize thier site, but they wont supply any orders, instead you will start to get lots of complaints saying 'where is my order'
They will ignore all your contact attempts.
Contact google asap & give them full info, also thier host, though thier probably in on the con too.
Sam
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Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.
Contributions:
Auto Backup your Database, Easy way
Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way
Products in columns with multi buy etc etc
Disable any Category or Product, Easy way
Secure & Improve your account pages et al.
#12
Posted 18 March 2011 - 07:51 AM
Yes you can e-mail them and ask them about this. Or find their Hosting and complain to them. If you want to know the details of the website do a whois lookup at www.whoisxy.com which will display the owner, nameservers,creation date, expiration date, etc If nothing works go can try legally.
Edited by Jan Zonjee, 18 March 2011 - 05:33 PM.
