Would You Notify a Company of an Impersonator?

This morning I received an inbound offer for one of my domain names. The email address used was a person’s name @companyname.info. I did a Google search for the person and the company name, and there was a match. The person is a senior executive at the company in the email. The .info extension set off an alarm bell in my head though.

A Whois search at DomainTools shows the .info domain name was created less than a month ago. The company where this prospective buyer appears to work operates on the company .com domain name. The .info and .com domain names are registered at different domain registrars. The phone number that was left is not a valid number.

I was curious about the phone number, and a Google search yielded just one result. I found a website that was posting emails sent via its contact form (another issue altogether). Someone had submitted a comment with that email address and phone number asking for more information about requests for proposal.

From what I can gather, and I am certainly not a cybersecurity expert, it would seem that someone is filling out forms while impersonating a senior executive at a legitimate company. The goal seems to be to get people to think they can win business from this company. I don’t know what the ultimate aim is, but I would imagine the perpetrator filled out my form without realizing it is a domain name inquiry form.

If you received an inbound inquiry like this, would you make an effort to reach out to the person who appears to be impersonated? I would imagine there is a high likelihood the person would be very confused if I let him know what happened. Further, beyond pointing out the UDRP policy, I can’t offer any assistance on how it can be resolved. What would you do?

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

7 COMMENTS

  1. Dudh…yea report
    Doing a big favor to the community and what have I got to lose .
    See something say something
    What are you going to gain for not reporting?you are an enabler for not reporting and how much does it take?
    It is literally free..
    Your conscience will eat you alive for not being responsible
    This is to clear up any confusion
    See something say something

  2. I had another experience in Facebook Timeline. I see a company launched Amazon.com Crypto, that is not exist. It is a fraud and pretending as Bezos’s Amazon. The ads was not shown once, first I do nothing. Then I report it to FB after in the comment someone had paid xxxx$ to buy the token, and was complaining because not got the tokens. A simple work might be will save others life.

Leave a Reply

Recent Posts

Escrow.com Announces 2023 Master of Domains

1
During the NamesCon conference today, Escrow.com announced its Master of Domains winners. The annual award celebrates "the highest grossing domain name brokers for deals...

How to Buy a Domain Name That is Owned by Someone

1
For a domain investor, buying a domain name is second nature. Investors hand register domain names, purchase domain names via expiry and private auctions,...

My 2023 Domain Industry PMC Jersey

0
For a number of years, I have created a domain industry Pan-Mass Challenge jersey to raise funds for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Many domain industry...

Chat.com Profitably Resold for 8 Figures

0
In March of this year, I reported on the sale of Chat.com. The domain name was acquired by HubSpot Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah for more...

First Look at my 2023 Domain Industry PMC Jersey

1
This August, I will be riding in my 10th Pan-Mass Challenge ride to raise funds for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I will be riding...