New scam hits the pockets of .uk domain name holders

A company is attempting to con.uk domain name holders out of hundreds of pounds

Dinah Greek, Computeract!ve 19 Apr 2002

A new scam looks set to con owners of domain names ending in .uk out of hundreds of pounds. A company, Central Web Pages Registry Ltd (CWP),is sending out unsolicited invoices worded in such a way that recipients believe that unless they pay £225, they will lose control of their domain names.

This is not the case and it is illegal to send unsolicited invoices, but it is not the first time that Jurgens Machens, the owner of CWP, has tried this scam. He tried the same trick in Germany last year under the auspices of CWP's holding company, ZRW Gmbh.

This prompted a warning to .de domain name holders from Die Denic, the German equivalent of Nominet, which said it was "an attempt to extract money from customers for a senseless and dubious service?.

Ken Sorrie, co-founder and director of Internetters, faxed Computeractive a copy of CWP?s official looking letter that tells people that unless they pay up, their domain names will be disconnected.

"It seems as if these fraudsters have a list of .uk domain name registrants and are mailing this letter to everyone on it. I stress they are not an official domain name organisation and the letter should be ignored," he told Computeractive.

We contacted the branch of the Metropolitan Police that deals with internet fraud and it has looked carefully at the scam and contacted Barnet Trading Standards, which is apparently aware of the company. CWP has broken the law by sending out the invoices in this way but it could also be guilty of deception. Computeractive called a number of companies that have been added to the site run by CWP and none of them were aware that their businesses were on the site. They also thought that they had not paid. Trading Standards said that it was a common ruse for con artists to add companies to a directory to make it look legitimate.

People should look out for a letter headed 'CWP Central Web Pages Register Ltd. www.c-w-p.co.uk' with a charges notice for 15 May 02 to 14 April 03 totalling £225.60 in the middle and a form to entry bank details at the bottom.

An 'important note' on the left-hand reads: ?The service is accepted on receipt of payment. In the event of non-payment, the web address www.[domain name].co.uk will be disconnected online under the domain stated.?

Because this type of scam is becoming increasingly common, Internetters is calling for the Central Web Pages Register to be investigated by the appropriate authorities and that a Code of Practice for domain names is established so the general public is less likely to fall victim to scams.

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