Scams (DomainNotifyEngine.com – Domain Services)
NOTE: The best way to fight alleged scams is to provide potential evidence they are a scam, so if you have had any experiences with companies like this, or this “company,” leave a comment below or contact me through social media (or my contact form.)
This particular operation is running under the following domain names:
- domainnotifyengine.com
- domainremit.com (at one time)
- domainlogging.com
- electronicdomains.com
- domainpaymentsolutions.com
- webdomainserv.com
They are all operated under the same entity name of “Domain Services” (in fact all or most of those domains point to the exact same server, see below.)
You do NOT have to register your domain with a “search engine registration” company to be listed on most major search engines. There is no such actual service. Search engines do NOT rely on these companies for information whatsoever (to my knowledge) as they go to great lengths to develop their own software that finds and indexes sites.
Be wary of any “search engine” (not necessarily a directory) that requires you to have to pay to be listed. Your mileage may vary.
For the record, this is personal advice, not legal advice and is not intended as legal advice, business advice, nor SEO advice.
UPDATE: Some additional Information
Here are some other articles/posts that address this scam:
- https://l4mp1.medium.com/beware-of-scam-this-is-your-final-notice-of-domain-listing-305e68b14983 – This link shows that one of these scammers operating under this model has already made off with approximately $585,967 in Bitcoin.
- https://support.yourwebhoster.eu/en-us/article/38-scam-domain-notification-for-domain-com-this-is-your-final-notice-of-domain-listing
- https://kuduwebsites.com/articles/domain-name-scam/
- https://www.seroundtable.com/google-domain-name-search-engine-registration-scam-20439.html
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS AND WEBSITE OWNERS BEWARE!
Here is a post about a similar/exact same incident: blog.sircles.net. This site is also featured at ad-scams.com, in fact twice (under a different name: domainproposalnotifications.com)
From the above link I was able to gather the following address. This address is probably old, and now they do online payments apparently. But here is a reprint of the address from the above link:
Domain Services
1342 Military Rd
Suite# 4347
Niagara Falls, New York 14304
United States
Here is a Google Map link to this address. It appears that “Domain Services” may have rented (or currently rents) a mailbox from the www.cbiusa.com at this address. I have contacted them as well about this situation.
According to this link, the same operation used to be run at domainremit.com (which now seems to be a virus distribution site).
The rest of this post is about the almost exact same operation:
The Contact Form Email
I received the following e-mail from a contact form on one of my domains:
Name: Barbra PeakEmail: [my email]
Website: https://bit.ly/36VENk5
Message: DOMAIN SERVICES EXPIRATION NOTICE FOR [my domain]
Domain Notice Expiry ON: Feb 18, 2021
We have actually not received a payment from you. We’ve tried to call you yet were incapable to contact you.
Check Out: https://bit.ly/3rzoul2
For info and to post a discretionary payment for your domain website services.
Time: February 18, 2021 at 12:47 PM
IP Address: 160.116.243.83
Contact Form URL: [my website]
Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.
My Response
I submitted this to the contact form in response:
I got an e-mail from my contact form from your company that stated, “We have actually not received a payment from you.”
The reason you haven’t received payment is that I never actually signed up for your service, and never will. This is a really offensive way of saying I haven’t purchased your service and is incredibly misleading.
It’s so misleading, in fact, that a friend of mine who runs a business with a website thought they had to fill out and submit the corresponding form to be listed in search engines (you are fully aware they do not) and because of that ended up being scammed by multiple companies claiming they had performed “services” they had never performed. They ended up paying several of them because they thought they had to since they filled out this form.
That’s all this form and website is: a gateway for ignorant people to “pass through” so that others, and possibly yourself, can claim that they’re owed ridiculous amounts of money for services that almost never were actually rendered.
It’s disgusting, deceitful, misleading, predatory, and in my opinion is either illegal somewhere in some fashion, or should be. I will be reporting these e-mails, and this website to authorities and publicizing your operation so that others are not similarly scammed.
I also posted this on Twitter to the hosting company:
This hosting company did the right thing, and they quickly nullified the offending IP.
They quickly hopped on to another hosting service, HostKey. I also contacted them on Twitter:
I also posted this with several other links on Facebook:
Here are additional links for more information:
Here’s the link to her IP address lookup: https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/160.116.243.83
The ISP reputation: https://scamalytics.com/ip/isp/cooperative-investments-llc
As soon as the original hosting company where the website was being hosted nullified their IP address, they popped up on another IP address. NOW they are at: 141.105.65.80 which seems to be hosted by HostKey. I have now contacted them.
Here is HostKey’s information: Facebook, Twitter.
But Asher, I hear you say, what about their domain name?
Well, their domain name is registered with the Namecheap company. Here is their information: site, Facebook, Twitter. They are also protected by WhoisGuard Inc (they don’t seem to have social media accounts.) I have also contacted this company as well:
They also have other domains.
Namecheap is also the registrar for domainlogging.com, It routes to the exact same ip address as above.
There is also electronicdomains.com which is now registered at Moniker: site, Facebook, Twitter. I have now notified Moniker as well:
Moniker is also the registrar for DomainPaymentSolutions.com, same deal.
WHOIS Information
I’ve done some more research on the ip address above, 141.105.65.80, where the site is currently hosted. Here is the DNS WHOIS information I was able to obtain, current as of February 19th of 2021:
NetRange: 141.0.0.0 - 141.255.255.255 CIDR: 141.0.0.0/8 NetName: RIPE-ERX-141 NetHandle: NET-141-0-0-0-0 Parent: () NetType: Early Registrations, Maintained by RIPE NCC OriginAS: Organization: RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE) RegDate: 1993-05-01 Updated: 2009-05-18 Comment: These addresses have been further assigned to users in Comment: the RIPE NCC region. Contact information can be found in Comment: the RIPE database at http://www.ripe.net/whois Ref: https://rdap.arin.net/registry/ip/141.0.0.0 ResourceLink: https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html ResourceLink: whois.ripe.net OrgName: RIPE Network Coordination Centre OrgId: RIPE Address: P.O. Box 10096 City: Amsterdam StateProv: PostalCode: 1001EB Country: NL RegDate: Updated: 2013-07-29 Ref: https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/RIPE ReferralServer: whois://whois.ripe.net ResourceLink: https://apps.db.ripe.net/search/query.html OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE3850-ARIN OrgAbuseName: Abuse Contact OrgAbusePhone: +31205354444 OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@ripe.net OrgAbuseRef: https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/ABUSE3850-ARIN OrgTechHandle: RNO29-ARIN OrgTechName: RIPE NCC Operations OrgTechPhone: +31 20 535 4444 OrgTechEmail: hostmaster@ripe.net OrgTechRef: https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/RNO29-ARIN Found a referral to whois.ripe.net. inetnum: 141.105.64.0 - 141.105.71.255 netname: RU-SERVER-V-ARENDY-20110627 country: RU org: ORG-LVA15-RIPE admin-c: AS36383-RIPE tech-c: AS36383-RIPE status: ALLOCATED PA mnt-by: RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT mnt-by: HOSTKEY-RU-MNT created: 2019-06-25T10:02:14Z last-modified: 2019-06-27T08:08:38Z source: RIPE organisation: ORG-LVA15-RIPE org-name: LLC "Server v arendy" country: RU org-type: LIR address: Barabannyi line , 4/4 address: 107023 address: Moscow address: RUSSIAN FEDERATION phone: +7(495)369-97-96 descr: www.hostkey.ru admin-c: AS36383-RIPE tech-c: AS36383-RIPE abuse-c: AR34585-RIPE mnt-ref: RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT mnt-ref: HOSTKEY-RU-MNT mnt-by: RIPE-NCC-HM-MNT mnt-by: HOSTKEY-RU-MNT created: 2015-12-08T08:26:31Z last-modified: 2020-12-16T12:58:55Z source: RIPE # Filtered person: RIPE Team address: Barabannyi line , 4/4 address: 107023 address: Moscow address: RUSSIAN FEDERATION phone: +7(495)369-97-96 org: ORG-LVA15-RIPE nic-hdl: AS36383-RIPE mnt-by: HOSTKEY-RU-MNT created: 2015-12-08T08:26:30Z last-modified: 2019-07-01T08:05:35Z source: RIPE # Filtered route: 141.105.65.0/24 origin: AS50867 mnt-by: HOSTKEY-RU-MNT created: 2021-01-19T11:48:44Z last-modified: 2021-01-19T11:48:44Z source: RIPE
Another Contact Form Submission
Here is another contact form submission I have received… further evidence of how they are presenting themselves and that it is, in my opinion, intended as a huge scam:
Name: Raul Casner
Email: [my email]
Website:https://cutt.ly/vlfHTGr
Message: DOMAIN SERVICES EXPIRATION NOTICE FOR [my domain]
Domain Notice Expiry ON: Feb 21, 2021
We have actually not obtained a settlement from you.
We’ve tried to contact you yet were not able to contact you.
Check Out: https://cutt.ly/tlfHWq9
For information and also to post a discretionary payment for your domain website solutions.
022120212245503753688578798[my domain]
Time: February 21, 2021 at 8:45 PM
IP Address: 209.127.38.33
Contact Form URL: [my website]
Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.
If you go to the website URL shortener address you’ll see this warning:
That shortened link can be problematic. It does not comply with our Terms of Service and/or his redirect (source) has been reported as a suspicious link that may lead to dangerous/suspicious content.
Cuttly.com
This may be due to the URL:was reported by any black-list service
– was reported as a suspicious link
– has more than one redirect
– has been shortened more than once
– has been broken (404, etc.)
– was reported as potentially malicious / spam etc.
– has a content that we do not accept (porn, violence etc.)
– does not comply with our Terms of Service
And of course, the listed URL? https://domainnotifyengine.com/ of course.
For the record, I have never been in any kind of business relationship with this entity and never will. I do not have settlements against me, I have never agreed to any settlements, I know of no settlements. They are clearly implying I owe them a settlement, when in reality, I just haven’t purchased their “service.”
And Another One…
Here’s yet another contact form submission… but this time they’ve changed the domain name! I’ve listed it above as well.
Name: Tarah Cano Email: [my email] Website: https://bit.ly/2ZV3MjP Message: DOMAIN SERVICES EXPIRATION NOTICE FOR [my domain] Domain Notice Expiry ON: Feb 23, 2021 We have not gotten a settlement from you. We have actually attempted to call you yet were not able to contact you. Browse Through: https://bit.ly/3sqobJL For information and also to post a discretionary payment for your domain website service. ... Time: February 23, 2021 at 2:11 PM IP Address: 173.214.194.100 Contact Form URL: [my url] Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.
This domain, webdomainserv.com, is also hosted with Namecheap. I have informed them of this and filed another abuse report:
And Another One…
Name: Sebastian Brinker Email: [my e-mail] Website: https://bit.ly/2PadoF5 Message: DOMAIN SERVICES EXPIRATION NOTICE FOR [my domain] Domain Notice Expiry ON: Feb 24, 2021 We have not gotten a settlement from you. We've attempted to call you however were unable to contact you. Browse Through: https://bit.ly/3aQzgO9 For details as well as to make a discretionary payment for your domain website solutions. ... Time: February 24, 2021 at 4:31 PM IP Address: 139.180.1.125 Contact Form URL: [my url] Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.
And Another One…
Name: Johnie Niall Email: [my e-mail] Website: https://bit.ly/3aOy0uW Message: DOMAIN SERVICES EXPIRATION NOTICE FOR [my domain] Domain Notice Expiry ON: Feb 25, 2021 We have not obtained a settlement from you. We've tried to email you however were not able to contact you. Visit: https://bit.ly/2ZRKMm9 For info as well as to process a discretionary payment for your domain website service. ... Time: February 25, 2021 at 1:38 PM IP Address: 138.229.96.107 Contact Form URL: [my url] Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.
Photo by Lindsey LaMont on Unsplash
