Domain Parking Scammers Get Aggressive
As parking firms get more sophisticated, scammers get creative.
Ask any domain name parking firm what their number one nuisance is and they’ll say fraud. Click fraud is big, but it all starts with trying to get an account at the parking firms.
One sizable parking firm told me it approves fewer than 1% of the applications it gets. They’re not trying to be selective; it’s just that 99% of the applicants are trying to set up accounts to perpetrate fraud.
It used to be that these scammers would just submit bogus applications with the hopes of slipping one by. Desperate ones would try to buy parking accounts from legitimate users. But as parking firms clamp down the scammers are getting more aggressive.
Consider the guy who set up an email account at Hotmail with my name as the email address, and then sent emails to a parking firm “vouching” for a particular applicant in order to get the account approved. (The parking firm smelled something fishy and called me to verify.)
But that’s modest potatoes these days. One scam artist sent an email to a parking firm stating they worked for a particular sizable portfolio holder. They asked for a teleconference to discuss using the parking service, and even got on the phone with the parking firm. But the person didn’t work for the portfolio holder. They just wanted to try to get an account.
There also might be a security breach adding to the scammer’s arsenal. One of the checks a parking firm runs is verifying the social security number or tax ID of the applicant. Someone has managed to get this information for at least one well known domainer, and is using it to apply for accounts.
What can the individual domainer do to help stomp out fraud? Not much. But if someone emails you asking for a referral to a parking firm, don’t do it unless you know them. And if someone posts in a forum asking to buy a parking account, immediately note it to a moderator.
