Dirty scene on the web
First they took down my account claiming someone else has claimed over my account. Next, they modified all the DNS setting on all my domains making them unavailable to the public. Finally, they used my Debit Card to make unauthority payment to themselve.
This is what was happening in the past few days. It was one nightmare I knew it would come one day dealing things on the web. Okay, let me explains what’s going on and hopefully someone will learn from my mistake.
1- On 29th September, someone from security@godaddy.com claims that my account with godaddy (GoDaddy is one of pretty well known internet domain name registar but it’s the worst in my view) has been suspended due to the reason that someone has claimed that one of the domain name belong to him or her.
So what happened was that the person at security@godaddy.com emailed me requesting my passports to send over. I did send the scanned version over. The next mail arrived claimed that it was not clear and it is required my Debit Card to be scanned over as well (both the front and back cover). I was suspecious on this and hence i requested him/her to send me his name and need some confirmation from him/her. The fellow did response back with some particulars which I found out later that it is a fake one! The mistake i made is that i did send the scanned copy of my Debit Card although I have made some attempts to avoid such thing from happening (i.e. asking him/her to provide some identification). In fact the reason I was convinced because my account with GoDaddy was really suspended together with my other domain names.
Emailed sent to me was:
“Hello
Dear XXXXX,
You have received this email because you or someone had used your account from different locations.For security purpose, we are required to open an investigation into this matter.
In order to restore your account information we need scanned copy of your drivers’ license or passport.please scan and email them to security@godaddy.com.
dont worry about your account we suspend your account and this period time no body can login into your account after we recive the above things we will instantly active your account (usualiy within one hour).
Please send these documents by email to security@godaddy.com.
Thank You”
2- After I have sent all required document, the officer at GoDaddy assures me that the account will be reactived and all my log in and password will be sent to me within 3 to 4 hours. Guess what? It never arrived! It has been 3 days in a row now that i’m waiting. Several emails were sent to support @ Godaddy but again it takes at least 1 whole days to send back emails to me. And Now, I left clueless and most likely I stand a chance to lose all the domain names and sites I acquired. GoDaddy customer service is just SUCK!
3- One day after, I checked my online banking account and realised that there are two withdrawals without my authorization. Due to the freshness of the withdrawal, I couldn’t recognize that the transactions were about and hence I waited for another before the details appear. The day after that, I know it was a transaction made to my MoneyBooker account (similar to PayPal) without my authorization. So I went into Moneybookers account to check what’s going on. There, I saw that the transaction was made on 29th September (the day, the officer at godaddy requested for my scanned Debit Card) to this email address: sirzirak@yahoo.com!
In summary, the lesson learnt from this experience is the following:
1- Do not send over scanned copy of your CC/DB over the internet even though the requester appeared to be from legitimate source. What I should have done is to wait and instead of replying via mail, I should have given a call to the company.
2- Change your internet account password often and make it hard to guess. Apparently, the guy has access to my MoneyBooker account to request money from my bank and send over to that email address above
3- Do not put all things in one basket. Luckily, not all my sites were lost as those registered with other ENom reseller were unacted.
4- Online business is full of risk. Do it with care!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
sokhodom October 4th, 2007 at 2:04 am
Well, I’m glad it’s almost over. Apparently, the guy was trying to withdraw further but the bank knew his attempt and stop all transaction. I’m glad my bank took some actions to it.
I’ve been the real victim of Phishing (sth I’ve already learnt in class but only now I learnt it in real life)
Wanna, can you share more on your cambuild? I strongly encourage to go straight to enom to register ur own domain name. When i searched through google, i found many godaddy scam. The worst thing is that their support really helpless! It took at least 1 day to response to me and each time different person response to me!