Spam 'n' Scam
Copyright © 2008 by David Harper and L.M. StockmanDesigned and maintained by Obliquity
If you're reading this, then you've probably received emails from someone identifying himself as Kenneth Palm from iTime Marketing, Inc., offering to sell you an Internet domain name.
Ken Palm emailed us several times in August 2008. He wanted to sell us the domain dateofeaster.com, which he had recently acquired. Since we owned the corresponding dot-org and dot-net domains, Ken reasoned that we would be eager to have the dot-com domain too, and he was willing to sell it to us for US$657.
To put that in perspective, our preferred domain registrar, pairNIC of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offers registration of dot-com domain names for as little as US$10 per year.
We own several Internet domains, including obliquity.com (the web site you're visiting right now), and dateofeaster.org, which we acquired three years ago with the intention of creating a web site devoted to the fascinating subject of the calculation of the date of Easter.
We had also hoped to acquire the domain dateofeaster.com, but someone else already owned it, and it didn't look like it was going to become available in the foreseeable future, so we forgot about it.
It turns out that the previous owner of dateofeaster.com failed to renew the registration of the domain when it was about to expire in May 2008. Three months later, on 13 August 2008, unbeknownst to us, it became available again.
Registration of the domain dateofeaster.com expires, and it enters a 75-day grace period prior to being deleted.
The domain dateofeaster.com is deleted from the central dot-com registry and becomes available to anyone who wants to register it.
Ken Palm registers dateofeaster.com.
We receive an anonymous email from a Google Mail address, telling us that we may be contacted by someone wanting to sell us the dot-com version of our domain name, and warning us that it is a scam.
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:24:26 -0400
From: "Domain Administrator" [deleted]
Subject: IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING ITIMEMARKETING
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
If you receive an offer from ITIMEDOMAINS / ITIMEMARKETING to purchase a
.com version of your domain name, DO NOT PURCHASE IT.
.COM domain names can be deleted within 5 days after registration for a full
refund. He only paid $6.42 for the .com domain name after it expired.
He is "tasting" the domain for 5 days to see if you're willing to pay around
$357-$557 for the domain name.
DO NOT FALL FOR HIS SCAM!
You will be able to register the domain by yourself at any registrar at
prices generally less than $10 after 5-15 days usually (he may re-taste the
domain).
DO NOT CONTACT HIM THOUGH, SINCE IF YOU EXPRESS INTEREST, HE MAY KEEP THE
DOMAIN AND NOT DELETE IT.
We receive the first email from Ken Palm, who tells us that he has acquired dateofeaster.com at an auction of Internet domain names, and since we own the dot-org version, he is offering us the opportunity to buy it from him. We later learn that the asking price is US$657.
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:10:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ken Palm <ken@trvdomainnames.com>
To: [our email address]
Subject: DATEOFEASTER.COM
Recently, DATEOFEASTER.COM expired and we acquired it
in a domain name auction. Since you own the dotorg
version of this domain name we wanted to provide you
with the opportunity to own the preferred dotcom version.
DATEOFEASTER.COM is a pretty darn good domain name.and,
the truth is, the dotcom is a far stronger version of the
name.
* dotcom is the strongest brand on the internet.
When people think of a website, they intuitively
think 'dotcom'. Odds are people trying to get to
your website are inadvertently going to DATEOFEASTER.COM
because they assume that's where they can find you.
* dotcom conveys Professionalism that dotorg
cannot match.
If you'd like to own DATEOFEASTER.COM,you can buy it
now by covering our acquisition costs and a modest profit.
If you have any interest I encourage you to act quickly
because this domain name will only be for sale
for a limited time.
Please advise,
Kenneth Palm
ken@trvdomainnames.com
tel: 303.997.1767
i-Time Marketing, Inc
11605 Meridian Market View
Unit 124-134
Falcon, CO 80831
Four hours later, Ken sends a second email offering to help us to set up forwarding from dateofeaster.com to our existing dot-org web site, and urging us to telephone him at a Colorado number.
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:40:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Ken Palm <ken@trvdomainnames.com> To: [our email address] Subject: Re: DATEOFEASTER.COM Earlier today I emailed you about the domain name DATEOFEASTER.COM, but I forgot to mention something at the time... If you decide to buy the dotcom version of your domain name, you don't actually have to rebuild a brand new website to get great value from the DATEOFEASTER.COM domain name. What many people do is simply forward the dotcom domain to your existing site. If you do this, whenever anyone goes to DATEOFEASTER.COM they end up on your current website. Forwarding the dotcom to your existing website is super simple and takes less than two minutes to set up (we're happy to help with this if necessary). To grab this domain while it's still available, you can buy it online at: [link removed] or by phone by calling 1-303-997-1767. Kenneth Palm ken@trvdomainnames.com tel: 303.997.1767 i-Time Marketing, Inc 11605 Meridian Market View Unit 124-134 Falcon, CO 80831
Ken sends us a reminder email. If we don't want to buy dateofeaster.com from him, he says he will make other plans with the domain.
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:35:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Ken Palm <ken@trvdomainnames.com> To: [our email address] Subject: DATEOFEASTER.COM A couple of days ago I emailed you about the domain name DATEOFEASTER.COM. Since you own the DATEOFEASTER.org version of the domain, I thought you'd want the preferred DATEOFEASTER.COM version. If you're interested, please let me know or use the secure link below to buy the domain as soon as possible otherwise I'll make other plans with the domain. Here's the Secure Link: [link removed] Kenneth Palm ken@trvdomainnames.com tel: 303.997.1767 i-Time Marketing, Inc 11605 Meridian Mrkt Vw Unit 124-134 Falcon, CO 80831
Ken sends a fourth email announcing a one-day sale of domain names. For just 24 hours, he is dropping the price of dateofeaster.com from US$657 to only US$357, but we must act right away to take advantage of his generosity.
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:21:16 -0500 (CDT) From: Ken Palm <ken@dvndomains.com> To: [our email address] Subject: One Day Sale For DATEOFEASTER.COM DATEOFEASTER.COM was previously priced at $657, but as part of a very limited marketing test, I've decided to discount our inventory of domain names for just 24 hours. How big of a discount? Up to $300. That's a huge savings. But, You do have to act right away though... because this offer is only good for the next 24 hours. Here's the Secure Link: Click Here For Your Special Pricing On DATEOFEASTER.COM [link removed] This is a one time investment, that you'll get to benefit from for years to come! Kenneth Palm ken@dvndomains.com tel: 303.997.1767 i-Time Marketing, Inc 11605 Meridian Mrkt Vw Unit 124-134 Falcon, CO 80831
Ken has been emailing us at an address which he obtained from the contact details for our domain dateofeaster.org. Our registrar pairNIC provides a valuable service called email privacy: instead of listing our real email address in the contact details for each of our domains, pairNIC uses a randomised email address which changes every seven days. Messages sent to the randomised address are forwarded to our real address, but each randomised address expires after ten days. This protects us from spammers. The address which Ken has been using now expires. Unfortunately, it means that we don't receive any further emails from Ken, but we later learn from Graham Ellis of Well House Consultants Ltd that Ken's fifth email would have begged us to make an offer for dateofeaster.com.
We haven't responded to Ken's emails, nor have we followed any of the "buy this domain" links in his emails. Ken finally figures out that we're not going to buy dateofeaster.com from him, and he cancels the registration of the domain. Once again, dateofeaster.com is available to anyone who wants it.
We acquire dateofeaster.com via pairNIC, who charge us US$60 to register it for six years.
Ken Palm is engaged in an activity known as domaining, which involves the buying and selling of Internet domain names such as dateofeaster.com as commodities. Domainers try to acquire recently-expired domain names, either in the hope of selling them back to their original owners (who may have simply forgotten to renew the registration) or, as in the case of dateofeaster.com, to the owner of the corresponding dot-org domain.
They take advantage of a five-day "grace period" introduced in 2003 by ICANN, the governing body of the Internet. This grace period covers the first five days after a domain is newly registered. The registration can be cancelled at any time within that period for a full refund. However, the domain is fully active during the grace period.
Domainers like Ken Palm set themselves up as domain registrars in order to use the grace period more effectively. Using software developed for the purpose, they can repeatedly register a domain, cancel the registration within five days, and immediately re-register it. This gives them the use of the domain for as long as they like, for an outlay of $6.86 (the fee which a registrar must pay to VeriSign, the dot-com central registry, for each new domain) which is ultimately refundable.
This practice is known as domain tasting. The domainer enjoys the use of the domain for an extended period, knowing that he can get a refund of his $6.86 fee at any time.
The domainer can try to make money in several ways. If nobody wants to buy the domain from him for an inflated price, he may set up a web site with pay-per-click advertising. If the domain belonged to a popular web site before it expired, people may continue to visit it via search engines or bookmarks. If enough people click on the ads, the domainer may make enough money to cover his $6.86 outlay, and he will keep the domain for a year.
On the other hand, if the domain had little traffic in its previous incarnation, the domainer may register it for only one or two five-day periods, and then cancel the registration to get his $6.86 fee back. The domain then becomes available again for anyone to acquire.
Domainers make their money by using automated software to manage thousands of domains. The software tracks responses to the emails in order to judge the level of interest in each domain. This is why it is important not to
because any of these actions can potentially alert the domainer to the fact that someone has read the email and is interested enough to investigate further.
A full WHOIS search on a domain which is being offered for sale runs the risk of alerting the domainer, because most domainers act as their own registrars, so the WHOIS search will query their computer systems.
Fortunately, it is possible to determine the status of a dot-com domain by sending a query to the VeriSign dot-com registry using telnet, as this example demonstrates. User commands and input are in bold.
$ telnet whois.crsnic.com 43 Trying 199.7.59.74... Connected to whois.crsnic.com. Escape character is '^]'. domain dateofeaster.com Whois Server Version 2.0 Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information. Domain Name: DATEOFEASTER.COM Registrar: VIBRANT NETWORKS, INC Whois Server: whois.itimemarketing.com Referral URL: http://www.managedomain.us Name Server: NS1.ITIMEMARKETING.NET Name Server: NS2.ITIMEMARKETING.NET Status: clientDeleteProhibited Updated Date: 21-aug-2008 Creation Date: 21-aug-2008 Expiration Date: 21-aug-2009 [Remainder of output omitted.]
Spam 'n' Scam
Copyright © 2008 by David Harper and L.M. Stockman