As parking companies get more sophisticated, scammers get creative.
Ask any domain name parking company 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 companies.
One large parking company 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 companies 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 company “vouching” for a particular applicant in order to get the account approved. (The parking company smelled something fishy and called me to verify.)
But that’s small potatoes these days. One scam artist sent an email to a parking company stating they worked for a particular large portfolio holder. They asked for a teleconference to discuss using the parking service, and even got on the phone with the parking company. 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 company 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 company, don’t do it unless you know them. And if someone posts in a forum asking to buy a parking account, immediately report it to a moderator.
Juan says
Fraud damaging the industry.
TV says
Less than 1%? That’s an amazing stat to me.