"Taking down" a website

[C.J]

This might seem a strange request, but I have a mate who is involved with a fraud investigation.

A website has been setup, with his full company details, vat number, home address etc, selling £20k+ machinery (as he does). People are contacting who they think is my mate (different phone/email), and making payments to this fraudulent company.

My mate had one person last week turn up at his house, looking for the £47k machinery he'd bought. Police are now involved, but turns out the website and phone number are hosted outside the UK.

If you google his name/company name, their website comes up first, meaning more people will be conned.

Is there any way to take a site down?

 

[Wick]

Bloody hell, I can't help but that's some nerve.

First google attempt lol http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_6371602_website-shut-down.html

 

[iain187]

there was that thread that informed us a guy on here got busted

the guy who reported it to the po po was given a particular dept by sunglasses ron on here - might be worth making an enquiry there?

Cant rememeber the name of the police dept given sorry

 

[andywa]

You can report it to Action Fraud on line.

 

[Daniel]

Surely tampering with s**t like that will hinder the police investigation??

 

[Cookie]

I'd leave the Police to sort things out, I imagine they have the power to get that sort of thing done.

 

[C.J]

The CID visited today, and basically said "we can't do anything about it".

It's outside the UK, and Western Union is being used as payments. Apparently they are in India, as that's where the UK number is routing to. The website is US hosted.

 

[Chi]

Someone paid 47k into western union???

 

[BoatNonce]

The CID visited today, and basically said "we can't do anything about it".

It's outside the UK, and Western Union is being used as payments. Apparently they are in India, as that's where the UK number is routing to. The website is US hosted.

Can they not block the website in the UK?

 

[C.J]

Someone paid 47k into western union???

Yep. Daft I know, but these fraudsters are using the reputation of a legitimate company, and deceiving them.

Can they not block the website in the UK?

Unlikely.

I've emailed the hosting company, but I can't see them helping.

 

[Paddy_g46]

Hackerz init.

 

[welshname]

My only thought are that if this bogus site appears in google above his own, and under the assumption his own website has been around longer, then he really needs to work on his SEO.

But yeah, leave it to the police.

 

[Dan@M.A.D]

My only thought are that if this bogus site appears in google above his own, and under the assumption his own website has been around longer, then he really needs to work on his SEO.

But yeah, leave it to the police.

I was thinking the same haha!

It's a s**t situation unfortunately

​

 

[DeeKay86]

This is where Anonymous comes in handy...

 

[Jon.G]

Rhys/welshname is 100% right.

You can trace the domain name back to a company/person who purchased it very easily. There you will have someone to send a cease and desist to. Failing that, try some SEO tactics to rank higher/raise awareness of the fraudulent website.

I'd be interested to see what he ranks higher for as well. If, as you suspect, its an India company you can safely assume they have loads of bought links going to the site. Google will figure this out in no time at all and either ignore them or what we're seeing more commonly is the domain name being penalised for these 'black hat' SEO techniques. Thus resulting the genuine site (which presumably has legit SEO/Google Ranking) will then be placed above the fraudulent site. This is no gaurantee though, Google is a wonderfully powerful thing that changes it ranking algorithm continuously.

 

[C.J]

He doesn't have a website, never has. As for SEO, it's what I do, I'll be sorting one this week.

 

[Jon.G]

Sorry, thought you implied that this other site was ranking above your friend.

If you're in SEO, I'm sure you know that's a new website isn't going to jump to number 1 in a few weeks (Unless its a stupid long-tail keyword). I'd concentrate on finding the owner of the current site and getting that down. If it never gets removed, it could hurt him in the short and long term as people may still discover it and raise eyebrows.

 

[C.J]

Exactly. Which is why we need the other site taking down.

It's not something I've had to do before.

 

[The Fatty]

Submit it to google to flag the site in the search results.

Report spam:
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

Report phishing:
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/

Report sites that download malware to your computer:
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/

Site/business that treats customers unethically:
http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=9110

 

[Rob]

I'd get on the phone to google if you can.. I don't know if they even have that sort of service, but they're customer side is supposed to be OK. Get into a proper conversation and explain. If they can remove it from the search it'd be a start.

 

[Sam]

The above forms that Fatty has posted are what you need to go through.

 

[C.J]

Brilliant, cheers for the links.

 

[Gav76]

You could always go vigilante and do a literal 'take down' http://anonymousks.weebly.com/weapons.html

 

[C.J]

I like the idea of a DDoS, but it appears to be hosted on Yahoo servers, not sure if that makes it difficult?

 

[Sym0n]

Tell your mate to spend £100,000 and hire a botnet and DDoS the s**t out of the other site for a few days. That will take it down.

He'll be massively out of pocket and get arrested in the end, but still it achieved the wanted result.

 

[Jay_A]

What's the site?

 

[@Spoonie]

Genius scam TBH.

 

[Ash']

Make a thread on Lulzsec.

 

[Sym0n]

Make a thread on Lulzsec.

He'd need to email them in prison and I doubt they'll be let near the internet any time soon lol.

 

[Alex H]

There's no country that I know of that you can send £47k via Western Union. Anyone who does is f**king stupid.

 

[@Spoonie]

There's no country that I know of that you can send £47k via Western Union. Anyone who does is f**king stupid.

And you know it's the greedy ones that are falling for this. Phone call like:

Bloke: Hello mate, I wanna buy a JCB
Scammer: Thanking you please Sir, one JCB digger tractor machine will be £10,000.
Bloke: Great price, give me 4.
Scammer: Please transfer monies to WU and we will have delivery man deliver the delivery.
Bloke: Excellent. Cheers mush.

 

[Goodj]

Used to have to deal with stuff like this in the last job.

Well, I didn't. I would get wind that there was a site doing similar, then pass it to the trademark attorney who had all the right words to use to convince the site owners to pull it. International (read U.S. with fewer Eagles) law should be on your side

But compensation could be a bugger, for the customers and your mate, dont hold your breath

 

[C.J]

He doesn't want/need compo. He's not out of pocket, but doesn't want his rep to be destroyed.

He's also just found out these fraudsters aren't just selling via the website, they are listing on AutoTrader and legitimate websites.

 

[C.J]

I've heard nothing back from anyone/hosts/Google etc.

However, I have noticed the website has now removed the phone number, full address and my mate's name. Just a contact form is available.

Meanwhile I've done a holding page on a new domain, which is already on page 1.