spoken for

You may remember a post I had not too terribly long ago about a strange phone call from number (866) 660-6940. That is currently one of my top posts, even if the comments don’t show it, it gets a lot of hits.

Well, here’s another one you should be aware of.

A few minutes ago I got a phone call from (866) 383-0986. This guy, with a hardly understandable accent, identified him as some Joe, Bob, Sam, or Tom. Something. And said he was calling from something called Domain Registry Support. He started talking about one of the domains I manage, reading the long name very slowly and strangely. He then asked for my fax number.

Because when I answered the phone, I was first greeted with several seconds of silence and knew this wasn’t my good friend calling, I was kind of rough with him from the beginning.

He wanted to verify if I owned the domain. Yes. Okay. I asked him several times who he was, and what the company was but I never could get a satisfying answer. Something about registration services and then verification services. He then went on to say my full name and start to ask me if my address was still PO Box… I cut him off and said twice, all my information is correct. At this point I was thinking that this had something to do with laws (?) that require correct information on the WHOIS of domains.

He started again with the domain name and I cut him off again and asked again, what was the point of this call?

He said it was just to make a verification and he needed a fax number to send me a “little” one page verification paper.

Of course, my red flags are up because, for one… um, well, not everyone who owns a domain has a fax number, but if your phone number is out there, so is some sort of email address. I don’t have a fax, I informed him. I wasn’t lying. He was silent for a second and asked again for a fax. “I. Don’t. Have. A. Fax.” I said. Well, then, do you have a number at someone else’s machine you can give me? Um. No….. He was silent again for what seemed like an eternity and I repeated myself. “No. I. Don’t. Have. A. Fax.”

So then it’s all, okay, thank you, good-bye. Yeah, see ya… Schmuck.

A quick Google search on the number yields lots of results, one of the most descriptive being at michaelrighi.com and weblogs.asp.net/jgaylord, and like both of those men, I have all of my numbers on the Missouri and national no-call lists.

Will these spammers and scammers never die?

Die die die die die die die!

Oh, and, go ahead, try to call that number. It rings. It clicks. It’s silent. It disconnects you.

Smells stinky to me.

Of course, one might tell me that protecting my WHOIS information with my registrar might be a solution to this. I do have a few protected, but only where I’ve gotten free protection on special. I just do not have the funds to protect every domain I manage and there are several domains I manage for others. I put my information on their WHOIS to protect them from these idiots. So I guess I’m destined to deal with this crap forever… I just really don’t think it’s fair. I mean, I’m required to have my information correct so these guys can call and try to scam me? Someone tell me what is wrong with that picture.