Joe Levi presents Greener Living through Technology

Halloween night I got a scary email, but it was more a “trick” than a “treat.” The email is a scam trying to (presumably) get you to pay to get your domain name back.

Their “investigation” took less than 1 millisecond to complete. The window they “provided” to allow me to “fix” the missing information passed in that same millisecond. And someone purchased the domain, also, in the same, millisecond.

As irony would have it, the “complaint,” “investigation,” and “sale” of the domain was received after I’d already gotten their email.

Oh, and they never mentioned which domain it was they were writing about.

Here’s a copy of the email for your convenience.

SUBJECT: Inaccurate whois information.

FROM: eNomCentral Support Team [support@enom.com]

Dear user,

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008 06:39:58 +0100 we received a third party complaint of invalid domain contact information in the Whois database for this domain. Whenever we receive a complaint, we are required by ICANN regulations to initiate an investigation as to whether the contact data displaying in the Whois database is valid data or not. If we find that there is invalid or missing data, we contact both the registrant and the account holder and inform them to update the information.

The contact information for the domain which displayed in the Whois database was indeed invalid. On Sat, 1 Nov 2008 06:39:58 +0100 we sent a notice to you at the admin/tech contact email address and the account email address informing you of invalid data in breach of the domain registration agreement and advising you to update the information or risk cancellation of the domain. The contact information was not updated within the specified period of time and we canceled the domain. The domain has subsequently been purchased by another party. You will need to contact them for any further inquiries regarding the domain.
PLEASE VERIFY YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION – http://www.enom.com

If you find any invalid contact information for this domain, please respond to this email with evidence of the specific contact information you have found to be invalid on the Whois record for the domain name. Examples would be a bounced email or returned postal mail. If you have a bounced email, please attach or forward with your reply or in the case of returned postal mail, scan the returned letter and attach to your email reply or please send it to:

Attn: Domain Services 14455 N Hayden Rd Suite 219 Scottsdale, AZ 85260

LINK TO CHANGE INFORMATION – http://www.enom.com

Thank you,
Domain Services

The links in the email are “phishing” style (meaning the human-readable link in the email is different than the href in the code).

Don’t get sucked in, it’s a hoax. When in doubt, contact your domain registrar directly.

I hate getting phone calls from numbers that I don’t recognize, and I love the internet.

When you get a call from a number that you don’t recognize you can go to your favorite search engine and search for that number, in quotation marks, like so:

The results may give you some good information, but recently are resulting in “crap pages” that want you to pay for a membership before they’ll give you the information.

ReversePhoneDirectory.com used to be a good resource. They searched the web to find the various lookup directories and put all the sources on one page, so you could fill in the phone number, click search, and if you didn’t find what you were looking for you could repeat the process with the next directory on the page. Recently, however, the majority of the searches they link to are the “we found it, now pay us to see it” variety (most likely due to acquisitions).

Today I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize, they didn’t leave a message. To find out who just called me, I found a new site that does pretty well, Addresses.com.

Not only does it let you do reverse phone lookups, it also shows you the owner history of the number and/or the address history. The number that called me was from a name I didn’t recognize, but it was a residential listing in both Kaysville, Utah, and Clearfield, Utah (the same name). The site also provided me with a map of the locations. Very nice.

Go take a look.

Do you have a reverse-lookup service that you like? Please comment!

My employer (like most in the country) are going through “right-sizing” (which is the politically correct way of saying “down-sizing” or “layoffs”). So far I’ve kept my head down and have made it through the cuts, but one of my co-workers (and a good friend) had his position eliminated.

Rather than being bitter or spiteful, this is the email which he sent to the department, notifying us of his departure.

Hi Everyone,

It has been wonderful working with all of you!  I am sad that I am leaving such a wonderful team of people but I do plan on staying in touch.  Here is my contact info:

(contact information redacted)

I’m not much for speeches so just imagine me standing before you saying something eloquent, poignant, and beautiful to mark the occasion.  And since you’re at it, imagine that I have a Ferrari and a private jet.

(signature redacted)

Witty, upbeat, funny… just like my buddy.

How are things at your job? Please comment!