Defending Self In a Case of On-Line Identity Theft? 390
Posted
by
timothy
from the show-them-a-video-of-your-entire-life dept.
from the show-them-a-video-of-your-entire-life dept.
SoccerDad41 writes "I am a systems administrator for an Indiana-based bricks-n-clicks retailer currently suspended because an unscrupulous typosquatter stole my name and registration information for his/her fraudulent domain registration. My company hired a third party service to protect their trademark by identifying and terminating infringing web sites. The third party identified a domain name, performed a WhoIs lookup & issued a complaint in compliance within ICANN's rules. This was presumably all reported back to our Legal department and it was noticed that the name on the domain registration matched mine. I have a locally uncommon ethnic last name so an immediate connection to me was made & although I protested my absolute innocence in the matter, I have been suspended on grounds of violating non-compete policies pending proof that it isn't me. The fraudulent domain registration was made with a different registrar (let's call them Registrar B) than the one my company uses (let's call them Registrar A). The public parts of the registration information at Registrar B match pretty exactly those of my legitimate domain registrations at Registrar A, including Registrar A's mailing address and phone number. The only things left out in the mailing address are the reference to a domain name and ATTN: Registrar A. Of course the anonymized email address differs as well. Surely I'm not the first in the Slashdot community to find myself in this situation. I'd like to avoid incurring the cost of a lawyer but I am intent on maintaining my good name and continued employment. What are my rights and responsibilities in this matter? What is my best course of action? How did you resolve this issue? How can I prove it's not me?"
STOP. GET A LAWYER. (Score:5, Informative)
GET A LAWYER.
Any further action on your part may be detrimental otherwise.
Re:Begging the question (Score:5, Informative)
Get a lawyer first. There's all sorts of things you can say that will screw you. Don't go talking to your employer without talking to a lawyer first.
I say this as a former business owner; the first thing I would have done as your employer is consult our attorney about the situation. If you request a meeting, chances are they will have corporate counsel there. I would have been acting on legal advice; so should you.
GET A LAWYER!
Re:Begging the question (Score:5, Informative)
"Innocent until proven guilty." ... only in criminal cases, and even then it's only "*presumed* innocent until proven guilty".
Fair or not, the best possible advice for this situation is to get a lawyer.
Re:Really odd circumstances (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't talk to anyone. (Score:1, Informative)
better check your calculations....
weight of lawyer: 200 lbs
weight of lawyer: 2,916.67 troy ounces
price of gold : $1,246.72 USD per troy ounce
worth of lawyer : $3,636,270.82 USD
His calculations aren't off. A merely average lawyer is worth well over $3 million [dba-oracle.com] over their career, a good one presumably quite a bit more.
Get the payment info (Score:2, Informative)
Unless the registrant paid cash, which is almost impossible online, they likely paid with a credit card. Check with your local prosecuting attorney about filing a fraud case against John Doe and see if they'll file subpoenas to the registrar and credit issuer for identification purposes.
Re:Uh, what? (Score:1, Informative)
you are clearly not a lawyer because you are clearly making things up. I *am* a lawyer and I have no idea what an "effective and brutal libel" attorney is. And I'm pretty versed in defamation law. In fact, I'm published on it.
so please take your advice somewhere else b/c you are not providing any actual help to the poor guy above.
my advice, of course, is go to talk to a lawyer. if this ends up being a wrongful termination thing, you could try to convince him to take it on contingency.
Re:If you absolutely cannot hire an attorney... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Forget the lawyer - you're hosed. (Score:3, Informative)
Since the snail-mail address info matches, all he has to do is send an email to the registrar (cc to his bosses) saying that the email address is bogus, and that he wants the domain transferred to his employer. They will ask for proof of identity (government photo id like a drivers license) and then transfer the domain. How hard is that? the process can be started tonight, the snail mail sent tomorrow by registered mail or FedEx, and the whole thing resolved by the end of the week for less than the cost of a pizza.
No lawyer needed (people get their backs up when you involve a lawyer, and any lawyer is going to want a 4-figure retainer, and will end up costing in the 5 figures).
Do this, cut your loses, negotiate a severance agreement, and move on. The company has acted legally - the only party the poster has a claim against is the original scammer, and good luck with that.
I can't believe that this place, which is supposed to be a net-aware tech forum, falls on the "hire a lawyer" approach every time. The company doesn't want to know Jack Sh*t about a lawyer. They want a solution. So does the poster.
To the original poster - if you want to thank me, I accept chocolate L-)
Re:Begging the question (Score:3, Informative)
Indiana is an employment at will state.
Absent an agreement to the contrary, specifically stating otherwise, they can fire him at will, for any reason, provided the reason is not prohibited by law (i.e. discrimination laws).
Suspicion alone IS grounds for dismissal in almost any employment at will state.
Re:Uh, what? (Score:5, Informative)
You claim to be a lawyer, and your advice is:
He "owns" the domain. Since it has his contact info, he can get the domain into his boss's hands in 1 day. Since he is the official owner of record, all he has to do is tell them he wants the domain transferred to the company, and that the email address is inaccurate. They will ask him for proof of identity. He sends them, either by email or by FedEx, a copy of his drivers license, which has the right name and address on it, and they initiate the transfer.
Since he's also the official "owner", he can also ask for "his" billing info and what the email address on record was. It's not like the scammer will sue for identity theft.
End result? The employer has the domain, the scammer is out a domain, and he gets the billing info and email address quickly, all for the cost of a pizza. If the email address is for some place in China, and the cc info is stolen, then the only people unhappy are the scammer and the lawyer who didn't get a 4-figure retainer and manage to churn it into a 5-figure lawsuit.
That's 2 scams for the price of one. Stupid lawyers, trying to make everything into a lawsuit. Shakespeare had it right.