alert Possible spam/scam (sms/text) claiming to be GoDaddy

[Eric Lyon]

(Spam/Possible scam alert) - So, it looks like the new Sms (Phone Text) spam/possible scam is using Godaddy's brand to target their customer base. The text I got today simply stated: "As a valued customer of Godaddy, we would like to offer you our custom logo design service for ONLY $29.99. Click the link below to claim your coupon."

Note: I didn't click the link (Obviously), it was using the Bit .ly shortening URL service to mask the actual URL. While Godaddy does have $299.99 logo service, It's highly unlikely they are offering it for $29.99.

Additionally, The senders of the spam/possible scam don't seem to check who they target and just randomly send it to all customers with a phone number they could scrape. Why on earth would anyone waste their time offering such a service to a brand management company?

The moral of the story here is to be very careful what you click in your sms/text transmissions. For all I know, the link could have gone to a fake Godaddy login screen to claim the coupon and a hacker just got your login credentials to steal your domains.

Be careful out there folks!

 

[Ted.T]

"As a valued customer of Godaddy, we would like to offer you our custom logo design service for ONLY $29.99. Click the link below to claim your coupon."

It's an old practice that began with email. I have already reported this situation to Godaddy and even forwarded them the emails, however they told me nothing can be done to cease this practice. So, they don't really care that some spammer uses their brand.

 

[creataweb]

I've been getting this in the form of emails, calls and texts for quite awhile now.

 

[Lox]

Why on earth would anyone waste their time offering such a service to a brand management company?

The main reason … if the phone number receive an SMS message, they will sell your personal or business data for more than $0.01 cent per confirmed ID.

 

[offthehandle]

So, they don't really care that some spammer uses their brand.

That's pretty harsh and untrue, GD cannot control this sort of mess! Telemarketers both "legit" and "scammers" have continued to harrass us all for 40+ years despite all the legislation, "Do not call lists"- opt in requests, and now the past 20 with whois unsolicited stuff.

Download a "blocking" app, there sure must be one available.

 

[Ted.T]

That's pretty harsh and untrue, GD cannot control this sort of mess! Telemarketers both "legit" and "scammers" have continued to harrass us all for 40+ years despite all the legislation, "Do not call lists"- opt in requests, and now the past 20 with whois unsolicited stuff.

Download a "blocking" app, there sure must be one available.

Untrue? They use a domain for their service. It's easy for Godaddy, as a registrar to get in touch with other registrars and close that domain. Plus to this, their legal department should be strong enough for such actions. Brand protection must be important for a company of such size.

 

[offthehandle]

Untrue? They use a domain for their service. It's easy for Godaddy, as a registrar to get in touch with other registrars and close that domain. Plus to this, their legal department should be strong enough for such actions. Brand protection must be important for a company of such size.

@Joe Styler I am sure will post something about this.

Untrue: to the part you state----> "they don't care". <----- Come on'... We both know that large public companies move slowly, have to be careful to how they respond and the person you spoke with perhaps isn't that astute as to the impact, not sure who you communicated with. Even though they might have brushed off a response to your telecon or email, I don't think they are ignoring it. I could assume more people in addition to you have complained, and it's being processed. Being pragmatic about a solution- this sort of thing could be chasing their tail as like telemarketers, they simply close up shop and move to a new location. I don't think it is as simple for GD to call up their competitor registrar/registries to demand a domain is banned, being a lawyer perhaps you might be able to educate me. There is a formal process. So just suppose GD files a UDRP or URS, then what happens? The process drags on, and once removed- the offending scammers are simply going to re-register under another meaningless domain name temporarily, then repeat this process. Then if that domain is banned, all they need to do is switch the no_url_shorteners direct to a hard coded IP address, then the process continues. I see this as like virus writers and spam, a never ending problem.

It's pretty bad really, I am glad that this was posted to warn people about SMS messages.

 

[urlurl]

Untrue? They use a domain for their service. It's easy for Godaddy, as a registrar to get in touch with other registrars and close that domain. Plus to this, their legal department should be strong enough for such actions. Brand protection must be important for a company of such size.

this exactly what they should do... but would they?

 

[NameGeni.us]

I get those texts, phone calls, and emails all day, every day.. I had a lady that spoke very little English I talked to a few days ago told me that she was with godaddy and they wanted to offer me free website design.. I let her talk to me about it for about 20 minutes before I informed her I didn't need her help.. I almost always if I can get privacy added on the domain to try to keep the vultures away.

Also recently talked to someone from "HostGator", again spoke very broken English and informed me my hosting had a problem and I needed them to remote control my computer to fix it... how they know I have hostgator, I'm not sure.. They said they work at the main headquarters in Houston, TX.. I told him that was great! I live about 5 minutes away, I can just bring my laptop to him! he hung up..

 

[iAchilles]

(Spam/Possible scam alert)

Note: I didn't click the link (Obviously), it was using the Bit .ly shortening URL service to mask the actual URL. While Godaddy does have $299.99 logo service, It's highly unlikely they are offering it for $29.99.

For all I know, the link could have gone to a fake Godaddy login screen to claim the coupon and a hacker just got your login credentials to steal your domains.

Be careful out there folks!

Yup, you gotta be careful of those Jedi mind clicks.

Always know what you're clicking. Hover over the link, if the url is less obvious use the likes of redirectdetective.com to verify the the link/page target is legit.

As well as phisjing you have to be mindful of what you download, when you visit a web page you're downloading data. You can see a few ways here how this can happen.

Oh and PDF files, those are very insecure, i'm exceptionally cautious opening these.

You can read more here about PDF vulnerabilities if you're interested. They're quite safe opening in browsers but far less so with software readers.

 

[Joe Styler]

There are various parties claiming to be GoDaddy or your registrar and this has been happening for many years to all types of companies, not just domain related ones. We do pursue people who claim to be us and do our best to shut them down. Many times these bad actors get their information from the public WHOIS record. Be aware of that and always be safe by contacting us directly by the numbers or contact information listed on our website. If you have suspicious emails or calls/texts you can get that information over to [email protected].

 

[TRY]

I just got an email yesterday from someone pretending to be from godaddy about icann verification.
I almost never click on links but they almost got me,
Thank you Mozilla for the warning message.
The link was godaddy-dontremember.com.
I don't remember the exact URL except for godaddy being in it. I may have saved it though.

I think it was godaddy-verifcation in com

 

[offthehandle]

Something comes to mind here. Our email world has changed over the years from plain text and hyperlinks that are visible to where they link off to. What GD and the majority of companies do is beautify their emails full of graphics and color and buttons, which unless you carefully view their destination can lead to phishing. Unsolicited and unexpected emails from anyone even trusted people should include text only versions from which to opt in to receive. The email client my isp uses has such a feature to enable or disable graphics in preview. Disabling fancy graphics in emails and if the service providers sending them should offer a control panel or account profile button where the user could choose from both rich text and plain text email formats, that would help solve the problem.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

I just got an email yesterday from someone pretending to be from godaddy about icann verification.
I almost never click on links but they almost got me,
Thank you Mozilla for the warning message.
The link was godaddy-dontremember.com.
I don't remember the exact URL except for godaddy being in it. I may have saved it though.

I think it was godaddy-verifcation in com

I really wish Godaddy and others would start to see the danger out there and change the way they request us to verify. Send us a code, tell us to log in, put a verify choice on the menu (which goes away after you verify and comes back next year), enter the code from the email, present a list of our domains and contact info and then ask us to verify... When its completed the menu option goes away until next year when this needs to be done again. Its not rocket science.

But instead we get these fancy HTML emails (which I have asked dozens of times to stop sending me that format) and anything can be hidden in those buttons with their tracking info etc.

 

[Joe Styler]

thanks for the posting and sending in the email examples. It appears we have taken legal action https://domainnamewire.com/2017/11/13/godaddy-files-lawsuit-take-whois-spammers/