A happy DreamHost customer

Reporting fraud to DreamHost is a lot like banging your head off a brick wall. It doesn't seem to accomplish much and leaves you wishing you hadn't. But if they don't know there's a problem they can't fix it.

With that lets look at one such site that they seem happy enough to not only register, but also host and to provide privacy protection for: http://msccargouk.com

From a whois lookup:

"Domain Name: MSCCARGOUK.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1884729481_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.dreamhost.com
Registrar URL: www.dreamhost.com
Updated Date: 2015-01-07T06:46:10.00Z
Creation Date: 2014-11-11T18:54:00.00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015-11-11T18:54:00.00Z
Registrar: DREAMHOST
Registrar IANA ID: 431
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: domain-abuse@dreamhost.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2132719359
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: PRIVATE REGISTRANT
Registrant Organization: A HAPPY DREAMHOST CUSTOMER

Name Server: NS1.DREAMHOST.COM
Name Server: NS2.DREAMHOST.COM
Name Server: NS3.DREAMHOST.COM"

http://msccargouk.com/index.php

The first thing to notice is the claim that it's secured by SSL, but the URL says otherwise. But maybe the login and register pages where you're expected to enter personal information will be secured.

http://msccargouk.com/account.php

Claims of SSL security here, but the URL can't lie!

http://msccargouk.com/register.php

Still no sign of that SSL security....

In fact there is no SSL security at all on this site, neither does clicking on the security seals bring up any of the information that a valid SSL seal would. They are simply images added to give prospective victims false reassurance.

So it's time to see if this company actually exists.

http://msccargouk.com/about_us.php

 

http://msccargouk.com/contact.php

The site claims to be a company in the UK so it's a quick check with Companies House to find out that it's not registered, despite claiming:

"The company has over 500 employees and annualized revenues exceeding £200 million."

A quick search also reveals that at the addresses claimed on site as being their physical location, there is no mention of this company.

http://msccargouk.com/services.php

On this page we see a claim that not only will they arrange transportation, they will also:

"act as a trusted middle-man for both the seller and buyer, offering them great security and fast movement for national and international transactions. Our fees are not cheap, but still, when dealing with your money or merchandise as we do the money is not important. If you will not be satisfied with our way of dealing with your belongings then we will refund you with any fee you have paid."

This site is clearly offering escrow services, which requires the company to be registered with the UK FCA in order to provide these services, and once again a simple check reveals this is not the case.

Just for fun lets look at some of the other claims made on the site.

"MSC Trans Cargo wins again! 

MSC Trans Cargo has been named International Moving Company of the Year at the 2010 EMMA Awards"

Well, we are lucky enough to have search engines, and no, this company didn't.
A legitimate, registered company won that award.

"MSC Trans Cargo Named Best Relocation Service Provider at the 2010 Re:locate Awards"

Again a simple search reveals the lie.

So we know that this company does not exist, cannot carry out the activities it claims it does, it's a fraudulent site.

Lets now turn our attention to DreamHost.

From DreamHost's Terms Of Service:

"DreamHost Web Hosting will exercise no control whatsoever over the content of the information passing through the network, provided that it adheres to all other conditions set forth in our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy documents.

DreamHost Web Hosting reserves the right to police its network to verify compliance with all agreed upon Terms.

The Customer agrees to cooperate in any reasonable investigations into their adherence to all agreed upon Terms. Failure to cooperate is grounds for immediate disablement of all accounts/service plans."

From DreamHost's Acceptable Use Policy:

"Illegal Activity
Customer may only use DreamHost Web Hosting’s Server for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Country, Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. To this effect, child pornography is strictly prohibited as well as housing any copyrighted information (to which the customer does not hold the copyright or an appropriate license) on DreamHost Web Hosting’s Server. Also, using DreamHost’s servers or network to conspire to commit or support the commission of illegal activities is forbidden as well."

"Personal Information Harvesting
Collecting or using email addresses, screen names or other personal identifiers without the consent of the person identified (including, without limitation, phishing, Internet scamming, password robbery, spidering, and harvesting)."

It seems pretty obvious that this site is in violation of these policies. So informing DreamHost of this abuse of their services should quickly result in this fraudulent site being suspended. Instead the following reply was received:

"Hello!

This is an automated reply. Please carefully read the information below so that we may best address your complaint. To avoid this message in the future, you may use abuse-replies@dreamhost.com.

Due to the volume of complaints we receive daily we cannot guarantee a personal response to each message we receive. However, we will endeavor to reply to individual inquiries in cases where a personal response is requested or necessary. Otherwise, please rest assured that we will take necessary action to ensure our Terms of Service (as well as applicable US/state laws) are being respected.

###########################################
# Common concerns:
###########################################

- Spam / Unsolicited Bulk Email

DreamHost has a very strong policy against spam
(http://www.dreamhost.com/spam.html), and does not tolerate it in
conjunction with the services we provide. If you receive a spam message (email or newsgroup based) associated with one of our clients, please forward it to us with full and complete headers as well as the body of the message itself. Email headers can be trivially forged, and only with the proper tracking data can we ascertain their actual origin.

- Denial of Service / Server Exploits / Cracking

If you have reason to believe that one of our clients is attempting to
breach the security of one of your computers or is otherwise behaving in a manner detrimental to network resources, please send us complete and thorough logging information (ie. time/date, IP addresses or host names, etc), as well as any other background information that may be of use.

- Copyright Violation / Trademarks

We do not allow our customers to misuse intellectual property belonging to others. If you feel that someone has misappropriated your content, please let us know. We may require proof of ownership, so please forward any relevant documentation related to your rights to the content in question.

- Concerns About Site Content

Concerns over the specific content of a DreamHost hosted site should be referred to the site's operator. As a part of our commitment to free
speech and expression, DreamHost does not censor the content of its
hosted sites beyond the removal of illegal content and protecting the
security and integrity of shared network/server resources.

###########################################
# Potentially Useful Resources:
###########################################

DH Terms Of Service, Spam Policies & Resources:
- http://www.dreamhost.com/tos.html (Terms of Service)
- http://www.dreamhost.com/spam.html (Spam Policies)
- http://www.dreamhost.com/privacy.html (Privacy Policy)

Spam Resources:
- http://www.spamcop.net/ (Spam tracking/filtering)
- http://news.spamcop.net/cgi-bin/fom?file=19 (Revealing full headers)

Intellectual Property:
- http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html (10 copyright myths)

Other:
- http://www.ncmec.org/ (Stopping online child abuse)
- http://www.cert.org/ (CERT coordination center)
- http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ (Symantec Virus info)

...

Thank you,

- DreamHost Abuse Team"

Yes, that's right:

"Concerns over the specific content of a DreamHost hosted site should be referred to the site's operator."

Fraudulent content should be reported to the scammer who set up the site!

At least in this case the scammer is protected by DreamHosts privacy protection service so this isn't even an option.

"As a part of our commitment to free speech and expression, DreamHost does not censor the content of its hosted sites beyond the removal of illegal content"

It really doesn't seem like this is the case, because I know DreamHost was made aware of this site in March, and yet it's still able to defraud the public two months later. Another site I was reporting to them took eleven months of playing whack a mole with DreamHost where it would be suspended and then come back to life before the site finally no longer resolved. I am also aware of other cases where it takes a lot of effort to get DreamHost to act on it's own TOS & AUP.

And let's not forget that DreamHost is also the Registrar of this domain and have responsibilities to investigate and act on abuse reports under its RAA with ICANN.

In short, what is the point of DreamHost having these Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policies if they fail to uphold them?

It's no wonder that the criminal behind this site is labelled "A happy DreamHost customer."

Update: This site is now offline, having been placed into ClientHold by DreamHost.