I’m Rich…. I just won 5.5 million dollars – NOT!  Of course this is just one of many scams on the Internet today.

My wife was notified in an email and phone call yesterday that she had won all this money for some reason.  She told the caller that she wanted to see a copy of the money order before going any further.  They sent us the image below.

We checked out the bank and sent them a copy of the check, never anticipating a reply.  But the real story here is about GoDaddy and a company called DomainsByProxy.  I decided to do a WhoIs search on the domain that the email came from.  The domain was purchased through GoDaddy by a company called DomainsByProxy.

DomainsByProxy will register a domain for you, thereby keeping your contact information private.  What more could a scammer ask for.  Now I understand that there are legitimate reasons, in fact the company states on their site:

The law requires that the personal information you provide with every
domain you register be made public in the "WHOIS" database. Your
identity becomes instantly available – and vulnerable – to spammers,
scammers, prying eyes and worse.
But now there’s a solution: Domains By Proxy®!

There is a very good reason that domain ownership is designed to be public, now this company in its attempt to protect people have made it a safe haven for the bad guys.

Sometimes the best of intents go bad!