Australian Business Online Unsolicited Invoice Scam
Mon 24 Aug 2009Now first up, I’m not saying anyone has done anything illegal here. But just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is not a scam.
Has anyone else received an invoice like this from Australian Business Online? I suspect many have.
In the fine print, it says …
Please Note: This invoice was generated because you listed your company details on www.abol.com.au (Australia Business Online)
I can be pretty certain that this did not happen. I regard this invoice as fraudulent. I advised info@abol.com.au that I would not be paying their invoice.
ABOL’s polite e-mail response was to say that they had contacted my “Advertising or marketing manager”. That would be me or me. Yeah, right.
Further, ABOL indicated that I had a “free” listing which has now expired and is now due for renewal.
ABOL’s Free Directory Listing
So how good is this free listing? Here’s a part of the top-level category listings on ABOL’s home page.
Part of ABOL’s directory home page
Where would you expect to find my company, which develops custom software for businesses and government departments? Perhaps under IT / Communications? No, it’s not there.
Here it is. Look at the breadcrumbs. It’s filed under Shopping >> Household Goods >> Computers. Strangely, none of my clients have ever bought any software development services while on a Shopping Trip. I don’t sell household goods or computers either.
ABOL’s free listing for Fitzsimon IT Consulting
And apparently my Advertising Manager (that would be me) or my Marketing Manager (me again) approved this? One of the characteristics of spammers and scammers is that they often forget about accuracy while chasing volume.
WhoIs ABOL.COM.AU?
So, who is behind this remarkably poor “business directory”? On abol.com.au, there is no “About” page, but a WhoIs lookup of the domain name revealed the following.
Domain Name abol.com.au Last Modified 17-Jun-2009 23:24:09 UTC Registrar ID Melbourne IT Registrar Name Melbourne IT Status ok Registrant ANZBD Limited Registrant ID ABN 38126385046 Eligibility Type Registered Business Registrant Contact ID X124467936348294 Registrant Contact Name Shailendra Singh Registrant Contact Email info@abol.com.au
On the current abol.com.au website, contact details consist of a 1300 phone number and a form to submit a query. Not much information there. However, using the Wayback Machine to view the August 2007 version of abol.com.au reveals the following contact information:
For further enquiries please contact the team @ ABOL on
Ph: 09 309 4563
Fax: 09 309 4564
Postal: PO BOX 17226, Greenlane, AucklandEmail: info@abol.com.au
So we are dealing with a Kiwi. Now what about the Australian ABN? The Australian Business Register shows that ABN 38 126 385 046 was registered to ANZBD Limited from 05 Jul 2007 to 05 Mar 2009 and to ABOL.COM.AU LIMITED thereafter. Further, the “Entity Type” is Other Incorporated Entity, which could be a branch of an overseas company not incorporated in Australia. This gels with the NZ contact details.
I wonder if there are any NZ companies that behave like this? What about National Business Online who were reported to be doing this back in 2004?
National Business Online and ABOL.COM.AU
I note that NZ’s National Business Online (nbo.co.nz) and ABOL.COM.AU are hosted on the same server. ping nbo.co.nz and ping abol.com.au will both return the same IP address, 66.135.39.143
A whois lookup on nbo.co.nz reveals:
admin_contact_name: shallandra singh
admin_contact_address1: 349a Great South Road
admin_contact_address2: Greenlane
admin_contact_city: AUCKLAND
Shailendra Singh, shallandra singh; If they are not the same person, they are at least of one mind (and live or work in the same suburb of Auckland).
ACCC: How to report a scam
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission offers information on How to report a scam. If others have observed this business tactic, I think reporting it to the ACCC is the right thing to do.
Wikipedia Poisoning
But wait! There are even more underhand tactics from Australian Business Online. They have started poisoning Wikipedia entries with links to their website.
For example, look at how the Wikipedia entry for Australian Multiplex Cinemas has had an external link added called “Cinema in Australia”. Note that it points to ABOL’s (currently empty) list of Australian Cinemas.
Shame, ABOL.COM.AU! Shame!
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Lastly a word for potential commenters. Scammers are often trigger-happy with legal actions. Stick with facts and go easy on opinions that could be construed as defamatory.
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Update: Tue 25 Aug 2009
A good samaritan has removed the offending Wikipedia link. Thanks @NicholasPerkins.
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Update: Sun 25 Oct 2009
Matt Nippert reports in The New Zealand Herald that Mr Singh admits his internet directory New Zealand Business Online (NZBOL), had “mistakenly” sent out many invoices for $110.25.
Clearly he’s not stopping. If you have seen this or similar scams, please report them to the ACCC.
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Update: Mon 16 Aug 2010
Stop Press: Here we are nearly a year later and they are still operating. Today, they actually telephoned me asking me to renew my listing. After checking that I was the owner of the business, the conversation went like this:
Caller: It’s time to renew your listing with Australian Business Online.
Me: Hang on. I’m listed with whom?
Caller: A. B. O. L. >click<
August 25th, 2009 at 8:06
I got the same and did similar but not as extensive research. There is a pop star with the same name in the domain registration. My listing uses a business name that I don’t promote anymore, so I don’t know why my marketing mananger (me) would have signed up for a paid thing particularly when there are many free alternatives.
August 25th, 2009 at 8:08
Yup, we got a few of these straight after registering our business name. The business name office sells their “new listings” to advertisers for a bucket load.
Should see the “trade mark directory” scams, $1400 a pop. We are listed as the contact for more of our customers domains, so we also get the “renew your domain name” ones. They all look so legitimate I wouldn’t be suprised if 50% of people paid.
August 25th, 2009 at 8:13
Good work, detective Mike!
August 25th, 2009 at 8:16
Very nice. It is interesting that they forgot to disallow ia_archiver in their robots.txt, assuming that privacy was a concern of course.
Though in general terms, when there is no effort made to obscure registration information, concerns about archived web content might not of been considered.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:36
Mike - great detective work! I just opened a similar invoice this morning, did a quick google search and found your entry. My response will be to simply ignore the invoice….
August 25th, 2009 at 9:41
Welcome to my world!
The litigious Mr Shallendra Singh seems to have gone to ground in New Zealand. I wondered what he’d been up to - it seems he’s ramping up his Australian operations.
Don’t expect him to go away in a hurry, do expect him to get angry that you’ve outed him.
Do us all a favour and don’t buckle - stand up to his bullying.
Thanks Stil for pointing this blog out to me
August 25th, 2009 at 14:36
There are another 2 common scams doing the rounds, I’ve been on the receiving end of both.
The first is the patent scam. If you lodge a patent, your patent attorneys will lodge it with the patent office. It (eventually) gets published and is easily searchable for free on the net. Then you get deluged from them onwards by a bunch of mongrels who offer to “list” your patent in their “directory” for a small annual fee.
Now world-wide, one of the conditions of patenting is that you have a full disclosure and the information is published and publicly available. And patent offices help that by publishing and making the information publicly available. These days its ALL on the net, and ALL free.
There is no need for payment of further fees and no need at all for being listed in any patent directory. It’s just a blatant scam to rip-off the unwary.
The other one is the domain name scam. This is especially prevalent for “.com” names, where about a year before expiry you get a nice official looking printed form letter from somebody NOT your name registrar, offering you the chance to “renew” with a nice invoice, all printed out, and a nice reply / payment slip.
If you do take up their generous offer to renew, you will find you just paid about 10 times as much as your normal registrar charges, and you just signed an assignment transferring the management of your name to the scamming company (so getting it back where it was can be hard).
(removes pejorative phrases)… Unpleasant little chaps, most unpleasant.
August 25th, 2009 at 18:54
Nice work Mike. You’re carving a sideline niche as an online detective for yourself
When I registered a trade mark for my Australian Company I got dodgy postal mail from a bunch of scammers.
Trade Mark Scammers
And where would we all be without droa.com sending faux official domain renewals documents 9 months before your renewal date.
August 25th, 2009 at 19:46
nice work Mike
August 25th, 2009 at 20:07
Hi folks
This scam is as old as the hills. It even pre-dates the internet; scammers used to send paper invoices in the mail for entries in printed business directories.
And they look convincing: the first time I got one of these, back in about 1867, I thought maybe it was for real so I rang the “supplier” to check it out. They said they’d need a letter on my employer’s letterhead to cancel the order. Silly me, I sent it to them.
Not long after, I received a similar invoice from another scam supplier, with my signature from the original cancellation letter appended to a fake order form. This all happened with scissors, glue and a trusty fax machine. The original phishing scam!
Because they’d forged my signature on a fake order form I took it to the police, who said it was a fairly common scam and they’d look into it. I never heard any more about it, either from the police or from that particular scammer.
I’ve now ignored hundreds of these things over the years.
They tend to rely on companies whose accounts sections just pays invoices as they come in rather than checking that an order is genuine. Not sure whether they get more revenue from large organisations with many departments, or small operations whose systems are maybe not up to scratch.
The great learning: no matter whether you’re a government department or a one-person-band, don’t pay any invoice without checking that it was a genuine order by your organisation.
Cheers all!
August 26th, 2009 at 5:25
[…] Australian Business Online Unsolicited Invoice Scam « MikeFitz with overflow bit set… mike.brisgeek.com/2009/08/24/abol-fake-invoice-scam – view page – cached Now first up, I’m not saying anyone has done anything illegal here. But just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is not a scam. — From the page […]
August 26th, 2009 at 6:12
“they often forget about accuracy while chasing volume” :: Exactly!!
@Ceratosaurus {and geeks everywhere} :: Let’s not talk about ia_ archiver when there might be bastards looking on. Scammers don’t have ideas of their own … let’s not give them any.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:19
Very nice research. Thanks to all.
Got the same invoice, promptly sent:
Query Type: General
Resource: Business Referral
Detail: Re: invoice 154790.
Who are you guys?
We have never registered with, spoken with or authorized advertising with
you guys.
Please forward information regarding the basis of your claims.
Why are you sending us an invoice?
Please remove our listing. We have no need nor desire to be associated with
a company that employs such aggressive, inappropriate marketing strategies.
Regards,
Tim….
…from their website, and got …
Hi
As requested this invoice has been cancelled and credited.
Kind Regards
Rachel Smith
Customer Services
ABOL
info@abol.com.au
www.abol.com.au
We’ll see what happens next.
Their business model is questionable, to say the least. I will look at making a formal complaint to the ACCC, so thanks for that link.
Keep up the good works!
Cheers,
Tim.
September 1st, 2009 at 2:48
Excellent research !
Got one of these last week and reported them to the ACCC. They are investigating.
September 14th, 2009 at 21:28
Hey Mike
Good strategy - to out them publicly in a place where Google crawler bots will no doubt find them, and list them. Saves others from falling for the scam.
September 29th, 2009 at 19:15
Thanks Mike,
We got the same invoice today, and have made a formal complaint to the ACCC.
October 8th, 2009 at 13:02
Hi Mike,
Great work - got caught out ourselves with this “questionable practice”
Have reported to accc . Everyone getting or paying these invoices should report them too
Thanks for your work Mike - You are a good guy
October 8th, 2009 at 16:23
Thanks, George, Colin, Aurelius, Pete, Tim and all who have stopped by and left a comment.
Thanks also to those who have reported the scam to the ACCC.
Finally, a reminder to all readers that it IS IMPORTANT to report your experience to the ACCC. They cannot take action until they have evidence of how widespread the operation is.
November 15th, 2009 at 15:52
Hi Mike,
Greg Low posted an interesting one here: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/greg_low/archive/2009/11/09/should-it-professionals-refuse-to-implement-scams-and-myobfail.aspx
Looks like even more “reputable” companies are getting in on the act.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:24
Matt Nippert in The New Zealand Herald reports on Mr Singh’s activities on both sides of the Tasman…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10605345
Mr Singh says his NZ & Australian operations are completely different. (Hmmm… but both websites are on the same server o_0 )
July 20th, 2010 at 13:32
Their current scam is to send a Renewal Contract when I cannot find any record of an original contract. Then today a foreign voice on the phone asking me to renew and then asking for my fax number. I declined. Although I do appear, the adress is 10 years old and the category is incorrect. I will be reporting them to ACC today, Thanx Mike!
August 21st, 2010 at 23:14
ABOL have sent my business an invoice,stating I had a 2 year free listing???Now I have to pay.I disagreed,they have threatened to remove my listing & remove me from google,yahoo,yellow pages etc.They will not stop calling me.
I do not remember ever agreeing to this contract.
Thanks Trev
August 22nd, 2010 at 0:42
Hi Trev,
[Aug 2010] Yes, I can tell that they are back in this scamming business full-time by the number of hits on this blog post. Just report them to the ACCC. What they are doing is called a “false billing” scam.
Rest assured that there is nothing they can do to remove you from Google, Yahoo, Yellow Pages or anywhere else except their own crappy directory. All they are doing is telling you their very inflated view of how important their crappy directory is. After their last phone call to me, I note that I have been removed from their directory. I actually think that is GOOD for my business. Cheers.
August 30th, 2010 at 14:08
After I received the call from Nicole about my expiring listing I jumped on their site, I was listed as a bathroom renovator - we are a hairdressing salon. I then received an invoice via email and replied asking for a refund for the $250 Nicole told me I paid 2 years ago for the incorrect listing- no luck (not surprised!). She rang back and said she actually made a mistake telling me I had paid in the past, she said I had in fact been listed for free but will need to pay now to keep my fantastic listing….
Definitely will not be listing (impossible to RE- list when I never voluntarily listed in the first place).
Anyway, thanks for the posts! I have left a complaint with the ACCC.