| A Practical Guide to Removing Spoof Websites - Information Report |
| FAQs - General | |||
|
Page 3 of 7
General advice to customers using your website We also suggest that you provide the following advice to your customers who use your website. Always update your information online by using the process you’ve used before, or open a new browser window and type in the website address of the legitimate company’s account maintenance page. Be wary of unfamiliar website addresses, as they may not be genuine. Only use the address that you have used before or start at your normal homepage. Always report fraudulent or suspicious e-mails to your ISP. Reporting instances of spoof websites will assist in shutting down these bogus sites before they can do further harm. Take note of the header address on the website. Spoof sites are more likely to have an excessively long line of characters in the header, with the business name somewhere in the string, or possibly not at all. If you have any doubts about an e-mail or website make a copy of the questionable website’s URL address and send it to the legitimate business to verify it is genuine. Website takedown process In the event that your company is affected by spoofing, in the first instance we recommend that you contact the host Internet Service Provider (ISP) and request a takedown of the spoof website. There are two methods of approaching an ISP in order to request a take down of a spoofed website which, depending on the circumstances, will have a varying degree of success. An informal approach by the affected company to the ISP which is hosting the spoofed website. This may simply be a phone call or email. Annex A is provided as a template for email wording. Some of the details can be obtained from a WHOIS search (see below). Contact details for the ISP can also be found from the WHOIS site. 4
|
