The main problem a fraudster needs to deal with is credibility. What will a victim see if searching for that company online? A way of solving this problem is to create a fraudulent website impersonating a national authority and confirm on that fake site that the company is real and active in the market for a long time.
How does it work?
dbdthailand.com claims to be the Department of Business Development. The content of the fake site is stolen from the real Department of Business Development Thailand which uses the domain name dbd.go.th.
While mimicking the real Thailand entity, the fake site shows "companies" allegedly active in Thailand. The same details are shown on the fake sites the fraudulent companies having similar names and used online while defrauding victims.
From the fake site:
The Department of Business Development is the department that changed its name from the Department of Commercial Registration according to the reengineering effective from 3 October 2002 as enacted in the Organization of State Administration Act(Fifth Amendment) B.E. 2545 and the Act Amending Ministry, Sub-Ministry and Department B.E.2545.
All the contact details on the fake site belongs to the real entity the scammers pretend to be. The victim is given a so called registration number for the company and there is a field on the fake site where that registration number can be searched.
According to the fake entity, there are only 6 companies registered and verified in the entire Thailand. Some of those "companies" exist only on the so called database of the fictitious department. Some have websites and are doing "business" online, confirming their "credibility" with the list provided by the fictitious department.
For the fake site details: https://db.aa419.org/fakebanksview.php?key=137444.
From the fake site details:
Domain name: dbdthailand.com
Updated Date: 2018-08-04
Creation Date: 2018-08-04
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2019-08-04
Registrar: NAMECHEAP INC
Reseller: NAMECHEAP INC
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: WhoisGuard Protected
This is what the fake site looks like:
Some of the names and locations may sound familiar, maybe because we were reporting fake sites pretending to be companies with similar names in the exact same locations since 2016, year after year: https://www.scamsurvivors.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=47391.
Once a group of fake sites is suspended or expired, other fraudulent websites file the void - that same type of fraud goes on at least since 2014. The fraudsters mix different companies names on the same fake website, while sending to the victims links to that specific page where the fake company involved in scam can be seen.