Anyone ever use a similar domain to yours to confuse or scam people?

[Grant]

There are some annoying scammers out there. I know some people will buy up domains that come close to what other domains are, and I can imagine a lot of them will attempt to scam people this way. Make them think they're going to the site they wanted, and then it goes to someone else's where they can attempt to steal info. It probably happens a lot.

The good thing is that a lot of these companies can take over said domains if they're close enough to the name. Some sites will just revert back to the appropriate site instead of the scam one.

Has this ever happened with any of your sites?

 

[Monster Masterpiece]

If a website has a good community and has a domain similar to mine, like having 1-kilo users registered on the platform then this could be not to scam people because there is the audience and there is just a small issue is similarity in names, but if it is a dummy website then what you say is applicable, some domain names are copyrighted means you may face legal problems to change it.

 

[Timgab]

I encountered one sometime ago. It was a phishing site and I recognized it. It was a facebook login page, same css designs, but I noticed the change in the url since it redirected to a browser. The funny thing is I was filling invalid/non correct details for them. After clicking login, they now redirected me to facebook official page.

One needs to be very careful in cases like this. As site phishing is the easy of all ways for site abuse.

 

[Monster Masterpiece]

I encountered one sometime ago. It was a phishing site and I recognized it. It was a facebook login page, same css designs, but I noticed the change in the url since it redirected to a browser. The funny thing is I was filling invalid/non correct details for them. After clicking login, they now redirected me to facebook official page.

One needs to be very careful in cases like this. As site phishing is the easy of all ways for site abuse.

It is possible they could collect login details from facebook so you may need to change your password once again or even choose a strong password, did not know if facebook has kind of 2FA or not.

 

[Nomad]

This has not happened to me, however, I have come across a lot of domain names that were similar to other domain names and the primary motive of the owner was to trick people into getting into his site. THis is not a good tactic and you will ultimately land in troubles as you might be charged for copyright violtions or intelectal property theft.