Check The Small Print - EU Business Register (and others)

Successful scams aren’t complicated. They don’t involve lots of technology. They simply involve fooling people and using “old tech” ie. paper, pen and signatures to scam money out of companies.

EU Business Register is one of those “services”.
Here’s the current version of the form – that they’re distributing via spam email:

Notice the costs? It’s buried in the small print. The only reference to pricing in the “meat” part of the form is the reference to “free updates”

How about the body of the actual email that they send out:
Again the emphasis is on the free updates.

We’ve been seeing these kind of scams for a long time, so I thought I’d check my archives

Here’s a few more I came across from earlier this year – you might notice a lot of similarities

If you get any of these (via email or snail mail) we’d recommend you bin them immediately.

If you insist on filling them out then please read all the small print!

About the Author: Michele Neylon

Known for his outspoken opinions on technology and the Internet, Michele Neylon is the award winning author of several blogs and co-host of the Technology.ie podcast. A thought leader in the Internet community, Neylon is active within ICANN and an expert on policy, security, domains, ICANN, Nominet and Internet Governance. You can stalk him on various social media networks including Twitter and Instagram

2 Comments

James October 17, 2011 at 13:36

Good post, many of these scam emails try and con the user into thinking they are legitimate by their use of professional templates. I received similar emails from a scamster purporting to be working for eBay. You really do have to have your wits about you in this day and age!!
Also I couldn’t read the small print, how much are they looking for in your post above?
Michele Neylon October 17, 2011 at 13:42

James
Sorry – I tried to zoom a bit on the “small print”, but I’m not that good with image editing.
They’re looking for just under 1000 euro
Regards
Michele