Dear aluivera,
I advise not to do any business with Buanaphone. They are a scam.
There can be no doubt about this for the following reasons:
-- Fake Domain Ownership Data --
The first thing I did is to check under what name the domain
www.buanaphone.com has been registered. The registration record is as
follows:
Organisation Name.... Darren Bowey
Organisation Address. PO Box 86a
Organisation Address. Melbourne
Organisation Address. 3001
Organisation Address. VA
Organisation Address. AUSTRALIA
Admin Email.......... darrbowey@hotmail.com
Admin Phone.......... +1.0396092137
The first thing that is suspicious is that the registration data does
not at all match the Indonesian address on Buanaphone's website. Why
would an Indonesian company register their domain through an
individual resident in Australia? There are domain registration
services that offer .com domains in Indonesia, too. It is highly
unlikely that a company would choose such a cumbersome approach that
is connected with unnecessary efforts.
The next point is the PO Box. Web search showed that there is a PO Box
86a in Melbourne. However, it does not belong to one Darren Bowey but
to a branch office of a worldwide company, BHP Billiton Petroleum Pty
Ltd. Who ever registered the domain buanaphone.com simply "borrowed"
that PO Box number that certainly does not belong to the person who
registered the domain.
Then, there is the telephone number. This is extremely bold and also
amateurish. +1.0396092137 is meant to look like a US or Canadian phone
number, due to use of the +1 country code. However, this would mean
that the number is 039-609-2137. This is impossible since there is no
area code 039 anywhere in North America. In fact, 039 is the local
code of Melbourne in Australia. Who ever tried to make the telephone
number look like a North American number either wanted to create
confusion or was just very clumsy. Since Australian telephone
directories do not allow reverse search of numbers, it remains unclear
who actually owns that number, but since online frauds usually just
take some number they got somewhere for their fake contact data when
registering domains, it does not really matter.
The e-mail address of the alleged domain owner Darren Bowey raises
further suspicion. Free Hotmail e-mail accounts are completely
anonymous. Anyone can create them, with no risk of ever being tracked.
This is very convenient for a fraudster.
-- Domain Creation and Expiration Dates --
The domain registration record also reveals the following:
Registration Date.... 2005-10-07
Expiry Date.......... 2006-10-07
This means, the domain has been registered only quite recently, and it
will already expire after only one year. This is typical for Web
scams: The fraudsters use "disposable" domains that are simply
abandoned once they are not of use any longer.
Considering this, it is worth having a look at this company profile
Buanaphone provided at EC21, a business-to-business marketplace
website:
http://carona19.en.ec21.com/company_info.html
There, they state that they are allegedly "Established in 2001 and
with more than 3 years development". Why would a company wait 4 years
before finally registering their domain name? Actually, there can be
no doubt that this "company" is not one day older than their domain
registration.
Also, it is more than shady that in alleged 4 years of existence,
Buanaphone has left virtually no traces on the Web: A Google search
for their name produces only 21 results, most of them from the
listings they left recently at business-to-business marketplace
websites. And note that they created their EC21 profile only one day
after they had registered their domain. The scammers were eager not
want to lose time.
-- Negligent Website Design --
When clicking the e-mail link that looks like an envelope, a blank
e-mail is opened. While this is not unusual, it's very interesting to
note that instead of Buanaphone's e-mail address, which should
normally appear in the recipient field, we get
"sales@your_company.com". Very obviously, this is the generic
placeholder that was included with the Website template. A real,
professional company would not forget to replace it with their own
e-mail address; this shows that the Buanaphone website was created
hastily from some flash template. When analyzing the website's source
code, we see the following: "Created by SWiSH - Flash made easy - only
$49.95 - www.swishzone.com ". This means, they simply used a generic
template from a flash webdesign package which would be nothing a real,
reputable company should do if they desired not to appear cheap and
dubious. And if they really were a company with an annual revenue of
"USD 1,000,001 - 2,000,000", as they boldly claim in their EC21
profile, such a primitive website would be worse than inadequate.
-- Wrong Indonesian Address --
According to the contact details on the website, Buanaphone is located
in the ITC Roxy Mas building, K.H. Wahid Hasyim Street in Jakarta. The
business building exists, but the address is wrong: The ITC Roxy Mas
is not located in K.H. Wahid Hasyim Street, but in K.H. Hasyim Ashari
Street.
Another thing to note: In their EC21 company profile already mentioned
above, they say that their address is ITC Roxy Mas, JL. K.H. Wahid
Hasyim, Jakarta 25501. They did not mention the postal code on their
website, thus providing an incomplete address, which is another sign
of hasty, dilettantish behaviour. And, what is more important: The
postal code does not match the address. The ITC Roxy Mas building is
located in a Jakarta area with postal code 10150. The people behind
Buanaphone have a very obvious fondness for poorly constructed lies.
The necessary conclusion from these facts: Buanaphone is a scam.
I hope that this is answers your question!
Regards,
Scriptor
Sources:
Allwhois Domain Database
http://www.allwhois.com/cgi-bin/allwhois.cgi
BHP Billiton: Petroleum Offices
http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bb/ourBusinesses/petroleum/offices.jsp
Indonesian Yellow Pages
http://www.yellowpages.co.id/
EC21: Buana Phone Company Profile
http://carona19.en.ec21.com/company_info.html |
