Thousands of people are cheated each year by domain registration and e-mail fraud. The best way to protect yourself is by thinking twice before acting once.

Scam artists are targeting would-be Web site owners by offering an opportunity to preregister top level domain names. Domain names are the unique terms that enable Internet users to locate a specific Web site. The top level domain is the final extension, such as “.com” or “.org.”

Scammers send fax and e-mail solicitations offering a chance at domain names, for a fee, as soon as they become available. Some registration services guarantee new domain names or promise preferential treatment in the registration process. To protect yourself, ignore domain name preregistration services that guarantee particular top level domain names or preferential treatment in the assignment of domain names. Better yet, ignore ALL unsolicited faxes or e-mail that refer to domain registration. Do business with a local Internet company.

Also ignore e-mail offers to earn easy money in a short period of time by following a simple program. They’re intriguing. They’re inviting. They’re also illegal.

Seven defendants caught in an FTC sting operation agreed to settle charges that they were spamming consumers with deceptive chain letters. The letters promised “$46,000 or more in the next 90 days,” or similar extravagant amounts to recipients who were to send $5 in cash to each of four or five participants at the top of the list. The letters instructed new recruits to place their own name and address at the top of the list and remove the name on the bottom. In return for the $5 payment, recruits received “reports” providing instructions about how to start their own chain letter schemes and recruit tens of thousands of others via spam.

The FTC sent letters to 1,000 spammers, warning them that their chain letter scheme was illegal and instructing them to stop promoting their chain letters, to return any money they had received by participating in the program, and to forward a copy of the FTC’s warning letter to everyone they had spammed.

The FTC searched online newsgroups and the agency’s junk e-mail database looking for the chain letter scam and found more than 2,000 participants in the chain letter from almost 60 countries around the world. Using undercover post office boxes and e-mail accounts, FTC investigators sent the requisite $5 fee to individuals who had previously been warned, but who appeared to be continuing in the scheme. Those who responded by sending the undercover FTC employees the “report” demonstrated that despite the FTC warning letter, they continued to participate in the illegal chain letter spam.

The judgments barred the defendants from promoting, marketing, advertising, offering for sale, selling, or assisting others in any Ponzi scheme, chain marketing scheme, or other schemes and misrepresentations about the potential earnings, income, benefits, amount of sales, incentives, profits, or rewards derived from any marketing scheme. In addition, the defendants were ordered to return any money they receive in the future from this scheme. The FTC also mailed warning letters to more than 2,000 individuals who were still running the chain letter scam.

Even after all this, the FTC receives spam complaints at a rate of approximately 15,000 e-mail messages a day – more than 8 million such complaints since 1998. The Internet fraud problem is out of control and growing.

Maine households and merchants have a unique opportunity to fight fraud and deception through a new Internet Web site dedicated to protecting Maine people. COMBAT’s Maine Center for the Public Interest is set to launch www.consumerprotect.org. Visit the site to learn more.

Consumer Forum is a collaboration of the Bangor Daily News and Northeast COMBAT/The Maine Center for the Public Interest, Maine’s membership-funded nonprofit consumer organization. For help or to request individual or business membership information write: Consumer Forum, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402-1329.