I am not sure if these companies are scams, but I can say, these companies are spammers. I am receiving spam mails from backerninja.com to the address I registered at kickstarter.com a years ago. Either these spammers obtained the address from one of the projects I backed or from kickstarter itself, maybe from the
Kickstarter hack in 2014. I changed my address at kickstarter after receiving the first spam mails, But i cannot block the old address as their are still projects open from that time.
So. Let's have a look at backerninja.com. It's owned by
Code: Select all
Registrant Name: ******** ********
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: plot 6 sr no 879
Registrant City: nasik
Registrant State/Province: Maharashtra
Registrant Postal Code: 422008
Registrant Country: IN
Registrant Phone: +**.**********
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: ********@*****.***
Registry Admin ID: Not Available From Registry
and points to IP 158.69.192.110
Backerssninja.com points to 77.104.162.225, but the Whois is the same:
Code: Select all
Registrant Name: ******** ********
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: plot 6 sr no 879
Registrant City: nasik
Registrant State/Province: Maharashtra
Registrant Postal Code: 422008
Registrant Country: IN
...
Let us move on to crowdfundingninjas.com. They have a different whois, but the same server: 77.104.162.225
Code: Select all
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com
Registrant Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road
Registrant City: Scottsdale
Registrant State/Province: Arizona
Registrant Postal Code: 85260
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.4806242599
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +1.4806242598
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: CROWDFUNDINGNINJAS.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
There's also ninjacrowdfunding.com (54.84.104.245), unfortunately I see no direct connection to the rest:
Code: Select all
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: WHOIS AGENT
Registrant Organization: WHOIS PRIVACY PROTECTION SERVICE, INC.
Registrant Street: PO BOX 639
Registrant Street: C/O NINJACROWDFUNDING.COM
Registrant City: KIRKLAND
Registrant State/Province: WA
Registrant Postal Code: 98083
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.4252740657
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +1.4259744730
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: QLJDYGDKCG@WHOISPRIVACYPROTECT.COM
Registry Admin ID:
Maybe another reader can prove the relationship of the last company to the other three.
Just a warning. Be careful, even a trustworthy company may unknowingly have partners who spam. I'll report spam to the hosting companies and to kickstarter by forwarding the mail to
abuse@kickstarter.com and by clicking report for violating community rules on the project page. I'll contact the project owner. If i do not get an any response in a reasonable time you will get a nice comment on your projects page.
Some time ago spam by "promoters" was only an Indiegogo issue, but since kickstarter also integrated a referal system for metering the success of (spam) campaigns it also became a problem with Kickstarter.
