On March 19, 2019 a person or persons identified as "David Yang" registered the look alike domain "reefindustriesinc.com." This "David Yang" intended to defraud various electronics equipment sellers and renters by purchasing or renting equipment and supplies while posing as an employee and officer of Reef Industries, Inc., a manufacturer based in Houston, Texas, whose actual domain is "reefindustries.com." "David Yang" sent several inquiries to these companies both through website form quotation requests and via email using the address "info@reefindustriesinc.com." The emails contained trademarked logos obtained from Reef's website, https://www.reefindustries.com, and had two of Reef's locations listed with false phone numbers in the 713 exchange. The third location listed in the email signature was 11923 NE Sumner St #550605, Portland, Oregon 97220 with a phone number of (503) 568-1586. This address and phone number does not belong to Reef Industries, but belongs to Viabox.com, a shipment forwarding company based in Portland which facilitates shipment of merchandise purchased within the US to destinations outside the US.
Reef has received phone calls to its toll-free number (which is listed on Reef's website but not on any of "David Yang's" emails) from various sellers of computer and electronic equipment verifying if "David Yang" is an employee of Reef Industries. From these contacts Reef Industries has been able to collect a number of email inquiries sent by "David Yang" and has also collected a copy of an email including header information which verified his email host information.
On March 21, 2019 Reef Industries registered a complaint with the legal and abuse department of Namecheap.com, the registrar for "reefindustriesinc.com." The domain was suspended and removed from DNS on April 17, 2019 after Reef had submitted the email header information and made several inquiries as to the status of the complaint.
On April 21, 2019, "David Yang" registered another look alike domain "reefindustriesincs.com" to continue attempting to further pursue his fraudulent activities. On April 24, Reef Industries registered a complaint with the legal and abuse department of hostinger.com, the registrar of the new domain. Hostinger.com released "reefindustriesincs.com" and Reef Industries obtained the domain to keep it from being re-registered via a new registrar. The email address info@reefindustriesincs.com is now being monitored by Reef Industries and persons responding to earlier requests by "David Yang" are being contacted and informed of the scam.
Reef Industries has reported this activity with both the Houston Police Department Financial Crimes Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center.