Legal wheels turn slowly to strike bogus website off the ‘net

With the Cameroonbased bogus webpage still to be found on the web under www. safmarineshippingline.com – the genuine Safmarine Container Lines is out with all its legal guns blazing as it tries to get the page struck off the ‘net, according to Victor Shieh, the line’s Antwerp-based PR and communications executive. He told FTW: “Our legal department has made contact with local police authorities in Belgium (the line’s head office location) who are in turn in contact with the relevant specialised authorities competent to deal with the matter.” But, he pointed out, it’s not purely a matter of clicking a switch. “Simply shutting down such a website is not a straightforward process,” he added. The problem with such a spurious webpage is that it doesn’t just stand on its own. It is used by the fraudsters behind it as a back-up for the likes of false company chain messages to customers and bogus bills of lading, proforma invoices, certificate of origin notices, and phyto-sanitary certificates. The idea is to use the reputable Safmarine name to bamboozle possible victims. One of the ways for companies targeted for bogus invoicing – often corporates, because the size of the business clouds the immediate identification of false documentation – to check on the veracity of bills, is to call up the sender’s details on the web. A full-colour website bearing a name well known in the global shipping industry will often effectively fool the payer. However, this clever ruse is likely to be legally depth-charged fairly soon. And the good news from Safmarine is that it has received no reports of customers losing money. But, as it warned in the original FTW story about the bogus website: “Should you or your business partners receive any communications from this company kindly alert your local country Safmarine representative. We want to avoid all and any risks to our customers.”