#report a fraudulent website

[retrievefundsfromcryptocurren]

Retrieve Funds from Cryptocurrency: A Comprehensive Guide

Cryptocurrency, once a niche digital asset, has now become a mainstream investment option. As more people enter the crypto world, understanding how to withdraw funds becomes increasingly important. This guide will walk you through the step-by-step process of retrieve funds from cryptocurrency holdings, ensuring a smooth and secure experience.

Understanding Cryptocurrency Wallets

Before we dive into the withdrawal process, let's clarify the role of cryptocurrency wallets. A wallet is essentially a digital container that stores your crypto assets. There are two main types: hot wallets and cold wallets.

Hot wallets: These are online wallets connected to the internet, providing easy access to your funds. While convenient, they pose a higher security risk due to their exposure.

Cold wallets: Also known as hardware wallets, these are offline devices that store your private keys securely. They are generally considered the most secure option for storing crypto.

Choosing a Withdrawal Method

The method you'll use to withdraw your funds depends on your specific needs and preferences. Here are the most common options:

1. Converting to Fiat Currency

Centralized Exchanges: Most popular exchanges allow you to convert your crypto to fiat currencies like USD, EUR, or GBP. After converting, you can withdraw the fiat funds to your bank account.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Exchanges: These platforms connect buyers and sellers directly, allowing you to trade crypto for fiat without intermediaries.

2. Sending Crypto to Another Wallet

Internal Transfers: If you have multiple wallets on the same platform, you can easily transfer crypto between them.

External Transfers: To send crypto to a wallet on a different platform, you'll need the recipient's wallet address. Ensure you double-check the address to avoid sending funds to the wrong place.

3. Purchasing Goods or Services

Many merchants now accept cryptocurrency as payment. You can directly use your crypto to buy products or services.

Step-by-Step Withdrawal Guide

Log in to Your Wallet: Access your cryptocurrency wallet using your private key or password.

Select the Crypto Asset: Choose the specific cryptocurrency you want to withdraw.

Enter the Withdrawal Amount: Specify the amount of cryptocurrency you wish to withdraw.

Provide the Recipient's Address: If you're sending crypto to another wallet, input the correct address.

Confirm the Transaction: Review the details and confirm the withdrawal. You'll typically be asked to enter a security code or solve a puzzle to verify your identity.

Wait for Confirmation: Once confirmed, your transaction will be broadcast to the blockchain network. It may take some time for the network to verify and process the transaction.

Security Considerations

Strong Passphrases: Use complex and unique passphrases for your wallets. Avoid using easily guessable information.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Enable 2FA to add an extra layer of security. This typically involves providing a code sent to your phone or email in addition to your password.

Regular Backups: Back up your wallet's private key or seed phrase in a secure location. This will allow you to recover your funds in case of loss or theft.

Beware of Scams: Be cautious of phishing attempts and fraudulent websites. Never share your private key or password with anyone.

Conclusion

Withdrawing funds from your cryptocurrency holdings is a straightforward process once you understand the basics. By following the steps outlined in this guide and prioritizing security, you can safely and efficiently access your digital assets. Remember to always conduct thorough research and choose reputable platforms to ensure a positive experience.

[wdtom]

RBI Warnings: Protect Yourself from Fraudulent Schemes

The Reserve Bank of India issued a notification on August 29, 2024, warning that deceitful individuals are exploiting the RBI’s name to swindle the public. The RBI has noticed an alarming pattern of fraudsters employing both alluring and coercive strategies to trick people and businesses. In the digital era, it’s vital to comprehend these methods and protect oneself from such…

[greyhands]

Please share !!

Dear followers and mutuals,

I need your help ! ⚠️⚠️⚠️

(sorry for the long post)

The same Astarion artwork continues to be stolen time and time again by unscrupulous shops (I've filed over 20 complaints, just on Etsy alone). One particular independent shop refuses to remove the items using my artwork, ignores my messages, and deletes all my comments warning buyers.

Here's the specific artwork, my original fanart, and the low-quality and insolent modification to turn it into a shoddy sweatshirt and t-shirt design. Which is promoted on TikTok !

This has to stop.

Sharing your work on the internet, or even just sharing your passion, has become a nightmare for artists and creators. We already have enough to deal with in the face of AI threats and platforms like Aliexpress; now we have to manage a surge in theft as well.

This shop is also appropriating other artworks from the BG3 fandom.

Here are the screenshots :

I'm seeking your help in identifying the authors of these artworks so that I can notify them.

I'm also currently in contact with a specialized attorney because I've had enough.

The cup is full, and I want to be able to showcase my drawings without enriching thieves. It's particularly painful during this period of economic crisis, where, like many others, I'm struggling to make ends meet, to feed my two young kids.

Here are all the contact details for this fraudulent shop :

⚠️ Please share this post and report Melody prints social media's accounts ⚠️ Everyone needs to know they are a THIEF ⚠️

melodyprints.com

The website says the shop is located in 217 S Parramore Ave, Orlando, FL 32805, United States

TikTok account of melodyprints is spookymelodyprints

Instagram account of melodyprints is _melodyprints

Also, Ghosttraveler on TikTok has made a callout video to help, here is the link, if you can share it as well : https://www.tiktok.com/@ghosttraveler/video/7291769599530454314

Thank you so much for reading this, and for your help.

[ms-demeanor]

Hi do you have any advice for people who have found out their identity including social security number have been stolen? Cause guess what

Oof, I'm sorry that sucks.

I do, unfortunately, have experience with this. Since you said SSN, I'm guessing you're in the US, in which case IdentityTheft.Gov is where you need to go to figure out who to call and what to do.

Briefly, here's what you're probably going to have to do:

File a police report (ESPECIALLY if anyone has opened cards in your name). The police won't do anything but you need the report number to properly file stuff with credit agencies. You will probably have to be pushy about filing the report because they won't want to file the report.

Pull your credit report and see if anyone has applied for credit in your name; if so, you need to call the various places they applied for credit and contest the application.

Freeze your credit (so people can't apply for more stuff in your name).

Make sure nobody has fraudulently filed for your tax return.

Consider updating/replacing ID, depending on what's happened.

The individual steps to look through are here; the IdentityTheft.Gov website basically has a worksheet that you can move through. It's a huge pain in the ass and I'm sorry you're dealing with it.

And from a security perspective I'm going to say reset your passwords (starting with primary email account) and recommend making sure that you're using unique passwords with all your online accounts (by using a password manager - I recommend bitwarden) and set up 2FA on all of the accounts that will take it, because unfortunately the last 4 of your social are probably used to verify your ID on a lot of sties.

Good luck, and please give yourself some variety or other of treat or nice experience while you're wrestling with this.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Out of curiosity, as someone else also in job search hell, what tipped you off about the job posting being a scam?

They emailed me back to set up an interview and the email was using a gmail account and asked me to do an interview via instant message. I elected to go through with the interview anyways to check it out and they asked me to fill out a job application via Google forms and the guy supposedly doing the interview was nowhere to be found on LinkedIn or the company website. I also went to the company website to see if they were hiring for data entry specialists and they weren’t. The interviewer was also way too fast to say they would hire me. They said they’ll mail me a check to cover the cost of equipment I’ll need for the job and going by reports by people in similar circumstances any check they mail me will likely be fraudulent. The pay they were hiring was also way too good suspiciously good. And the guy interviewing me had bad grammar. And combined with everything else that was suspicious.

Needless to say if they send me a check I won’t be cashing it or sending them any money back. Nor am I expecting any emails from any supervisors later this week.

I’ve done more research on it now. Only do job interviews via zoom or in person and don’t trust people with gmail addresses.

[ghost-mantis]

It turns out that concentrating everyone’s racist tech-illiterate grandparents on a single website is a scammers wet dream.

Not only are they getting scammed by the most basic and transparently fraudulent scams, but the same people are falling for them MULTIPLE TIMES!

[staticespace]

Hello this a long shot call, am a citizen of Palestine. I am here to request for your support to help get my insulin, I was diagnosised with type 1 diabetes and due to current situation in Gaza I'm unable to get my insulin injection as a result I'm here begging for little financial support to help me purchase insulin for this week.My donation link is available on my pinned post

Your phrasing seems familiar...

So, I took a look at your pinned post.

🚩🚩🚩Says it's vetted and verified, but doesn't say by whom

🚩Amount substantially lower than other Palestinian requests

🚩Link leads to a PayPal link that has fewer donation protections

🚩No Tumblr user with substantiated Gazan relations reblogged it

🚩🚩🚩And, wait a second, in some versions of the post, you use a completely different name???

So what is your actual name??

...Seriously, this phrasing seems so freaking familiar. What is...

Ah.

It's you again, from a few weeks back. Either you thought my memory was super short, or this is a bot run by some weird bastard and you forgot to keep me out of it.

People like you are why it's hard enough for Palestinians to ask for help.

Oh, and that last red flag I mentioned? I was wrong. A Tumblr user with substantiated Gazan relations did reblog it.

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩To condemn you.

Get The Fuck Out My Inbox.

---

For anyone else still reading, I know this user is going to block me almost immediately after making this post, making me unable to see their posts or report anything, so I've been DMing some of you to spread the word first.

Here's the link to report their PayPal account for fraudulent activity:

The information you'll need:

Q: Describe the content or activity you’d like to report.

A: This person is running a continuing insulin scam on Tumblr. [or something like that.]

[Add link to this part of the report. Do not donate]

Zuhura Alfaat Kweyu - https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=UTVLBZYE4UH5U

Florence Khakasa's version has already been blocked from receiving donations, likely the reason for the name and account change.

Q: Tell us a bit more about where you saw the content or activity you’d like to report. Include at least one of the following:

Website or URL:

A: https://www.tumblr.com/staticespace/757816372061405184/hello-this-a-long-shot-call-am-a-citizen-of?source=share [Or copy the URL for this post and paste it there]

Q: Tell us about you. We’ll never share your information with another user.

A: [Email required, but not location.]

Remember to be safe online!

Stay kind and take no shit!

[scretladyspider]

“The suit centers on Lorie Smith, a website designer who does not want to provide her services for gay weddings because of her religious objections.

In 2016, she says, a gay man named Stewart requested her services for help with his upcoming wedding. “We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website,” reads a message he apparently sent her through her website. In court filings, her lawyers produced a copy of the inquiry.

Web designer’s US supreme court case could trample LGBTQ+ rights, advocates say

But Stewart, who requested his last name be withheld for privacy, said in an interview with the Guardian that he never sent the message, even though it correctly lists his email address and telephone number. He has also been happily married to a woman for the last 15 years, he said. The news was first reported by the New Republic.

In fact, until he received a call this week from a reporter from the magazine, Stewart said he had no idea he was somehow tied up in a case that had made it to the supreme court.

“I can confirm I did not contact 303 Creative about a website,” he said. “It’s fraudulent insomuch as someone is pretending to be me and looking to marry someone called Mike. That’s not me.

“What’s most concerning to me is that this is kind of like the one main piece of evidence that’s been part of this case for the last six-plus years and it’s false,” he added. “Nobody’s checked it. Anybody can pick up the phone, write an email, send a text, to verify whether that was correct information.”

Key document may be fake in LGBTQ+ rights case before US Supreme Court, The Guardian, by Sam Levine

[kyra45]

shtunddung is a scammer who is actively canceling the refunds people are trying to get from them after getting scammed. Please don’t send them money and report the PayPal account for fraud they are refusing to give money back after found out!

They are not Palestinian and are stealing images from a website to pass off as their own and editing the images to claim that’s their family. It is NOT their family!

They have no plan to give back the money they’ve obtained by stealing pictures from actual Palestine people. They know they’re lying and they are refusing to send back the fraudulently obtained funds.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s America PAC and several other defendants, including the reelection campaign for Representative Michelle Steel, a Republican from California, are accused of violating California labor law in a class action lawsuit filed in Orange County on October 30, according to court documents obtained by WIRED.

The named plaintiffs, Tamiko Anderson and Patricia Kelly, were canvassers for Steel in October of this year, according to the suit, which alleges that they weren’t paid agreed-upon wages. America PAC is named because it provided campaigning services for Steel.

The plaintiffs are also suing over an alleged failure to reimburse business expenses and for allegedly being provided inaccurate wage statements. The suit seeks class certification for “All current and former non-exempt employees of Defendants in the State of California who were employed as canvassers and canvassed for Michelle Steel at any time from October 30, 2023, through the present.”

“The Steel campaign has no knowledge of these individuals, they did not and do not work for the Steel campaign, and the campaign will not comment on individuals that involve a Super PAC with which we have no involvement,” a spokesperson for the Steel campaign said in a statement.

These allegations are different from those WIRED reported earlier this week, when canvassers in Michigan said they were tricked and threatened as part of Elon Musk and America PAC’s get-out-the-vote effort for Donald Trump. The door knockers, who worked for a subcontractor of America PAC, were flown to Michigan, driven in the back of a U-Haul, and told they would have to pay hotel bills unless they met unrealistic quotas. One was surprised to find, upon arrival in Michigan, that they were working to elect Donald Trump.

The Blair Group, a North Carolina firm that the complaint claims is a political consultancy, and Liberty Staffing Services, a Florida firm specializing in hiring and payroll for canvassers and other W2 employees of political campaigns, are the other named defendants. Neither immediately responded to requests for comment. The suit also lists unknown Johns Doe as defendants.

The plaintiffs are owed money, according to the suit.

“As with other members of the Class, Plaintiffs were guaranteed an agreed upon wage hourly wage [sic] upon starting their employment. However, Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Defendants failed to pay them at the correct hourly wage, and, instead, paid them based on the number of residences they canvassed. To date, Plaintiffs have yet to receive the underpaid wages owed to them,” the complaint states.

The defendants in the lawsuit also were not reimbursed for downloading various apps on their personal devices, according to the complaint. The plaintiffs also allege their cell phones were used to track time worked, but that they still were not compensated for those hours.

America PAC, into which Musk has poured more than $100 million, has largely taken up get-out-the-vote operations in key swing states for the Donald Trump campaign. Widespread reports depict its operations as a mess, though—in addition to WIRED’s reporting on its efforts in Michigan, The Guardian has reported that up to 25 percent of its door knocks may be fraudulent, and NBC has reported that campaign operatives have concerns about “suspect data.” In an election all polls show as a toss-up, a shambolic field operation could well mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Neither Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney, nor a spokesperson for X, which Musk owns, immediately replied to requests for comment and requests to be put in touch with a representative of America PAC, which does not list contact information on its website. A representative for The Blair Group also did not return a request for comment.

[some-name-in-progress]

To anyone excited about the new plushies, that's great and all, but please remember to buy them off AmiAmi instead of the Goodsmile website

[billspotts]

“Actas”: the Key Documents at the Center of the Electoral Conflict

After the CNE declared (and today ratified) Nicolás Maduro’s victory with 51.2% of the votes��a figure that several foreign governments question and María Corina Machado calls fraudulent―the ball is in the opposition’s court.

Machado asserts that a total of four independent quick counts, which her central committee reviewed, statistically proved that Edmundo González won in a landslide with 70% of the votes. Quick counts (also known as parallel vote tabulations) estimate the number of votes that candidates received, providing a check against official figures reported by the state. Eugenio Martínez, a leading electoral expert, just claimed that Elvis Amoroso’s report from last night was printed in his office―not in the CNE’s totalization center.

The next few hours may prove historic. This is the first time since Hugo Chávez took power in 1999 that the opposition is adamant that they can dissect and expose a purported fraud in a national vote. The large-scale deployment of witnesses (or voting center representatives of political parties) throughout yesterday’s election was the crucial step to reach this point.

For now, both the military and the ruling party’s leadership seems to be on board with Amoroso’s results, but Nicolás Maduro is in hot water. We may be set for the next big leap: the disclosure of official voting records that can disaggregate the results in each of the country’s voting tables.

There were 30,026 voting tables in this election, spread across 15,797 voting centers. All votes must be recorded in actas, or voting tallies: printed documents that establish the total votes for every candidate at a voting table. Voting machines produce a printed tally at each voting center before those tallies are sent back to the CNE’s headquarters in Caracas. Witnesses representing all candidates at a voting table must sign that print-out.

After a tally or acta is printed and signed, the machines connect to the internet to send the data electronically to the CNE, which puts up the tally on its website.

The CNE’s website has been down the entire day. There’s no public access to results at each table. In several polling stations, CNE officials and Plan República soldiers prevented tallies from being printed, or took them away forcibly. The opposition won’t be able to process those actas.

However, the Unitary Platform may be able to collect enough of them to prove that González won, and by a landslide, as it is alleging. At 1 am last night, Maria Corina Machado said they had 40% of the tallies with them; today, they are working on getting more to sustain their case.

While people are taking to the streets in many cities and Maduro orders repression, the figure war gains momentum. Gustavo Rojas Matute, a Washington-based Venezuelan economist, just tweeted that the Unitary Platform has processed almost two thirds of the voting record. So far, they show Maduro trailing González Urrutia by 2.9 million votes.

Machado and González Urrutia announced a press conference for 6 pm. In the last hours, more and more governments, the European Union, the UN Secretary General and the Carter Center have increased the pressure on the CNE to publish detailed accounts, table by table, of all votes. Precisely what the opposition is looking for.

[beardedmrbean]

A college professor of “peace” accused of teaching support for Hamas has been suspended from his tenured post at an ultra-liberal school after allegations he once ran a sex-for-grades scheme came to light.

Iranian citizen Mohammad Jafer Mahallati — who has called for the elimination of Israel and backed the murderous fatwa against Salman Rushdie — was discreetly put on indefinite administrative leave by Oberlin College, Ohio, and scrubbed from its website last month after the administration learned he had previously been accused of sexual harassment.

The college is currently being investigated by the federal Department of Education after a complaint that it abused the civil rights of Jewish students by allegedly letting Mahallati speak in favor of Hamas and give credit for writing anti-Israel screeds.

The move by Oberlin to suspend Mahallati, 71, comes amid mounting fury at colleges’ failure to grapple with antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis by terrorist group Hamas.

The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania faced demands to resign from a billionaire donor Wednesday and criticism from the White House after telling Congress it “depends on the context” as to whether students could demand the genocide of Jews.

Mahallati’s suspension came after court papers surfaced from the 1990s which revealed that when he was an adjunct professor at Columbia University, he had been accused of giving a graduate student 11 years his junior good grades in return for sex.

The papers, given to The Post by Middle East Forum, showed that Columbia and Mahallati had both been sued by the woman, whom The Post is not naming, accusing him of working to damage her reputation and academic future after she reported his alleged sexual abuse to school authorities.

Mahallati had denied the claims in 1997 but did not respond to a request for comment from The Post. Columbia denied the allegations at the time.

The woman, then 32 and a Palestinian Christian, met Mahallati, a 43-year-old married father of a young son, when she began to minor in Middle East Studies in September1995, she alleged in court papers.

She alleged that under the pretense of interviewing her as a potential research assistant, Mahallati invited the student to his home, “made repeated sexual advances” and promised good grades in exchange for sexual encounters, which allegedly took place at his office as well as his Manhattan apartment for 15 months.

Mahallati allegedly told the woman that he would withhold her grade if she did not keep silent. She alleged that when she went to Columbia’s administration in April 1997 he accused her of handing the same paper in twice, which would have been fraudulent.

When she sued, court records show that he tried to claim diplomatic immunity with a Dec. 1, 1997, letter from Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations appointing him “‘Special Advisor in Political Affairs’ with full diplomatic and political privileges.”

He had been Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations between 1987 and 1989 and Columbia submitted a letter from the State Department to prove he was not immune from being sued for what he was accused of doing after 1989. The case was settled in 1998.

Andrea Simakis, a spokeswoman for Oberlin, told The Post he was placed on leave on Nov. 28 and declined to comment further. It is unclear exactly when the college learned of the 1990s claims against Mahallati.

“We take all allegations of sexual harassment and abuse extremely seriously,” said Simakis. “We would not hire a faculty member who we knew to have a history of sexual harassment of a student, colleague or staff member.”

At Oberlin, Mahallati became the subject of a federal probe this fall when the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights revealed that it was investigating a complaint that he taught students “support for Hamas and terrorism” as part of a larger probe into anti-Semitism on Oberlin’s campus.

The probe, which was opened on September 29, was prompted by a complaint filed in 2019 by Oberlin College graduate Melissa Landa. Landa, who graduated from Oberlin in 1986, is president of the Oberlin Chapter of Alums for Campus Fairness, a non-profit that works to end antisemitism.

She sent the department a dossier of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incidents between 2014 and 2017, including that Mahallati told his classes in 2016 that “Israel is a colonialist state” and “an apartheid state.”

Oberlin said in November that it “abhors antisemitism” and said of Mahallati: “Professor Mahallati has stated that he believes in the right of all people to exist in peace and endorses a two-state solution that would allow the people of Israel and Palestine to peacefully coexist.”

Separately, a group of Iranian anti-regime activists, some of whom have had family members targeted by the Islamic Republic, had also complained about Mahallait, accusing him of being part of a cover-up of a mass murder of 5,000 political prisoners in 1988 when he was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.

It said in a statement: “This action comes as a result of tireless advocacy and stark revelations about Mahallati’s involvement in covering up human rights abuses and his antisemitic rhetoric.”

In addition to Columbia and Oberlin, Mahallati has also taught at Georgetown and Princeton.

[adelie-empress-penguin]

Scam Alert!!!

Hey! Keep an eye out for this post and report it if you see more reposts of it! This is a fraudulent link to a fake FedEx website that is definitely a scam!

(it's been posted many times with many different unrelated tags like some below)

[ausetkmt]

TUMBLR HAS MORE BOTS THAN USERS

In 2024, Tumblr, a once-thriving hub for creative expression and niche communities, found itself grappling with an unprecedented surge in bot activity and scams. The platform, known for its vibrant mix of fandoms, artists, and bloggers, became a prime target for automated accounts and fraudulent schemes, disrupting the user experience and sparking widespread concern among its loyal user base.

The rise in bot activity on Tumblr can be traced back to several key factors. Firstly, the platform's relatively open registration process made it an easy target for automated scripts designed to create fake accounts en masse. These bots typically engage in following users, liking posts, and reblogging content to appear legitimate. However, their primary objective often involves disseminating spam links, phishing attempts, or even spreading malware.

One of the most noticeable impacts of this bot surge has been the inundation of fake follower notifications. Many Tumblr users reported a significant increase in new followers, only to discover that these accounts exhibited telltale signs of automation. Profile pictures were often generic or non-existent, bios were sparse or nonsensical, and the accounts rarely posted original content. Instead, they engaged in repetitive reblogging of posts from other accounts, creating a facade of activity.

The motivations behind these bots vary. Some are designed to drive traffic to external websites, often of dubious or malicious nature. These sites can range from fraudulent online stores to phishing pages that attempt to steal users' personal information. Other bots aim to manipulate engagement metrics, inflating the appearance of popularity for certain posts or accounts. This can distort the organic reach and visibility of content, undermining the authentic interactions that Tumblr users cherish.

In response to the escalating bot crisis, Tumblr implemented a series of measures aimed at curbing automated activity. Enhanced CAPTCHA challenges during account creation and suspicious activity detection algorithms were among the first lines of defense. Additionally, the platform's moderation team ramped up efforts to swiftly identify and remove bot accounts. However, the sheer volume of bots meant that these measures often felt like a game of whack-a-mole, with new bots continually appearing to replace those that were removed.

The surge in bot activity also had a ripple effect on user trust and safety. Scams became increasingly prevalent, with bots frequently sending direct messages containing phishing links or fraudulent offers. Unsuspecting users who clicked on these links risked compromising their accounts or falling victim to identity theft. The presence of these malicious actors eroded the sense of community that Tumblr had long fostered, leaving users wary of interactions with unfamiliar accounts.

Despite the challenges, the Tumblr community has shown resilience in the face of the bot invasion. Users have banded together to share tips on identifying and reporting bots, while also advocating for stronger platform security measures. Some have even created browser extensions and scripts to help filter out bot accounts from their notifications and interactions.

Tumblr's bot problem is emblematic of a broader issue facing many social media platforms in the digital age. As automated technology becomes more sophisticated, the battle between bots and platform security measures is likely to intensify. For Tumblr, the key to preserving its unique cultural space will lie in continually evolving its defenses and maintaining open lines of communication with its user base.

Ultimately, the fight against bots and scams is an ongoing effort that requires collaboration between platform administrators and users alike. While 2024 has been a challenging year for Tumblr, the lessons learned and the steps taken to combat the bot surge will undoubtedly shape the future of the platform and its community.

[snarp]

WRT the fraudulent itch.io takedown, the siterunner specifically blames:

BrandShield.com, the company Funko hired to shoot off their takedown notices for them.

Itch's domain registrar iwantmyname.com, which didn't respond appropriately.

leafo 2 days ago | next [–]

I'm the one running itch.io, so here's some more context for you:

From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all "unauthorized" use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was "fraud and phishing" going on, likely to cause escalation instead of doing the expected DMCA/cease-and-desist. Because of this, I honestly think they're the malicious actor in all of this. Their website, if you care: https://www.brandshield.com/

About 5 or 6 days ago, I received these reports on our host (Linode) and from our registrar (iwantmyname). I expressed my disappointment in my responses to both of them but told them I had removed the page and disabled the account. Linode confirmed and closed the case. iwantmyname never responded. This evening, I got a downtime alert, and while debugging, I noticed that the domain status had been set to "serverHold" on iwantmyname's domain panel. We have no other abuse reports from iwantmyname other than this one. I'm assuming no one on their end "closed" the ticket, so it went into an automatic system to disable the domain after some number of days.

I've been trying to get in touch with them via their abuse and support emails, but no response likely due to the time of day, so I decided to "escalate" the issue myself on social media.