[E-trademarks] Successful(?) victory over a trademark scammer!

[Stephen McArthur]

About a week ago, I started getting numerous work phone calls and work
emails from people I’d never met either referencing previous communications
that never happened, or warning me that a scammer was pretending to be me
and soliciting them to send money for supposed trademark work. This scammer
was targeting owners of trademarks on the USPTO trademark registry that
weren’t represented by an attorney, and sending them very scary sounding
emails about how they would lose all of their trademark rights unless they
sent him several hundred dollars to file something with the USPTO on their
behalf to assert their rights. He would send increasingly urgent and scary
looking follow up emails until they would respond.

This scammer identified himself as “Stephen McArthur, trademark lawyer” and
had at least 3 different legitimate looking websites set up that seemed to
be IP law firms. He had a local LA phone number.  I’ve attached one of the
business cards he used as his email signature so you can see for yourself.
[image: image003.png]


I called the number and someone with a South Asian accent picked up the
phone and identified himself as trademark lawyer Stephen McArthur. I told
him that I was the real Stephen McArthur and asked him to stop using my
name to scam people. He laughed at me and told me to kill myself. The next
morning, I got another email from someone referencing a phone call that had
just occurred with fake Stephen McArthur asking them to send money for
trademark work. This means that even after my phone call with the scammer
the day before, he was still using my name to scam people.

I wasn’t really sure what to do. I brainstormed a few ideas, but it’s not
actually easy to get some anonymous person from the internet to stop
scamming people. After much brainstorming with my colleague, Tom, with
mostly defaulting to filing a lawsuit and subpoenaing the website hosts and
phone companies for the owner’s personal information, which would take MANY
many months, effort, and money, we came up with a different solution that
was effective.

It was very simple and low effort. So, if anyone else finds themselves in a
similar situation, here’s what I did:

(1)    I found the hosts for the scammer’s websites and filled out forms
they had to report fraud at a domain they hosted. Each of them emailed me
back asking for more information, and I wrote up a few paragraphs
explaining it and attaching 4-5 emails from people alerting me to the
scammer and forwarding me emails from him. The website hosts then shut down
his website. This won’t stop him from finding a shadier website host… but
it does slow him down. His websites still aren’t back up several days
later. And maybe he’ll choose a different lawyer next time?

(2)    I looked up his phone number and found it is from T-Mobile. I called
their customer support fraud department and spent about an hour on the line
with them before concluding that there was absolutely nothing they could
do. They told me I’d need to talk directly to their lawyers, but they
wouldn’t give me any contact info whatsoever or transfer me. So, customer
support was a dead end.

I ended up going to T-Mobile’s terms of service and finding their DMCA
email address that goes straight to their copyright attorney. I emailed
them and said I had an IP issue I needed to discuss, and asked for their
phone number. A real copyright lawyer responded and said I’d need to fill
out the DMCA form properly to get a response. I replied with my screed
about the fraud, attaching all evidence. They responded 2 days later saying
they had worked with their fraud team to successfully shut down the number.

So now his websites and phone number are shut down, yay! Hopefully, if he
puts them back up, he’ll choose someone else to impersonate.



*The McArthur Law Firm*Stephen Charles McArthur
8383 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 800
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(424) 258-6815
www.smcarthurlaw.com

*This email, including any attachments, may contain material that is
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the intended recipient. Any review, reliance or distribution by others
without express permission is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If
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