Cutting Off The Counterfeiter’s Lifeline

When it comes to counterfeiters, I try to be the leach that sucks their blood dry. Cease-and-desist letters are fine, DMCA takedown letters are helpful, but if you really want to cause them pain and stop them from infringing, you need to cut off their lifeline: cash flow.

Most counterfeiters operate online and hide their identities through a variety of privacy services, anonymous sites, false information in WHOIS, changed locations, and different aliases. But what they cannot do is provide false or out-of-date information to their banks, credit card companies, or PayPal. Failure to provide up-to-date and accurate bank and contact information to the payment providers will prevent them from getting paid and curtail their customers' use of credit cards and PayPal on their websites, thereby cutting off their income stream. In short, if they want to be paid, they have to be honest with their payment provider companies.