What is this? buttonbox.shop

[Takayuki YAGI]

Just came across this:

https://www.buttonbox.shop/

What is this? It appears to have been created by recycling material from an old website, but is this genuine?

[PaulDa321]

That makes me sad. It still has their physical location and hours, but that closed down for sure. Must be some scam. 

[Kevin Knippa]

The domain name was registered to someone in Reykjavik in September, according to the WhoIs data https://www.whois.com/whois/buttonbox.shop.

[Steve Schulteis]

I've reported it to the hosting provider. Hopefully they'll sort out what's going on and take the appropriate action.

[Ken_Coles]

And if anyone has Doug Creighton's contact info, he can easily verify to the hosting provider that all the content is taken from him (no doubt without permission).

 

Ken

[David Barnert]

4 hours ago, PaulDa321 said:

That makes me sad. It still has their physical location and hours, but that closed down for sure. Must be some scam. 

 

It even has their old web site URL in the bar across the bottom.

 

Just for the hell of it, I followed the links to the Beaumont to see if they had the video of me demonstrating it. The link is there, but “Sorry This video does not exist.”

 

2 hours ago, Ken_Coles said:

And if anyone has Doug Creighton's contact info, he can easily verify to the hosting provider that all the content is taken from him (no doubt without permission).

 

Unfortunately, the only contact info I have is his buttonbox.com address.

[Roger Hare]

There's also a link to a learnfreereed.com domain/site - which appears to be an Indonesian language site dealing with gambling.

 

Peculiar, or what?

 

 

[Steve Schulteis]

Here's the response. 😕 I do appreciate that they're not as ban-happy as YouTube, who has entertained copyright claims against me for obviously public domain material. 

 

Quote

Hello,

Thank you for contacting HOSTINGER regarding this matter. Your letter was received and your request was examined attentively. Please be informed that the provided information is not sufficient to adopt decision on the reported domain name.

Accordingly, in response to your request, we hereby ask you to provide sufficient documents (Trademark Certificate & Power of Attorney) or information proving that you have legal rights and / or legitimate interests in respect of the indicated intellectual property, using which infringes your rights.

If requested information or documents will be provided, we will further consider you request.

Hostinger Abuse Department
abuse@hostinger.com
https://www.hostinger.com

-----Original message-----
From: schult@gmail.com <schult@gmail.com>
Sent: 11/30/2025 01:42:49

> Sender: Steve Schulteis
>
> Website: https://www.buttonbox.shop/
>
> Message: This site is an unauthorized duplicate of a now defunct storefront.
> See the following links for background information: https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/29724-what-is-this-buttonboxshop/
> https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/23993-the-future-of-the-button-box/
> https://web.archive.org/web/20240530152018/https://buttonbox.com/
>
> Sent from Hostinger Abuse Form

 

At the moment I can't figure out the game plan of the fake site's operator. The shopping cart doesn't work, and basically everything appears to be a mirror of the original site. Even the learnfreereed.com link is from the original (it went somewhere useful back then). Maybe they're hoping people will contact them via the form? I dunno, this is weird.

Edited December 2 by Steve Schulteis

[Richard Mellish]

I thought it might help to show them the original site on the Internet Archive, but unfortunately "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL."

 

 

[David Barnert]

2 hours ago, Richard Mellish said:

I thought it might help to show them the original site on the Internet Archive, but unfortunately "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL."

 

Sure they did.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20210621214106/http://www.buttonbox.com/

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Sometimes when the original site owner does not renew the purchased .com address, I think it can then be put back on the market for others to consider purchasing! With same name etc..

That's all I know myself .. while back when I did not renew a website for myself, I was informed potentially the same name could be purchased by someone else! ( The name and everything)! So I stuck to a free version instead🌝

 

[David Barnert]

36 minutes ago, SIMON GABRIELOW said:

Sometimes when the original site owner does not renew the purchased .com address, I think it can then be put back on the market for others to consider purchasing! With same name etc..

That's all I know myself .. while back when I did not renew a website for myself, I was informed potentially the same name could be purchased by someone else! ( The name and everything)! So I stuck to a free version instead🌝

 

But that’s not the case here. This example does not “recycle” the .com address. It drops the “.com” for “.shop” which would have been available even back when the Button Box was still in business and maintaining its website.

[Steve Schulteis]

5 hours ago, Richard Mellish said:

I thought it might help to show them the original site on the Internet Archive, but unfortunately "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL."

 

I did include a link to the original site on the Internet Archive in my report. I picked one that made it clear the Button Box was shutting down permanently. You can see it if you check the full text of the response I shared, which includes my message at the bottom.

[Steve Schulteis]

1 hour ago, SIMON GABRIELOW said:

Sometimes when the original site owner does not renew the purchased .com address, I think it can then be put back on the market for others to consider purchasing! With same name etc..

That's all I know myself .. while back when I did not renew a website for myself, I was informed potentially the same name could be purchased by someone else! ( The name and everything)! So I stuck to a free version instead🌝

 

Even if someone buys a previously-used domain name, that doesn't give them rights to the material that was originally published there. Think of the domain name as a business location. You can buy a building (or domain name), but you still have to take down the sign/branding (or website content) from the previous business unless you separately obtained the right to use it.

 

In the case that the domain name itself conflicts with a trademark, it may also be possible to force a transfer of ownership. In earlier days of the commercial Internet, people would speculatively buy domain names matching the branding of large companies, offering to sell them for unreasonable amounts of money. Some of the companies successfully pursued legal action against this sort of extortion. That's not really relevant in this case, though.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

It certainly gives a bad impression and is an insult to the original true website business. Hopefully, with being made aware of this issue on c.net word will get round, and prevent anyone being taken in by a potential scam?

[Matt Heumann]

Being suspicious, & just for the heck of it I "selected" a concertina on the fake site and it never showed up in my "cart" no matter how many times I tried. So, its hard to see how they could fraudulently sell anything. Still, you have to wonder about their intent.

[David Barnert]

59 minutes ago, Matt Heumann said:

Still, you have to wonder about their intent.

 

I wonder if there was any actual intent, or whether the whole thing was put together by AI without human oversight.

[wunks]

This seems to match a " fraudulent web site " scam listed on the " Common Scams Fact Sheet " issued by the Otsego County ( NY ) Office for the Aging.  There are typically one or two letters off.  The lock key is there but in the wrong place.  When you click on the site or enter information they install malware on your computer that allows scammers to gather all of your personal information ( this is paraphrased from the document ).