Scammers targeting money from queer people in intolerant countries

Scam alert! A new conference, "Canvoos Montreal", is soliciting endorsements from queer rights organizations in Montréal. I received the below email from them earlier today, soliciting the endorsement of the organization I’ve founded, Juritrans. At first glance, this seems interesting. However, their email seemed suspicious (ChatGPT-like phrases, “sales” email, etc.). So I checked. It gets darker. One fact of the Internet is that any website’s domain name (for example, “example.com” is a domain name) must be registered before use. This record — often known as a WHOIS record — allows one to have insights into the website, such as its owner and when it was first registered. Turns out, Canvoos Montreal’s domain name was registered only two days ago. Additionally, its website uses generic drawings pulled from Pride organizations in the United States, and seems to be translated into French entirely using Google Translate: in the context of a website, “home” is translated to «accueil», not «maison»! I couldn’t find any other presence of Canvoos Montreal anywhere on the internet, nor in the Quebec business registrar; no individuals were mentioned on the conference’s website either. This leads me to the obvious conclusion: this is an evolution of the “LGBTI conference scam” that was first documented in the news last year. Fake conferences, in the queer context, are non-existent conferences, designed to dupe LGBTI+ activists from the Global South into paying “registration fees” for a non-existent event. The usual formula is an announced conference, whereas activists from the Global South are invited as delegates or speakers, travel expenses covered, but then are made to pay a registration fee, in an unrefundable manner (e.g. Western Union or wire payment). By the time they apply for a visa to visit Canada, it’s too late, the conference doesn’t exist and they’ve lost out on their money. Whilst this scam has been reported by Xtra Magazine last year (https://lnkd.in/eyJi-bRs), soliciting local queer organizations to endorse such conferences is a new, particularly low way of getting unsuspecting non-profits to participate in such scams. Non-profit organizations should be extremely cautious if ever they’re invited to be involved with a little-known or otherwise unfamiliar conference. As for individuals invited to unfamiliar conferences, if you’re required to pay a registration fee in spite of having travel expenses paid for, that’s a massive red flag. If you have good reasons to doubt something’s legitimacy, be cautious! Dignity Network Canada Open Digital Literacy and Access Network (ODLAN)