On Sun, 26 Oct 2008, Doug Robb wrote:

 > The good news is that if a crime has been committed it will be interesting
 > to see how much of all of this leads back to the perpetrators. On the
 > surface it all looks too easy so one would think the ACN itself must me
 > suspect. Another question will the be whether ASIC does enough checking if
 > this is indeed turns out to be the case. Also allowing a company name to be
 > the company ACN is a bit weird in itself?

I rather doubt it will even get investigated.  Earlier this year even a 
member of the NSW parliament was unable to rouse the AFP to follow up on 
a relatively sophisticated Nigerian scam targetting the address book of 
a hacked yahoo account, when the source of the scam mails was able to be 
traced, consistently, to a particular mobile phone account in Lagos.

And yes, it occurred to me only later - how do you get ASIC to issue you 
an ACN corresponding to the company name being applied for?

Can you ask, "what ACN will you issue me if I register an as yet unnamed 
company?

Or perhaps use variable substitution, like "A.C.N. $nextACN PTY. LTD."?

Or are they now like numberplates, where you can order your custom ACN?

 > On a logical note why did they go .com.au when they could have got the .com
 > and made it much harder to trace ownership?

Good question.  Maybe they had some 'inside information' we don't have?

cheers, Ian