I am going to attempt to explain in greater detail all the (little tiny) steps I went through to track these people. This may (or may not) be pretty useful to some people. :)
Those Kathmandu fake dope peddlers have been annoying me for some time and I'm happy to finally start going after them. I called them in September and again in November, saying, hey, stop spamming us or we will sue you. As with most spammers, they said okay, then didn't stop spamming us. That seems quite rude, so I decide a lawsuit is in order.
My first trip is to LincMad's area code list where I see that both of these prefixes are Colorado. The Kathmandu spams say they're in mountain time. Ding, ding. Pretty good chance they're in Colorado.
Then it's over to Google, that wise search engine, where I do searches on the numbers 719-686-1152 and 623-972-5999 (the latter being found in earlier Kathmandu spams). I find a page with some of the spam on it, but nothing too sexy. I click my search over to the groups section of Google and find this message. Most useful is the reverse lookup of a Kathmandu number that went to:
Xavier Enterprises
743 Gold Hill Place
Woodland Park, CO 80863
I went over to Infospace's reverse lookup search (the Usenet poster had used this engine) and ran the same search the poster had run. Sure enough, Xavier Enterprises in Woodland Park. While this number isn't the same as the two numbers I've got in various Kathmandu spams, it is a good lead.
I'm now pretty sure the company behind this is named Xavier Enterprises and is located in Woodland Park, Colorado. I head on over to the Colorado Secretary of State's corporate lookup page and search for "xavier" -- two Xavier Enterprises, on a dissolved corporation and one an LLC in good standing. I check out the Xavier Enterpises LLC listing. Registered agent is Wayne Robinson in Denver. If the registered agent was in Woodland Park, I'd bet money that this is our company. But he's in Denver, so I'm not willing to place money on it.I decide to call Kathmandu. I use the "719-686-1152" number from the earlier spams -- after hitting *67 (caller id block). Ring, ring, ring. A woman answers and identifies the company as "Exotic Botanicals."
"Hi," I say cordially. "Is this Xavier Enterprises?"
The woman pauses momentarily, though not too long really. "Yes, it is."
Ding, ding, ding. I am certain about Xavier Enterprises. "Is Wayne Robinson in?" I ask.
"No," she replies. "We don't have a Wayne Robinson who works here."
Hmm, no Wayne Robinson. Maybe she just doesn't know their registered agent. Maybe she just answers phones and doesn't know about their corporate structure. "Okay," I say, quickly thinking of what to ask next. "Do you know the name of your registered agent?"
The woman is a bit confused. I explain that a registered agent is the contact person on file with the secretary of state and she says she doesn't think they have one of those. Not the answer I'm looking for.
"Is there a president or manager or someone who deals with filing corporate records with the secretary of state?" I ask.
"Well, in this office, that would probably be me." Damn, I think.
"But you're a limited liability partnership, right?" I want at least a little bit more information from her before I bail out.
"Yes," she says.
With that little bit of information (that turned out to be false), I bail out of the conversation. "Well, that's all I really need to know. Thanks for your help."
I decide to call the county clerk and see if they've got any fictitious business names registered to the Kathmandu folks. I see from a Yahoo map that Woodland Park is in Teller county. I find the Teller County Clerk's site through pac-info.com.
The county clerk's site doesn't say much about fictitious business names, so I give them a call. After being transferred to the clerk's office, I ask if fictitious business names are registered with them.
"Excuse me?" the woman says. "Fictitious what names?"
"Fictitious business names," I respond. "Like doing business as names or trade names."
The woman tells me that they can record anything I want. The fee is $5, she says. This answer leads me to believe that fictitious business names aren't required to be filed with the county clerk. I inquire further and the woman says that she believes they are required to be filed with the Secretary of State.
I call the corporations department listed on the Secretary of State's contact page. After a bit of number punching, I get to an operator. I asked if trade names are filed with them and she says that "corporations, limited liability corporations, limited liability partnerships, limited partnerships, limited liability limited partnerships" are required to file trade names with them. The Department of Revenue handles sole proprietership trade names.
I have her look up "Exotic Botanicals," the name Kathmandu used when answering the phone. No results. "Can you search by registrant?" I ask.
The woman says she can only search by name. Bummer. I thank the woman and decide to call the department of revenue.
I find the DoR's web site and follow the link to their trade name search. The form is not the prettiest, most intuitive thing I've seen. I enter "exotic" as the trade name and select all the report fields. That got a lot of results. I go back and try searching for the owner name "xavier." First hit: "XAVIER ENTERPRISES/ XAVIER EXOTIC HERBS." Location: Woodland Park! Ding, ding, ding. They're address is "420 Evergreen Ct." That's humorous. The registrant is Jordan Xavier Rand (at first I read this as "Rand Jordan Xavier").
I call up Department of Revenue's trade name line and ask to order a certified copy of the trade name record. The man tells me that he thinks they only give those out in person. I ask him if he's sure about that, in a "hey buddy, I don't even live in your frickin' state" sort of tone. He tells me to hold and comes back five seconds later. I can fax a request, he says. He gives me the fax number and tells me there's no fee.
"No fee?" I ask, suddenly gaining more respect for Colorado. "That's pretty cheap."
"Yup, that is a service we provide free of charge to you."
"And you can mail that to Washington State?" I ask, wanting to make sure this no-fee deal is really true.
"We can mail that anywhere in the U.S.," he responds.
I thank him and type up a fax. It's got their contact info, my contact info, the date, number of pages (one, including cover), and a note saying I want a certified copy of the trade name "Xavier Enterprises / Xavier Exotic Herbs." I fax it to the number the man provided.
By this time of the day, DJ Spooky's been playing for a bit and I'm feelin' pretty good, so I dance a bit, beatbox and lay down some impromptu "nailed a spammer" rhymes. Oop oop.
The Kathmandu woman said they're a limited liability partnership, but I doubt she's correct. After all, I asked "you're a limited liability partnership, right?" She only had two answers to choose from and since she didn't know, she just said yes. That's my guess, at least. I'm leaning heavily in favor of this being the correct record.
I decide to give Kathmandu another call, this time using the 623-972-5999 in the most recent spams we've got. (And again, using *67.) Ring, ring.
Answering machine. They're either closed or tending to other customers. Darn. I call them back a handful of times before their official closing time. Still no operators, so I decide to call on Monday.
Monday at 12:55 p.m., I call 623-972-5999. A woman answers the phone, "Exotic Botanical Resources."
"Hi, is Rand Xavier in?" I ask.
The woman pauses for a moment. "Um, no. Who's calling?"
Ding, ding! "This is Ben Livingston," I say nonchalantly. "Do you know will he be in anytime this week?"
The woman tells me that she expects him in later this week, probably Thursday or Friday.
"Okay, I'll just give him a call later this week. Thanks."