Business owners aren’t the only ones victimized by so-called cyber-squatters.

Last week, Stan Cook, who retired from offering kayaking tours, was shocked to learn that someone had stolen his domain and was booking tours under his name.

The practice is not unusual says Kristin Matthews of the Better Business Bureau. She says while one of the purposes is to extort money from a legitimate business, another is to cheat customers using the fake site.

Matthews says there are a few red flags that consumers should watch for.

She says the sites are often rife with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. In the case of the fake Stan Cook website it promised the possibility of seeing “viking whales” which don’t exist.