Domain Name Expiration Notice - Scam

[Ol Gnome]

Hi Guys & Gals,

Don't know if this is the right place to post this, but if it is't the MODS will place it for me.

I live in Canada and my Domain Name gnomeshollow.com is registered through my service provider. I just wanted to let those people who have their Domain Names (DN) registered in Canada know that these is a scam going around about DN registration expiration. The snail mail letter is from "Domain Registry of Canada", who by the way have nothing to do with the Canadian government, and there premis is to get you to use them to re-register your DN. If you do use them, your web site will be moved from your current SP to Domain Registry of Canada.

READ the fine print on the back, that's where you will find out what they are really up to.

Have a great summer - OlGnome

[jestep]

This is a great post for this forum topic.

Thanks for the info.


Also post in the Security forum, as it pertains more to scams, fraud, etc.

[FiveGrand]

I received about 6 letters in one day from this company. All were domain name renewal notices that looked somewhat convincing that my domains were set to expire.

You may also notice the company name is not actually "Domain Registry of Canada" for legal reasons, although they try to make it appear to be official and from the Canadian gov't.

Ol Gnome, good thinking to give everyone the heads up.

[cyanide]

Yeah, nice post Ol Gnome!

I was going to post about this also.
I too received about 5 or 6 of these letters a couple weeks ago. They make it sound urgent to re-register your domain name with them

I had to double-check to see if I had a domain with them. Ofcourse I didn't ! Their prices aren't cheap either.

[keywordguy]

I register several hundred domains for my customers each year and have started to use my business address as c/o to prevent this from happening to my customers.

This type of scam still persists here in the US as well and I'm not sure why ICANN hasn't taken a stronger stance on this.

It sure doesn't help now that anyone can buy a domain list. Personally, I think it is disingenuous on the part of ICANN and all the major registrars that make individuals or companies pay extra money to keep registration info private.

Thanks for the great post!

[glinton]

This group are also working from the UK.

I get about 3 letters (pseudo invoices) a month from them and automatically send an empty envelope back to them and let them pay the postage.

A client of mine did pay for a renewal through them and then spent several months trying to get his money back when he realised his mistake. Fortunately it was a little used domain, so in the end he just let it die naturally.

Cheers

John