Domain Name Scams EXPOSED!

If you have a website and manage your domain name you’ve probably received a letter from an unknown entity warning you that you’re about to lose your domain name.

BEWARE – the “official looking letter” may well be a SCAM!

Watch this video to learn how to protect your domain from this common deceitful sales tactic. Tell me in the comments – have you ever experienced this? Do you have other questions about domain names and/or how to protect that valuable asset of your organization? I look forward to hearing from you!

Transcript

Today I want to talk to you about domain registration scams. 

Hi, I’m Jonathan, and today I want to talk to you about domain registration scams. Now, technically what I’m going to talk to you about isn’t necessarily illegal, may not even be the true definition of a scam, but it is certainly misleading and therefore I want to cover that with you today. You may have received in the mail at some point in time, if you have a website, some sort of a notification from a domain registry company that’s claiming that it’s time to renew your name, very official looking paperwork, but probably somebody you’re not familiar with, and typically charging an exorbitant price for that domain. They look very official and they get scary. In fact, I’m going to share one of the letters here with you, just so you can see what that might look like because if you didn’t register your domain with this company at first, you shouldn’t be paying any attention to the letter. Because what they’re trying to do is get control of your domain. So let’s take a look here at an example of one of these that I just received in the mail today.

So, here you can take a look at this, we’ll preview here real quick. So this particular one happens to come from a company called Domain Registry out of New Jersey. Now, to the best of my knowledge, Domain Registry is a legitimate company and they may indeed provide legitimate services, but they’re certainly misleading you as this comes through. So as you can read in the letter, it says:

“As a courtesy to domain holders, we’re sending you this notification of domain name registration that’s due to expire in the next few months.”

So what happens here is they got out and they preview literally thousands and thousands of domain names, and when they’re getting near to expiration, maybe three months out or so, they send these letters out to the people that have registered those domains. That information is public, it’s legal to get that information. But what domain registry and some other companies do is they send you what looks like an official domain renewal certificate when in fact what it’s doing is basically saying hi, you didn’t but your domain from us, but we’d like you to overpay us so you can keep it. If you’d authorize that here on this paperwork, we’ll take control of your domain and we’ll charge you double or triple the normal price just so you can maintain that domain and keep it.

I cannot tell you how these companies operate in the long-run, I don’t know if they’ll ever allow you to get your domain back or not. What I do know is their ethics are very, very questionable. Even if you’ll notice here as we read down the letter, it says very clearly here that this is not a bill, it’s a notice. That means you don’t have to be paying attention to that. So why am I sharing this with you? Because a lot of our clients end up getting information like this in the mail and they’re obviously concerned that they’re going to lose their domain name. You don’t want to lose your domain name; we can talk about that in another video. But be wary if you’re getting notices from companies that you’re not familiar with that look like domain registration renewals. In most cases, you’re going to get those notifications in an email from whoever you registered your domain with at first.

By the way, just to give you some comparisons on cost, they’re charging you about $50 a year for that domain, at least through domain registry on the letter that I got today. You can renew that domain or buy that domain through most companies online for less than $30, oftentimes even less than that.

So next time you get a domain renewal and you’re not familiar, what should you do? Well, first and foremost, read the letter carefully and look to find out whether or not it says it’s an invoice, or in this case, whether it’s a solicitation. Now, warning, they design the letters to look like invoices and to sound very official. The last thing, before you sign any paperwork to a company that you’re not familiar with, check with a professional. You can reach out to me, send the letter to me, I’ll take a look at it. You can also go ahead and send it to whoever you’re working on your website with, or anybody else. Have them look at it to make sure that you’re not signing over your rights. What you don’t want to do, in this case, I don’t want to sign this document, send it back with payment to the main registry, only to be essentially transforming ownership of that domain away from myself and into Domain Registry, a company in New Jersey that I admittedly don’t know anything about, other than that I don’t approve of their sales tactics. So be very careful. 

There are others that are out there, but be careful if you get one of these letters. Don’t panic. Contact a professional, get some advice. And if you’re not sure, just go back to your domain registrar, wherever you originally bought your domain, and check on your renewal. That could be a company like GoDaddy or Network Solutions or even your web developer if you’re working with a company like Valorous Circle. We can help you manage that process. 

If you’ve got questions about domain names, or how to register them effectively, how to register them safely, please don’t hesitate to let me know. In fact, I’d love to hear your questions about domain names in the comments. Tell me, what can I answer about you for domain names?

Thank you for joining me today. Please make it a great day.