If you own some domain names or have an active website, chances are you’ve received a letter in the mail telling you that you need to renew your domain or else it will be lost and snapped up by someone else. This is a very common Domain Registration Scam where one registrar tries to steal business away from another and it can be very misleading to consumers.

What is a domain registration scam?
If you own a domain name, then you probably know that you usually register them for years at a time. When the registration is expiring, you need to renew your domain name otherwise someone could very well snap it up from under you. As a website owner, your domain name represents your online busines and your domain is your online identity and very important to you.

There are countless companies online considered “domain registrars,” which means you can go through them to officially register a domain name. AON Technologies, TuCows, Network Solutions and GoDaddy are such just companies. With all the competition, some less reputable companies resort to fraudulent means to trick one registrar’s customers into switching over to them. The most common way of doing this is by sending that customer an invoice that scares them into renewing earlier than they need to and often at very high prices.

How it works
You get a letter or email that says the domain name you own is about to expire and if you don’t act immediately, it will lost. With most scams, they always express a sense of urgency in the hopes that you will act before thinking things through. The company sending you this letter or email is not the same one that you originally registered the domain with, and their renewal fee is much higher than the original registrar. Many people inadvertently switch over to this new registrar out of fear they might lose their domain name.

How to identify a domain registration scam
The easiest way to recognize this scam is if the registrar trying to make you renew the domain name isn’t the same registrar you used to register your domain. If you had someone register the domain for you, like a web developer, then check with them to find out the name of the registrar they used. Regardless, whether you registered your domain or your web designer did it for you, you should have a receipt for your domain registration that you keep filed safely away.

Timing is another issue. If you have a domain that you have registered for two years and you get a domain renewal notice when the first year isn’t even up, you should throw the fake “renewal notice” in the trash.

What to do if you discover this scam
File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in the domain registrar’s state. In your complaint, make it clear that this domain registrar tried to trick you by sending a misleading sales pitch designed as an invoice.

What you should know about how we process domain renewals:
Reputable domain registrars do NOT send out domain renewals by U.S. Mail. Anything you receive via U.S. Mail is immediately suspect especially if your domain registration is not the domain registrar sending you this letter renewal.

Reputable domain registrars DO maintain a special database in addition to the one maintained by the ICANN registrar. Your renewal notice is auto-generated via email to you 30, 20 and 10 days before the domain name expiration date. Often you will also receive reminders 60, 30 and 15 days before expiration date by most domain registrars.

If you registered your  domain online with a reputable domain registrar, only renew your domain name when you receive an email reminder from that registrar and ignore all those other requests. If in doubt, check your domain name registration details prior to sending anyone money.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com