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Beware of Internet Domain Name Renewal Scams

Official looking notice is designed to confuse. Unscrupulous registration services utilize social engineering to defraud.

If you own an Internet domain name, you may be targeted by a scam that potentially puts your domain name at risk.

It looks legit. A letter reminding you that your domain name will soon need to be renewed. It ominously reminds you that failing to renew on time will result in the loss of your domain name and the interruption of your web services. The letter goes on to say that the sender firm will gladly take care of the renewal for you. Over-worked business owners might see this as a convenient service and one less thing to have to deal with. Sound good so far? Simply fill in your credit card info and sign the form. Nice and easy, right? Beware. The fees they charge are 400% or more over what your actual renewal fees are. Worse yet, you may have just signed control of your domain name over to them.
Recently, we have been contacted by several of our clients who have received letters that are similar to this one. Most would see the wording in this type of letter as a bit deceptive. The fact is, iDNS is a legitimate domain name registrar – they just happen to charge excessively high fees for renewing your domain name. What is less clear in the letter is that by using their “service”, you are actually transferring your domain name registration from your original Registrar to iDNS.

What Should You Do If You Receive One Of These Letters?

The best thing you can do if you receive a letter such as the one above is ignore it. Toss it straight into the recycle bin. Then, check who your current domain Registrar is.  You can find out by checking the WHOIS database at https://whois.icann.org/en . The WHOIS record will also tell you the actual expiration date of your current registration. If you have any questions or are unable to determine who your domain Registrar is, give us a call at (209) 790-4560 and we’ll gladly assist you.