Domain Registration scams

Today I received this e-mail from my friend Dr. Eddie May ( who I hope will become a contributer to this newswire.)
Here is an excerpt:

Hi,
Today I rec’d a very plausible looking letter headed ‘DOMAIN EXPIRATION NOTICE’ from a company called Domain Registry Services, Cambridge, stating that my domain name freshwebservices.com was due to expire, and offering to renew for two years for £60.

This is a scam. Go here for details http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/27/nominet_invoice_warning/. If you have any queries regarding the status of your domain name, go here & check its details: http://www.nominet.org.uk/. Otherwise, give me a call.

Yours truly,

(Dr) Eddie May
Director
Fresh Web Services Ltd : e-business solutions
www.freshwebservices.com


I received a copy of a letter today from one of my domain clients and and it was from Domain Registry of America asking them to renew their domain registration with them. It is a very thin line here between legitimate advertising and scamming domain name holders by telling them they need to renew their name in a years time but here is a handy way to - (if a trifle expensive) -renew it online, right now. And they give their website address. DROA is one of the biggest domain registrars in the world and it looks like they are resorting to spam tactics by snail mail.

The best advice is to go to Nominet, as Eddy says for .co.uk names. Go to whois.sc
for .com, .net,.info,.org and .biz.
Check out the whois details which will tell you what registry holds your name now. Don't let yourself get conned into transferring your domain register needlessly and expensively.

These letters can be compared to some body saying to you 'Pay your phone-line rental charges to me instead of your current provider and I will make sure you can keep your number!'
If your phone line currently costs £10 per month and I want to charge you £20 per month.
Even a baby can do this kind of maths.

I am writing an article to help you to manage your domain names and to ensure you have control of them. I will post it here in the next two weeks.