This Registrar Wants to Steal Your Customers

It's Veterans' Day, and one company is wrapping itself in the flag and sending deceptive invoices to your customers, using the WHOIS list illegally, in a scam familiar to every ISP.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [November 11, 2005]

Buffalo, N.Y.-based Domain Registry of America (DROA) is wrapping itself in the flag to try to steal your customers:

I have a personal website, through a local ISP here in New York City, and I received a mailing telling me that my domain will expire and I can renew with DROA.

This tactic is familiar to most webhosting ISPs. When I reported it to mine, the sysadmin replied:

This is a very long-running scam. Nothing very complicated, they mine whois data then send letters that look like invoices hoping some secretary or something will just pay it. Paying it also implies transfer (to them at what's probably a much higher rate).

Deceptive invoices are resurfacing. The deceivers of today manage to stay within the letter of the law while violating basic business practice.

And that's how it works. It looks like an invoice, and many people don't read the fine print—or even the front page, which says in part, "You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated below, unless you accept this offer. This notice is not a bill."

That language is designed to make what looks like a demand for services fit within the law (barely, in our opinion).

Most ISPs are familiar with the threat—see, for example, the Best of the ISP-Lists discussion Domain Name Scam from back in December, 2000.

The original snail mail deceiver could well be VeriSign (see VeriSign to Cease Deceptive Mailings from June, 2002).

In any case, just because it's an old trick doesn't mean it won't work on your customers.

Some companies have no shame.

—End