Avoid Bogus Domain Renewal Notices

If you have a website or just own some domain names, then chances are you've gotten a letter or email saying something to the effect of you needing to renew your domain or else it will be lost. 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.

Domain Registration Scams

If you own a domain name, then you should know that you register them for years at a time. This means that when the time is up, you will need to renew your domain name, otherwise somebody might buy it out from under you. If you run an online business, your domain is your online identity and very important to you.

There are countless companies online who are considered 'domain registrars', meaning you can go through them to officially register a domain name. With all the competition, some of them resort to fraudulent means to trick one registrar's customers into switching over to them. The most common way of doing this is sending that customer an invoice that scares them into renewing earlier than they really need to, and often their prices are very high.

Domain Renewal Spam

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 the fear that they might lose their domain name.

How to Recognize a 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 in which you registered the 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.

Timing is another issue. I once had a domain that I had registered for two years. I had a registrar send me a domain renewal notice when the first year wasn't even up, and I was still paid through another year while their letter tried to make it sound like I was about to lose the domain name. I just threw the fake 'renewal notice' in the garbage.

Report the Registrar to the BBB

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.