Don't Fall For Phony Offers To Renew You Domain Names

by Bonnie Boots

Because you're involved in doing business on the internet, you own domain names. This is all it takes to make you the target of a con artist.

In fact, odds are great that con artists have already contacted you about your domain names. That contact came through the mail.

The letter you received, or will receive soon will look quite  legitimate. It will come addressed to your business, at your address, and it will refer to one or more of the domains that you own.

It will correctly notify you that one or more of your registrations for domain names is about to expire. It will even give you honest information on how important it is to renew a domain name and what happens if you don't.

So how is this a scam?

Because the letter implies that you originally registered the domain name through the sender.  Or it admits you did NOT register through the sender, but says it will offer you the best rates for renewing if you renew through them.

And therein lies the scam.

I own dozens of domain names. I receive such letters every month. The one I'm holding in my hands right now   is unusual. It's from a  sender honest enough to admit that I didn't originally register my domains through them.

But if I renew through them, they claim, they'll save me money. What's the "savings" they offer me?  The chance to renew any domain registration through them for one year for $30.

Early on, a savvy internet marketer told me to always keep my domain registrations with one company and my hosting with another. So I've always used GoDaddy for all my domain name registrations.

If I renew through GoDaddy, I'll pay about $10 to renew one domain for one year.  But GoDaddy always has coupons, so I'm more likely to pay about $8 to renew a domain registration for one year.

That's $22 LESS  than the "great deal" the sender of the letter is offering me. And that's why these guys scam artists. artist.

These scam artists know self-employed people are too busy and have too many details to keep track of. They hope we won't remember who were registered with or what we paid. They hope we'll just pencil in our credit card number and send in their form, thinking we're doing the right thing.

Don't let these Bozos take advantage of you. Protect yourself by knowing where your domain names are registered.

If you're not certain where your domains are registered, go to http://www.whois.net. By entering your domain name in their search bar, you'll be shown all the information about that URL, including where it was registered.

When your domain names are about to expire, you will receive an email from the registration service you originally used. You will NOT be notified by ground mail.

A physical letter in your mail box is a sign that the expiration notice you've received is some sort of scam.

Your domain name or names are valuable business assets. Keep control of it them your own hands. Know where they is registered. And don't fall for scam registration services when the mailman brings them to your door.


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