[conspire] Warning to domain owners: renewal/transfer scam

[Don Marti]

begin Eric De Mund quotation of Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 08:45:35AM -0700:
> Roger Chrisman <roger at rogerchrisman.com>:
> > I concur. I got something like that via USPS paper mail several months
> > ago regarding one of my domains and addressed to me the way I and my
> > domain are openly registered and not from the registrar I use. Seemed
> > like a poor deal -- $75.00 for one years registration or something
> > similarly ridiculous. It read very similar to the email you quoted. I
> > tossed it. Thanks for the warning.
> 
> An thank you from this quarter as well. I appreciate the heads up.
> 
> I received one of these scam letters last year, and fortunately recog-
> nized it for what it was. Amazing how similar to the old Network Solu-
> tions domain registration/renewal document this bogus document was.

If you have a business listing or a .com domain,
you'll also get fake bills from off-brand "Yellow
Pages" operators.  ("Yellow Pages" is not a trademark
in the USA, but it is in the UK and Australia.)
And fly-by-night SEOs charging you to be "listed
on Google."  And "bills" for inkjet cartridges that
have "Order form: not a bill" in miniscule print at
the bottom.  And a bushel of other scams.

(The trend is for vendors that offer products and
services to small business to insist on a credit card,
instead of the old purchase order/invoice system.
So these scams probably stand out a little more than
they used to.)

-- 
Don Marti                                               +1 510-814-0932
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti at zgp.org