A client of mine received a letter (conveniently organized just like a bill) to renew their domain with a company called the Domain Registry of America. I only found this out when I mentioned to them that their domain registration was up for renewal in February 2009 and I wanted to make sure we transferred the registration to them instead of having it registered to my company. Well, that is when they let me know that they already sent a check to this DRoA company. I’m thinking – what!? No way! Your registrar is Dynamic Network Services. How did you stumble upon this?
Well, they are just one of many people that have been targeted by this company. What they do is scan the registrar records of known domains and send letters to all the contacts that are listed with the domain. These letters look a lot like bills, even though there is a small place where they state “This notice is not a bill”. Take a look at what this guy, who registers a lot of domains in his online marketing company, went through with this company. He also recorded his conversations! Conveniently available for you to listen in MP3 format. Also, check out the Google search for “Domain Registry of America scam”.
In my opinion, DRoA = dirty rats! Also, please read everything on a “bill” before sending them money. Especially if you have to create a new vendor for them in your payment system.
January 10th, 2009 at 6:59 pm - Edit
There is a sucker born every minute. I especially like how the guy tried to state that it wasn’t a bill, but an estimate.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:15 am - Edit
We actually received “letters” from this company too – we own 6 domains at Nutmeg Consulting. I want someone to write a bot that scrapes WHOIS and sends emails to the contacts just to warn them about this company and put links to their current registrar so they aren’t scammed.