Domain Registry of Canada = Scam?

[Thaiwoo]

Well I've had my personal website with a US service provider for several years now. They renew my .com domain for $6 on a yearly basis.

Today I received this letter from the Domain Registry of Canada. For me to renew with them I would have to pay $40 a year! Best savings my behind!

So after reading through it again, it says I don't have to switch to them but they sure get you going. Wonder how many people just blindly paid for it?

The envelope and the letter look like the dreaded ones you get from the gouvernment (taxes or whatever).

Anybody knows more about this?

[dbusguy]

oh ya, I've seen one of those before.

[Bogie]

LOL - recycle the paper! They are a real registrar agent, but ....

They aren't even a Canadian Company, but from New York!

I get so many of those I feel like it is regular correspondance.

One of those "up front" scam-style snail-mails ... most appropriately called "Domain Slamming". If you read the contents, they cover their rears pretty good.

They rape the registry lists for upcoming renewals and then send out what looks to be renewal forms. Reminds me of the old fake yellow pages scams of years gone by.

Ignore, throw away, burn, or recycle, but don't reply or even think about it.

Here is a 2002 article about these guys:


Register.com v. Domain Registry of Canada

09/13/2002




Register.com Inc is suing a competitor for allegedly using deceptive tactics to lure away its domain name registration customers. But defendant Domain Registry of Canada Inc seems to think Register.com is using very similar tactics itself, Kevin Murphy writes.

Register.com sued DROC in its native New York this week, alleging unfair competition, false advertising, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. The larger firm alleges DROC engages in a "deceptive and misleading scheme" - a marketing practice known as "domain slamming" - that is costing it thousands of customers.

Slamming is the name given to the practice when a registrar sends a solicitation to a customer of a competitor, asking them to transfer their business, but makes the solicitation look like a renewal notice or an expiration notice, to confuse them into making the switch.

"These solicitations do not mention that it was Register.com, and not any of the defendants, that originally registered the customers' domain names," the complaint reads. "Nor do they explain that customers who accept defendants' solicitation will actually be transferring their domain name registrations to a direct competitor of Register.com."

The company said that in a sample week this August, about 15% of all the customers that transferred from Register.com to another registrar transferred to DROC, which is a reseller for Washington-based eNom Inc and also trades as Domain Registry of America Inc.
(http://www.theregus.com/content/6/26296.html)

[Thaiwoo]

Thanks Bogie for the info.

As I mentioned, what gets me is the fact they use stationary and envelopes that look like it comes from our beloved gouvernment.

When I first saw it in the mail, I'm like now they have their hands in that too???

Shredder here we come.

[Exmortis]

I received the same letter too about my two domains. In the shredder it went. :)

[Swordfish]

Thanks for the heads up I went to GoDaddy for my domain if I ever get that letter its in the shredder it goes :)

[ChrisK]

Anybody knows more about this?

http://support.easydns.com/domain.slammers/droc.php

[Thaiwoo]

http://support.easydns.com/domain.slammers/droc.php

Thanks for the link.