"I've received this letter regarding our domain name renewal..."
"I've received this phone call regarding our domain name..."
These requests are often made to look like its a bill for an existing service that you already have with them for your domain name registration.
Most often, these people contacting you are trying to trick you into switching their domain name to them at a much higher rate than what we're charnging you. For example, Domain Registry of America, has been a popular scammer and they'd send out notices that look like the one below. As you can see, its written to look like you're supposed to renew with them to keep your domain name active. This isn't the case. If the person/agency contacting you isn't from the company that is responsible for yor domain name, it is a scam. Many of our customers have domain names registered through other companies, such as GoDaddy. If you're not sure who is your current registrar, you can go to a WHOIS lookup website, such as this one:
WHOIS Lookup
Domain name registered through us will either show Netwisp or Enom (our registrar), and anything we send to you regarding your domain name will be from us. If your domain name is registered through another company, it will show the responsible company. You can then determine if the person trying to reach you is authorized or not.
One way you can reduce the chances of being scammed is to order WHOIS protection for your domain name. Per ICANN rules, you're required to have valid contact information for your domain name. The WHOIS protection replaces the public information with a proxy one which prevents people from directly contacting you. You can add this service for your domain name for $10.95/year. You can do this by going to the domain name in your members area and clicking on the addons link on the left. You can then add the privacy option for your domain. We can also add it at any time for your domain name as well.
We hope that this information will help reduce any confusion you may have when you are contacted and avoid making any mistakes. We are also happy to talk to you when you receive a notice and aren't sure if its valid or not.
