Today I received an invoice from the above company advising that one of my .com domain names for my clients was due for renewal and invoicing me for the option of a 1 or 2 year renewal.
I thought it was a bit suspicious as the domain it not registered through them however I figured that maybe they were a governing body of some description.
I had a quick look around and it looks like this company is a scam - certainly according to their Wikipedia page.
Can someone confirm if they’ve heard of this company? Are they fake? If so, should I report them, and who to? I haven’t (and don’t intend to) sent them any money.
I’ve seen similar letters over the years from various companies. Usually they cover themselves somewhere in the fine print with a “this is not an actual invoice”.
If there’s a Better Business Bureau where the company is located you could draw it to their attention.
[I]"In 2004, a Canadian federal district court, on the request of the Federal Trade Commission, ordered DROA — then based in Ontario, Canada — to stop making misrepresentations in the marketing of its domain name registration services.
The company was required to pay redress to up to 50,000 consumers. DROA was prohibited from engaging in similar conduct in the future, and was subject to monitoring.
Earlier that year, the UK Advertising Watchdog Authority (ASA) slammed Domain Registry of Europe over similar claims, but the DROE maintained that the notices were not a bill, rather an easy way of switching registrar.
Also in Canada, in 2004, Daniel Klemann, previously the president of DROA, was sentenced to a CA$40,000 (NZ$52,150) fine and a five-year prohibition order, following a Competition Bureau investigation"[/I]
Those guys are among the lowest forms of life in the web industry. While their “a way of switching registrar” they are CLEARLY (and I’ve received a lot of them) misrepresenting themselves to act like an invoice for services. Both their brand name and the letter and the way it’s worded is VERY much aimed to misrepresent themselves as some kind of authority which requires payment or the domain will be lost… I know unsuspecting people who have been taken advantage of these people. It’s very much a scam IMO as it’s clearly directed to try and mislead customers… their one group of people I would happy like to see locked up in a prison cell.
Not to bump something this old, but I just got TWELVE letters from them for different domain names I have…
I’ve gone ahead and submitted a report with the BBB, sent copies to the FTC, and put together a nice little package for the USPS to try and see if I can get their mailing privilege revoked. (If it can take down pornographers, it can take down scam artists).
The volume of letters at once may also be sufficient to go after them for harassment. I got out of paying a medical bill once that way as the bill collector sent me separate bills for each item used in my arm surgury; right down to each suture and wad of gauze… was like 50+ bills that wouldn’t even fit in my mail box.
Got that bill collector’s mailing privilege revoked too!
I wonder why they become active from time to time? I suppose due to their hyperactivity they should be banned or something like that.
You are not subscriber and you haven’t agreed to get their emails.
SCAM. However, why anyone would pay them 3-4X the price of registering a domain name is beyond me. I’m tempted to send back some time and order some new TLD for one of my domains using the TEST credit card number which I use (it’s designed to test the cc number hashing and nothing more - it IS recognized as a test number and not a valid number). At least it would cost them the return postage and time to discover MY fraud.
