How about a stool sample Mr Internet conman?
May 2010 |
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One of the most annoying letters I get every year is from the Domain Name Registry of America or Domain Name Renewal Group who try to con me into renewing my domain name with them. Now, I know that this is a con but a lot of people are not so clued up.
Every year when domain names come up for renewal they send authentic looking letters out to unsuspecting website owners trying to convince them to transfer their domain name and take advantage of great deals. These letters are laid out to look like invoices but they are little more than invitations.
The letter is very professionally written and says something like: "As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registration that is due for renewal. When you switch today to the Domain Renewal Group, you can take advantage of our best savings."
They then go on to inform you that you must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the web and how easy it is to transfer your domain name from your current registrar. There is a line at the bottom that says registration of the domain includes DNS, URL and Email forwarding to a website and mailbox you designate.
Firstly, unless you work in the industry, you will not know what any of the above actually means and secondly, it very cleverly doesn’t tell you that these services don’t come free. In other words, what they are not telling you is that they will steal your domain name so you lose your website, whereby they will charge you a thousand million pounds to point it elsewhere and make your life very difficult or, for the additional fee of your house and probably your kidneys too, they might release it back to you. They will also no doubt empty your bank account and sell your identity to some bloke in Ghana.
They provide a payment form at the foot of the letter where you can enter your credit card details or send them a cheque. They even provide a pre-paid envelope. Very clever.
Well they are not that clever really are they? I mean they continue to send me these letters every year. Given that I register my own domain names through my company account, using our company’s domain name registrar and host it on our company’s servers, I’m not very likely to fall for something that is so blatantly a con. However, a lot of people are a bit dense when it comes to this. Say the word “website address” to someone and they will usually have a vague idea about what you mean. Say the word “Domain name” and they will look at you like you’ve just handed them a dead puppy. When you start using technical acronyms like DNS, URL, IPS, STD and AIDS people will simply lose the will to live and surrender to the seemingly more infinite knowledge being spouted at them.
Also, people tend to panic whenever they receive anything that looks official and will tend to drop their pants, bend over and sign their life away.
It is the same with the extortion letter sent out by Getty Images. They scour the web using sophisticated bots, searching for any images that bear a similar resemblance to one of theirs. If they come across one with seemingly no license they will send you a threatening letter demanding an obscene amount in compensation and threatening to kidnap your children if you don’t pay within 48 hours.
They mainly seem to target small businesses. Again, this is because Getty are huge and they know that most small companies will be so scared of them that they will just pay on the spot out of pure fear.
Well don’t be. They can only get at you if you are American, where it is deemed acceptable practice to sue for no reason whatsoever. In the UK, we are protected by laws such as Section 97 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 as well as Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. For all their annoyances, these nanny state Nazis do look after us to a certain extent.
Conmen are like bullies. They are all weak cowards to have unhappy home lives and were probably abused as children. As long as you stand up to them and know how to deal with them, eventually they will give up and leave you alone. Hopefully they will also die a slow and painful death as well.
So back to these domain name poachers. There must be something that can be done because what they are doing is effectively theft. Well sadly there isn’t. They are clever enough to word their letter so that they put the onus on the individual to release their domain name to them. All they are doing is offering people the chance to transfer and at no point do they make any fraudulent claims to entice people. They even include a nice little sentence telling you that there is no obligation to pay the amounts stated. They are simply preying on the ignorant and stupid.
So what can be done? Well here are my suggestions. The easiest option is just to ignore it, tear the letter up and do nothing. However, I happen to know that if a company sends pre-paid envelopes, they have to pay the Post Office whenever one of them is returned. Given that this Domain Renewal Group is probably not a legitimate company, I am convinced that if enough people sent the empty pre-paid envelopes back they will not be able to afford the cost and will go out of business.
However, sometimes they are even smarter and don’t provide a pre-paid envelope. This would be even more painful if you were to fall for the con because not only have you lost your domain name but you’ve also paid postage for the privilege.
So here is what you do. You affix a second class stamp on the envelope, empty your bowels into it with a note saying ‘You sent me your crap, I only think it’s fair I send you some of mine!’ Now surely that is worth the cost of s second class stamp?
