Yesterday I got two letters (as in actual snail mail!) from Domain Registry of Canada, an official sounding name and official looking forms telling me that a couple of my domain names are about to expire and offering renewal. Not only that but they even offer alternates (.net and .org instead of .com) like all good domain registrars. The problem? My domains aren’t registered with them! Do they do some kind of “scraping” on whois.net or is there a central place all registrars can access the info? I don’t know but watch for it, in my case anyway they are changing more than I’m paying and charging to them would possibly bring about other charges with my host. Seems the scam is based in Canada and used elsewhere
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I’ve received those letters in the past. Definitely a very well realized scam, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they bought the list from Verisign directly. There isn’t necessarily anything shady about them having your address – what’s sketchy is how they chose to market to you.
You’re probably right.
J’avoue que je me suis fait attrapé par eux l’an passé pour deux nom de domaines… Je sais… C’est pas fort mon affaire!
Par la suite, ça l’a été très difficile de récupérer mes noms de domaines. Le services fonctionne très bien par contre. J’ai eu aucun problème de DNS avec eux.
C’est vraiment la méthode d’approche qui est douteuse.
Similar scams have been reported before as in this article from last year. I saw one of their envelopes – it had been cunningly designed to look like it came from a government ministry and would surely have fooled many naive people into paying them. Don’t throw away your “bill” – let me see if I can find out more about how to report this.
I’ve gotten that letter a few times too. One of my ISPs warns me about it whenever I’m on the phone with them.
I emailed Mark Stachiew at the Gazette – a lame paper, but Mark is a good guy. He suggests this RCMP page and also this economic crime reporting page if you want to do something about it.