Slashdot Mirror
Registrar Told To Stop Direct-Mail Scare-Tactics
kiwimate writes "This article says the Domain Registry of Europe has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority to cease and desist on a direct mail campaign that was "distressing and intimdating to recipients" and "misleadingly exaggerated the importance and status of its content". The letter suggested that domain names should be renewed at least 30 days before they expired, and gave recipients an easy option of renewing through the DR of E. Having had to deal with this from an almost identically named company in America, the quoted phrases don't seem nearly as sneaky and dirty as some I've seen, but it's good to see a precedent."
especially funny are the ones where they claim that "if you don't register .tv, you'll lose your opportunity forever." like I care.
I'm glad they are doing something about this. If you want general direct mail stopped, or at least slowed down, check out this site.
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
sorry for bringing this up but...
Does it not strike anyone else that this community freaks out everytime some gov't or other official entity even *hints* at limiting someone's GPL half-baked scheme, yet the same community practically screams for blood when one of those half-baked schemes involves spam?
I hate social engineering-- except for those policies against the people I don't like...
davejenkins.com |
My customers get this all the time.. the sleazeballs who send them out make them look like invoices, in the hopes that their victims will think it's legit.
ICANN (or whoever gives authorizes registrars) should take punitive action against fraudsters like this..
I got one of these a couple of months ago. It really does look like a bill and it's only after reading the smaller print at the bottom (or having at least a basic idea of who you're registered with, and why) that you would know it's just a trick.
I have it on my desk somewhere but I can't find it under my huge piles of crap -- um, I mean important work-related documents -- but it's really an interesting scam. As far as I remember it doesn't say the word 'switch' or 'change' anywhere, just 'renew with us', or whatever it is, which is totally misleading. The thing is they just have to set their bots to scan a couple of domain databases and auto-print however many thousand of these things per day and then they can just sit back and collect the payments. They only need 1-2% response and they're rich, almost without lifting a finger.
If it wasn't such a low and dirty trick, preying on the ignorant like it does, I'd have to be impressed and we did laugh when we got it in the mail but it is disgusting and I'm glad something is being done about it.
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Seriously....
Slash sometimes looks over the fact that it only represents %10 of the internets user base at the most. The other %90 of the web is owned by places like chucks kitchen remodeling or mary's giftbaskets, where their webspace is nothing more than an online business card they created with page creator.
Although Registrars.com mail is annoying, I just make a killfile and it automagically disapears from my inbox. I know when I registered my domains and when I have to renew them. Yet for every 1 guy like me there are 10 guys that isn't.
Now sure, it may seem like registrar is using predatory tactics with headlines like.
"YOU MAY LOSE YOUR DOMAIN IF YOU DONT ACT NOW"
But have you ever tried to get a non computer person to get motivated and do something on a computer related task? Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate is what they will do. I can just imagine the volume of calls that registrar.com must have recieved from angry domain holders when they lost their domain to some cybersquatter. Not just calls, but lawsuits too no doubt.
Obviously it's a lot easier to send out these menacing e-mails than it is to staff a call center to deal with the angry phone calls and complaints. My hats off to them for such a great idea! I think i'm going to send a mail to my exchange users now...
CLEAN OUT YOUR MESSAGES FROM YOUR OUTLOOK PST OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR COMPUTER!!
*clicks send*
I had a customer tell me not too long ago that someone called him and tried to sell him insurance for his domain name to protect it from being registered by someone else right before and/or after it expires. The customer told the spammer to go scratch.
I highly doubt it but I have to ask.. is this a legit practice?
Speak truth to power.
Having had to deal with this from an almost identically named company in America, the quoted phrases don't seem nearly as sneaky and dirty as some I've seen, but it's good to see a precedent.
... these guys, who seem to be affiliated with Enom somehow (and who can't build a proper pending page, it seems).
DRoEurope is run by the same folks who brought you DRoAmerica and DRoCanada
DRoC was earlier slapped for sending mail using a logo remarkably similar to the Canadian governments logo.
Obviously these guys have no scruples. On the plus side, you can probably safely ignore anything you receive from the Domain Registry of Africa, Domain Registry of Asia and the Domain Registry of Oceania.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
At my previous employer, we got one of these letters while I was out-of-office. Unfortunately, they didn't read into it and signed up with (our local version) the Domain Registry of Canada (DROC).
When I found out, I placed a nice little call to the DROC, wherein my employer talked to them and supposedly had the switch halted.
The good thing: The domain never got switched off. It hadn't expired yet, so we re-registered with our original registrar and stayed on with them.
The bad thing, the fraud thing: DROC was supposed to refund the charge to our company VISA, as they had already processed payment. They didn't. We called them and found out that "no request for refund had been entered in their system." They never actually took over our domain registry (thank god) so no service was ever in fact rendered by them to the comapny. I don't know if the refund ever came back (going to email my old employer now and ask), but this seems quite underhanded and suspicious to me.
That's right -- the first and biggest domain registrar in the world has done exactly the same thing -- they have also sent "renewal" notices to the administrative contact addresses of domains registered with different registrars. They've had to settle with at least a couple of other registrars whose customers they tried to steal.
It would be nice if someone would crack down on them this way.
Catherine