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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."
I'm so sick of waking up with a severed horse's head in my bed every time I fail to re-register my domain.
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.
Cross out your address and write on the envelope:
Return to sender
I usually also write one the back something like:
We do not accept mail from fraudulant or misleading sources.
I'm not sure if I'm accomplishing anything, but it makes me feel better. It might even cost them a couple cents!
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
So, although I might get these from time to time, I'll probably never see them. Thanks to spamassasin. My current registrar however, goes through spamassasin just fine and reaches my inbox unscathed. How convenient :)
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 |
Well, now that I think about it, it would a BOFHish thing to do.
Spooky.
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..
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
So you're saying the USA has the sneakiest registries? Why can't you americans accept that some people can be just as sneaky and dirty as you??
I think it's time someone made a "worldwide registry sneakiness index"!
RMN
~~~
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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Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
First of all, WHO are these people are getting distressed and intimidated by spam? They need some help.
Further....especially when it comes to real junk-mail in your postal mail box - the trend I've noticed is that the less important it is the more important they make the envelope look.
"Joe Smith, this is your ONE IN A FUCKING LIFE TIME OPPORTUNITY TO ______________"
(get a secured visa gold, get dept consolidation, get pet food for cheap, get a new life insurance policy for your parrot, contact your long lost relative, help me transfer funds out of nigeria)
It may be funny, but it's funnier still that you had to tell the moderators that it was funny.
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*
In addition to the Versign scams, we have these idiots to deal with.
This of course has nothing to do with the ineptitude of these idiots.
The solution to dealing with these creeps naturally is to do business with a reputable, knowledgeable outfit, and the idiots seem to be kept at bay.
-- Karma whore? You betcha. --
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.
My registrar for just over a year, very nice, very cheap ($8.95/year).. they even parked it for 2 weeks and let me know the credit card on file was bad.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
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.
Registrar Told To Stop Direct-Mail Scare-Tactics
Letter: Dear domain name owner: BOO!
Owner: EEP! *thud*
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Domain Registry of America does the same thing. They actually bagged my wife with their scam. She was being a sweetie by trying to keep my domain from being lost and paid the "bill". I had to look at the thing twice myself to make sure it was fake -- it does look "official."
Of course, I was suspicious because my domain wasn't due to expire for 6 months and wasn't registered with them in the first place. Took me months to get my money back.
DRoA are A**holes.
The registrars need to allow you to put a "lock" on your domain names the same way the phone compnaies allow you to lock your service, so you don't get "slammed".
load "windows7"
"Maybe it's a precedent in Europe, but if you're in America, that's worth about as much as a precedent on Mars.
Europe doesn't have a precedent. It has prime ministers and kings and things.
And I know Mars doesn't have a precedent. Those canals don't mean people live there. duh
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The ASA is a regulatory body in the UK with legal powers to beat the proverbial out of anyone sending/publishing misleading or unfair adverts such as these. (they don't have authority over TV or Radio ads as there's seperate entities looking after those)
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.
Thought that said The Register was resorting to direct-mail scare tactics.
/. and El Reg fit nicely into.
"Misleadingly exaggerating the importance and status of its content"? Hmm... sounds like a category both
(2,3-Benzopyrrole)
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
That's nuthin. I got a fax from a company called the "Internet Support Group" with all kinds of legalese. They essentially fax over a list of alternative TLDs for domain names that I own, trying to scare me into purchasing these alternative TLD versions of my domain name "in order to protect it" from someone registering one of the other versions in the future and exerting a claim against my .com name.
If someone did not know better, they'd jump to fork over their money "just in case". Of course, someone cannot trademark property where a prior ownership of that property has already been established. This is plain scaremongering using IP arguments to close a sale. A totally bogus and reprehensible communique.
http://www.internetsupportgroup.com is the domain name of these scumbags. Oooh- really scary! Take my money, please!