Domain Frauds

Avoid getting ripped off by a fraudster!

Sadly there are bad people in the world and this applies online just as much as it does offline. A common scams which we see from time to time are as follows:-

Domain Slamming

Here a registrar sends out renewal notices that confuse the owner of a domain name into transferring the domain away from their current registrar to a rival, usually the wording of these notices are carefully crafted so not to draw your attention to what is actually going on. Almost always the fees for the transfer and renewal are far higher than what you would pay if you stayed with your current service.

There have been a number of court cases over this sort of behaviour and thankfully we see less of it currently.

Trademark

A trademark owner receives and email to say that someone is trying to register exotic versions of their domain name for example .com.cn and would the real trade mark owner like to purchase them before they are taken by the alleged third party.

This is just an out and out scam, there is no third party and the company involved is just trying it on in the event that the trademark owner will be willing to pay to protect their brand.

So as with any unsolicited email just avoid these scams.

Adrian Lawrence is a webmaster with Discount Domains one of the top UK registration services.