Summersault Weblog

Just today, we’ve received two reports of our clients getting mailings from organizations claiming that payment is needed in order to maintain or renew services related their hosting account or domain, and in both cases, the mailing was just a scam. These mailings often come in the format of an official order form that appears to be important and time-sensitive, and so it scares the unsuspecting domain owner into sending a check rather than risk losing their website.

We’ve written here before about the horrors of domain management on the Internet, but this is a particularly troublesome practice, and adds a whole other layer of complexity and hassle to an already difficult and complex system. In another recent case, one of our customers did have their website go offline briefly because they’d sent payment to the wrong organization and ignored the notices from the real domain authority - yikes! Here are a few tips to avoid being swindled by these notices:

1. Never give out payment information or send a check without first verifying the authenticity of the request. When you register your domain or order services like search engine submission and URL forwarding, you’ll be given a username and password to use in accessing and managing your account. Using that information, you can visit the website of the organization where you placed the order, login and check the status of your services. Only then if you see a notice about the expiration or renewal should you take action. If you’re still not sure, contact your web hosting provider and/or your domain registrar directly, and ask them to confirm the renewal notice.
2. Don’t give in to time pressure. Domain registrars will not typically call you or fax you on short notice asking for instant payment under threat of something being shut down. Even if the request is legitimate, you may need to act quickly but you still have the time to call back the organization using a contact phone number known to you, and to confirm the request. Most registrars even offer a grace period of at least a few days after the expiration date before actually turning anything off, so unless you’ve really been impossible to reach, it’s rare that you’re actually in danger of having services suspended.
3. Renew your domain for several years at a time. These “predator” scams look for organizations that have domain names that might be expiring soon, and contact them in hopes that amidst the confusion of legitimate renewal notices, you’ll accidentally send the money to the wrong place. If you can afford to renew your domain for at least 5 years (and plan to need it for that long), you can avoid some of that hassle year after year. Some domain registrars, including the one for which Summersault is a reseller, even offer significant financial savings for multi-year orders.
4. Designate a domain contact and keep that contact information current. Especially if you have multiple domains and services but even if you only have one, you should make sure you keep the contact information that your domain registrar has on file current. If they can’t e-mail you or send you postal mail about your account, then you’re much more likely to be caught off-guard by any renewal request, whether or not it’s legitimate. When possible, try to keep all of your domain services managed through one registrar.
5. Report any scams to the appropriate organizations. The Federal Trade Commission and The Better Business Bureau will be interested to know about these kinds of deceiving communications, and while they may not be able to respond in your particular case, it can be important to make the report anyway. You may also want to contact your local Chamber of Commerce or business network so they can alert other local members.

We hope these tips help you keep your domain and related services safe from unscrupulous vendors. If you’re a Summersault hosting client and you’re ever not sure about a notice you receive, please submit a technical support request and we’ll be happy to help you determine whether or not it’s real.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Sysadmin / Hosting, Internet / Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.