Desperate Times Lead To Increase In Domain Name Spam
December 9, 8 Comments
It seems that the people sending the domain name postal mail spam have stopped for Christmas; time now to prepare for the electronic kind. Watch out kids, here it comes!
In order to educate consumers and protect the marketplace from this type of activity, I thought I’d post two examples that have recently popped into my inbox.
I’m just presenting the facts – judge for yourself.
Exhibit A – ZipDomains
I received the email below from i...@zipacquisitions.com. Their website (zipacquisitions.com) diverts to zipdomains.com and has i...@zipdomains.com as the contact.
Both domains are registered to:
Zip Domains i...@zipdomains.com. 233 Middleton Rd. Glenside Wellington 6037 NZ and have a US phone number +1 206-202-1813. Of course I had to call it – its just an automated answering service.
If you check out their website, there is a DNOA logo. However, neither email address can be found in DNOA profile lookup, yet they display the certified reseller logo on their site, without the link.
— Start Of Email —
Subject: edited-out-for-privacy.ORG
Our company specializes in acquiring expired domain names to help individuals and businesses protect their brand online.
The domain name edited-out-for-privacy.COM is expiring and will be available to the public very soon.
We noticed that you own edited-out-for-privacy.ORG and felt that you may be interested.
We can assist in trying to acquire the domain name, as there are likely many interested parties competing for it.
We do not charge upfront, and the fee if we are successful is only $199 USD.
If you are interested, please let us know by December 10 at the latest.
— ends —
I own the .org and the .com is currently in PendingDelete status. So if I say “yeah go ahead”, they just backorder it for me. Who knows…get a few ignorant customers and it might be a nice little earner.
Exhibit B – Register.com
I received an email from register.com with a subject line of “Keep edited-out-for-privacy.COM Up and Running”.
You can see the graphic below showing “Renewal Notice” in big orange letters. The only thing is that my domain name wasnt due for renewal for another 7 months! But hey, I can pay you $35 for a .com! Now that’s a bargain if I’ve ever seen one!
The ethical issue here is…. a person reading this may think its a domain name renewal notice (therefore thinking their domain is going to expire) and they should pay register.com $$$$. In countries that have relatively mature consumer protection laws (such as Australia) such an email may be regarded as misleading and deceptive conduct. Its important to note that I’m not a lawyer, this is just my opinion – based on receiving this email.
Have you noticed an increase in spam? Post a comment and let us know!
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Ok, I TOTALLY get the second example. You’re getting an email from someone who’s not your registrar asking you for money for something that’s not even due yet. But I don’t get why the first one is bad. Am I missing something? If you want the .COM version of your existing name and they are offering to try to get it for you, how do you lose? You don’t pay them unless you get it right? And from what I hear trying to pick it up on your own is virtually impossible with all the second market companies out there picking up deleted names. So why is this bad?
The first one is spam. If I wanted the .com version I would backorder it myself. It’s easy to pickup names this way.
In the first example, the company was my registrar for the name – they just sent me something that looked like my domain was going to expire and I had to renew it.
Why it’s bad is because THEY WON’T STOP SPAMMING YOU! I’ve now gotten 18 separate emails across FOUR different email accounts telling me to take advantage of the opportunity to buy the .com version of the .org I own.
I wish they would just leave me the hell alone.
Since my initial post I’ve received another one from register.com! Eeek.
Thank you for posting this article. I received a ZipDomains solicitation yesterday, similar to the one you posted, but it said “The domain name ———–.COM recently expired and we were able to secure it.” It was being offered to me for $99. The solicitation was for a domain that I did want. I had registered .net, etc. a couple of months ago and had been disappointed that the .com was not available. When I received the ZipDomains solicitation I figured $99 was a price I was more than willing to pay, but I had never heard of ZipDomains and did a web search to try to learn whether or not they were legitimate and trustworthy. I came upon your article, which made me skeptical and curious whether or not ZipDomains had actually “secured” the domain in question as they claimed in the solicitation. As it turns out, they did not actually register it after the previous registration expired, and neither did anyone else. So I registered it successfully through my registrar today for a normal registration fee. Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time to respond David. I’m glad you found my post and managed to avoid their $99 fee. Have a great Christmas.
I also want to thank you for the post. It saved me the $99, though I was going to email them to find out if they would sell it for $50. (Everything else is on sale right now.) I ended up purchasing the name on my own for a normal fee as well.
Thank you very much for your post. You saved me as well from the same spam and money trap.
Happy New Year!