Comments on: Desperate Times Lead To Increase In Domain Name Spam

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:51:16 +0000

Thank you very much for your post. You saved me as well from the same spam and money trap.

Happy New Year!

By: Margo

Margo — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:21:16 +0000

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.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:58:54 +0000

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.

By: David North

David North — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:28:17 +0000

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!

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:14:07 +0000

Since my initial post I’ve received another one from register.com! Eeek.

By: miss m

miss m — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:00:35 +0000

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.

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:53:10 +0000

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.

By: Raulrocks

Raulrocks — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:35:48 +0000

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?