“Secure your domain name” scams: been there, done that
The main thing that have prompted me to buy all WebGrrrl domains under the major TLDs is because of this very reason.
My first encounter with the domain name scam is earlier this year. I received an e-mail from some Andy guy claiming to be working with Hong Kong Network Service Company Ltd (which is actually a real and valid company from what I’ve researched). The e-mail read something like this:
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are Hong Kong Network Service Company Limited which is the domain name register center in Asia. We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register “webgrrrl” as their domain name and Internet keyword on <date removed>. Since after our investigation we found that this word has been in use by your company, and this may involve your company name or trade mark, so we inform you in no time.
If you consider these domain names and internet keyword are important to you and it is necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon. Thanks for your co-operation and support.
My first thought when reading it was, ooooohhhh, I’m famous! I’m there! People want me! People love me! WebGrrrl’s cool! I’m cool! … and other such thoughts that would make your head explode with pride.
I should have deleted the e-mail right away, but it didn’t occur to me at first that it was all bull. So I replied the fella back, saying “yeah, WebGrrrl’s all mine” or something to that effect. Around the same time, I gave way to my paranoia and bought webgrrrl.org, while webgrrrl.com was still owned by someone else (who, by the way, offered to sell it to me about 2 years ago for the cheap price of US$100++). ONLY after I bought the .org did I suspect that the e-mail was a scam. I decided to trash it.
A couple of days later, I got a reply from him stating that since I didn’t follow up on him, he’ll continue with registration of the .asia — and other dots to that effect — on behalf of his client. Oh really?
Since that day, I’ve been eyeing on the .com version, patiently and quietly waiting through the extra 3-month holding period even when it was expired way back in March.
Then, a week before the .com domain was available, I began receiving more domain name spams. One was from InTrust Names, with the following e-mail:
Domain Sale Notice:
webgrrrl.com is coming availabe for sale in a few days.
Since you own the domain webgrrrl.net, we thought you’d be interested in webgrrrl.com.
If you do have interest in acquiring webgrrrl.com, please fill up priority notice form availble here: <some .us url>
the domain is available for purchase.
Another e-mail followed suit a couple of days later from Zip Domains:
Our company specializes in acquiring expired domain names to help individuals and businesses protect their brand online.
The domain name WEBGRRRL.COM expired recently and we were able to secure it.
We noticed that you own WEBGRRRL.NET and felt that you may be interested in acquiring the .COM version of your existing domain name.
It is available for a one-time fee of only $49.00 USD.
To purchase or learn more, please visit <their url>/buy.php?domain=webgrrrl.com
Do you know how these companies scam you? They’ll ask you to fill in their forms, including payment options and so forth. Once the domain is available, they’ll buy the domain el cheapo, then charges you at least 50% more than the actual price, and lastly reassign the ownership of that domain to you.
Why would you want to pay that much for something you can do by yourself and cheaply?
My months of obsession with WHOIS came to an end yesterday, when the domain was available for sale around 10.00am GMT+8. I immediately grabbed it through my GoDaddy account and coupon, and parted with US$7.15 to be the proud owner of that coveted .com.
The moral of the story: patience pays.
I love happy endings, don’t you?
Tags: domain name, scam
Unfortunately these things are becoming more and more common. It could be things like this or people wanting you to renew your domain subscription for a higher fee. Unfortunately it has to be working as they have been doing this for many years now.
/Mikael
Thanks for this blog entry. I got an email from InTrust (don’t trust people that say “trust me”, eh?), and now I know to ignore it and just wait. Thanks Webgrrrl.
These same folks at InTrust Domains tried to scam me too. Said they owned the domain I wanted and would sell it to me. We negotiated a price and then I checked the WHOIS records on my coveted domain. Found out InTrust didn’t own it. Then they tried to claim they were in some type of partnership with the actual owner of the domain and they would negotiate a sale. I didn’t believe them. Turns out I was right. The rightful owner of the domain offered it for public auction on Go Daddy and I won the auction for half the price I would have paid InTrust Domains to “possibly” secure it. When in doubt, check the Whois records to find the actual owner of a domain.
Hi – just to share my experience. I got an email from InTrust Domains / John Timmers which I also assumed was a scam. They said a domain name similar to mine but without the annoying dash/hyphen was coming up and would I be interested.
Out of curiosity, and because it was safe enough to do so, I named a relatively low price, which was accepted.
I thought I would wait and finally they mailed me to say they could offer the domain to me for the price I asked. I sent a couple of emails with pointed questions to check if they would scam me e.g. by not releasing the domain once I had paid. Both emails were answered personally and fast.
As the sum of money was low, I decided to risk it. I actually screwed up the CC info (right name,wrong cc brand), so mailed them to see if the transaction had gone through. Again they replied back personally to say no problem. I now have the domain in my name on WHOIS and have been told I can transfer in 60 days.
Their business model seems to be to hunt out ‘better’ domain names that are expiring (i.e. ones that don’t have fiddly things like hyphens) and alert the owner. If the owner is switched on / got time on their hands, they will zip off to see if they can purchase the expiring domain direct.
If not (I was too busy with work), once they detect the prospective purchaser is happy to purchase and states a value, they register the just expired domain themselves (paying to do so, I assume). They then (in my case) accept the offered bid – no painful haggling as I was expecting – and just pocket the difference in fees.
Frankly their quality of service (i.e. responsiveness) was better than most web firms I encounter. They may be cute, but – up to now – they aren’t scammers. Frankly, if you aren’t smart enough to keep any eye out for domains you want, these people are doing you a favour.
Hello:
Those dudes from http://intrustdomainsonline.com/ also sent to me the same kind of notice that one domain very similar to my domainname was becoming available. I had been monitoring it since a year ago as it was owned by a former partner who surely wanted to bargain with it, but we just ignored it, added a dash to that same domainname making it something like domain-name.com, also bought the .org without the dash in the middle but not the .net. In any case the business we own was booming and everybody new about it trhough blog and through gossips. The former partner had to renew and keep paying with no more bidders because we were the only ones. So he gave up. The domain was due in last september and was in this period of “redemption” through one of those “nobodies” Registrars who are awful, until NETSOL had it available again!!! I recommend NETSOL I’ve been with them for 11 years. So I bought it and I DID NOT EVEN BOTHER TO SEND A MESSAGE TO those oportunists of http://intrustdomainsonline.com/ . I just wanted to tell you that whenever some one tells you that SUCH DOMAIN is ALMOST available, YOU BETTER CHECK ANY WHOIS and rather go to NETSOL.COM check it , BUY IT and ignore the oportunists like http://intrustdomainsonline.com/.
DON’T ANSWER AND DON’T FORWARD ANY MAIL THAT YOU GET.
Unfortunately I was just duped by Intrustdomains.com I asked all the right questions; if they owned the domain, if they represented a client that “hired” them, etc. I figured they were probably making a profit somehow off of buying it cheap somehow. I checked godaddy and it was claimed and did not see a premium listing or anything else, so I had no other way of finding where it was being sold for cheap. It is a good domain even for the 97 so I am not too upset. Right now the Whois shows myself as the owner but I willl not feel comfortable until I successfully transfer it to my main godaddy account. I am having trouble with that right now. Any one know how to transfer out of Intrustdomains?