Scam Alert! Don’t Fall For Domain “Bill” Scams

by Katie Hemmeter

We’re interrupting the regular blog schedule to bring you a timely warning. Recently, we received a suspicious piece of mail at the office:

If you own a website, you may have gotten something that looks similar. DO NOT SEND THEM MONEY. THIS IS A SCAM.

How do we know it’s a scam?

If you’re curious what tipped us off and what you should look for to spot a scam:

• Domain registrars never send bills via mail. Ever.
• It’s not even from your registrar.
• It says, “THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER.”

Like this:

So what do you do with the letter?

Recycle it and never think about it again. Seriously. This is trash.

Of course, it raises some relevant questions we can follow up with.

How do you know who your registrar is?

For one, who do you pay? You should get a bill emailed every year or few years depending on how long you paid for last time you paid. Some are as long as 5 or 10 years. So, who did you pay? Not the people that sent this letter, that’s for sure.

Secondly, check your domain using one of many lookup sites such as https://who.is/ and look for the registrar info. Once you find that info, do yourselves a favor and write it down. Try to log in. If it works, WRITE YOUR LOGIN DOWN AND KEEP IT SAFE. It’s very important info, and we may need to ask you for it in the future. Many people don’t keep track of where their money goes, but it’s important to have a record of this.

Don’t you pay OC for this?

Probably not. While we do manage some domains, we usually encourage clients to manage their own so they can control their billing rather than paying an upcharge for us to do it. So it doesn’t hurt to ask, but while it’s fresh on your mind, do the leg work to figure that info out. You’ll be thankful you did if there’s ever a problem in the future.