It seems there are always people out to scam you.
Anybody getting tired of this avatar?
Remember phone slamming? It showed up in the late ‘90s. Without you even knowing it, your telephone carrier could be changed and you could be charged exorbitant fees. And there wasn’t anything you could do about it.
Phone Slamming
There were several variations of this scam going around. In one variation, the unknowing victim would receive a telephone call from his or her telephone company customer service rep. Problem was, it wasn’t really from their phone carriers. The call actually came from a “representative” of a competitive phone company.
These scammers would ask you for personal information, and once they had that personal information – BAM, they would change your telephone carrier from the one you’d signed up with, to their own company that had a completely new set of Terms of Service (TOS) and much higher prices in general . The victim wouldn’t even know that he’d changed telephone carriers. He didn’t give permission – he was slammed. And for a few years it was a very serious problem.
A variation on this theme was to send out real, negotiable checks – actual money in check form. If the receiver cashed the check (who wouldn’t?), they would be slammed, having their phone service switched without their permission and suddenly finding themselves paying astronomical rates to a brand new company.
“What happened? And who’s “Tico’s Telephone Company, anyway?” You didn’t have to be big to get into the telephone slamming game because you bought line usage in bulk from the legitimate carriers and sold it at 10 or 20 times what you, the ‘telephone company’ paid for the bulk access to telephone lines.
Telephone slamming tended to make customers angry. It certainly wasn’t good for the economy. Consumers couldn’t trust their phone carriers, but the legitimate carriers weren’t all that interested in fixing the problem since they were selling bulk access by the ton – and making a lot of money by the ton.
So, laws were passed. Customers could contact their carriers and ask to have a “No Slamming” label put on their account so only the consumer could change carriers. And that pretty much ended the telephone slamming industry.
Fast forward a few years. There are no new ideas.
Domain Slamming
Instead, the bad guys are now slamming domains, moving them from one registrar to another without the knowledge of the domain owner. Surprised? Well, for many domain owners, all kinds of business and personal information is available in WHOIS, the official listing of domain owners: their addresses, company names, telephone numbers – it’s all there for the taking.
Here’s how the scam works.
Domain Slamming
Have you ever migrated your site from one web host to another? Sure, maybe several times as your site grew. It’s that way for a lot of on-line businesses and domain slammers know this.
So what they do is contact you by e-mail telling you that your domain registration is about to expire. Now mind you, this communication is from a scammer, but it looks and sounds legit. Who knows what happens once a registrar lists a new domain? Does that domain always stay with the same registrar? Many site owners wouldn’t have a clue.
The e-mail warns that if you don’t take immediate action, you’ll lose your domain name so, naturally, you respond. That’s what most of us do when we get something like that in our inboxes. The prospect of losing your domain name and your on-line venture is downright scary.
By responding to the bogus e-mail, you’re not just renewing your domain name. You’ve also been slammed and you now find your domain registrar is a completely different company from your original registrar. And how do these companies make money? Well, first they become your new registrar so they’re making money on the actual registration of your name. But, to add insult to injury, they totally boost your registration fees from $2.95 a year (some web hosts register domain names free) to $29.95. And this charge simply shows up on your credit card and there’s not a thing you can do about it. You’ve been slammed and scammed.
And now you’re partnering with a registrar/host that used outright fraud to get your account, so how well do you think they’re going to treat you as a hosting client? By falling for that bogus e-mail (snail mail or telephone call) from an unscrupulous registrar/host, you could be signing up for a three-year, no loophole contract charged to your credit card. You could be paying for services you don’t need and never asked for – at an additional charge, of course.
Other nightmarish scenarios? You log on and all of a sudden your site e-mail is “out of order.” Or, you might discover that your domain name has been hijacked and now points to a completely different site. In effect, you’re now invisible on the web.
Worse case scenario? The bad guys run the scam for a few months, transfer a few thousand accounts – often without site owners even knowing this – and one day the owners log on and their sites and the web host have disappeared altogether. Now, not only have site owners lost their web sites, they’ve also lost all of their customer and product information contained in the business databases.
Destroyed. Years of hard work down the drain – all because your domain was slammed and you got scammed.
How to Avoid Domain Slamming
First, a domain is a “property.” With the help of a registrar, your domain is registered and you “own” it just like you own your car or house. And, on the web, digital property has value. It’s up to each site owner (domain registrant) to protect his or her own property since there’s virtually no “police” presence on the web. If you don’t watch out for what’s going on, who will?
Second, register with a reputable web host – one that has a track record you can see. It’s been in business for 10 years and you can’t find any complaints on webmaster blogs and forums. Go with a company that has a reputation for trustworthiness.
Third, don’t believe your e-mail – at least at face value. Sure, you might receive a notice from your legitimate registrar that your domain name is up for renewal. But how would you know it’s legit? Well, good hosting companies have toll-free, customer support 24/7 so, pick up the telephone and ask a customer service representative if that e-mail is really from your registrar/host.
Finally, check your credit card charges. Have monthly fees increased without explanation? Is there a huge expense for the re-registration of your domain name? Is there a new company billing you? All good signs that your domain has been slammed.
It’s up to you to protect what’s yours – what you’ve paid for. And the best way to do that is to go with a reputable registrar – one interested in protecting your e-commerce property. One that will alert you if another company is trying to slam you. A company that will tag your account with a “Do Not Touch” sign to protect against scammers. And one that will automatically renew your domain so you don’t even have to think about it.
It’s not a new scam. In fact, it’s an old one, just updated to on-line technology. So, watch yourself and keep track of who your registrar is. And, if you even suspect that someone is trying to slam your domain, contact your registrar immediately.
