About every three months I get a letter from a company that calls itself the Domain Registry of Canada. It looks like an invoice, knows my name and a couple of the (many) domain names I own. They ask me to pay $40 per year to renew my domain name registration.
For the love of all things Holy, don’t send these people money!
Three Reasons The Domain Registry of Canada is a Scam!
- The letter looks like an invoice and targets individuals who aren’t internet savy. It’s actually a solicitation to switch from my existing service to theirs, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to tell people to put that letter in the shredder.
- $40 per year is at least 400% more than I pay with my current registar, and you can get registration for as low as $5. I’m sure that if you’re not even sure what a TLD is then $40 seems pretty reasonable.
- The name ‘Domain Registry of Canada’ is an attempt to make the business seem more official. There is a case where the same company was fined by the Competition Bureau back in 2004. It doesn’t look like much has changed since then.
Just a quick search in Google for domain registry of canada scam will show you the very long list of people complaining about the company.
Some other posts about the topic:
Yep, my mom fell for this scam. She’s not particularly Internet-savvy, but was put in charge of handling the website for her dog club. Shortly after they changed the WHOIS to show her information, she got a letter from DRC and sent them money, thinking this was their registrar.
She happened to ask me about it and I explained that it was a big scam. I wrote them an email explaining the situation and sent it from her address. While they tried to put up a bit of a fight, they rolled over pretty easily and refunded her payment.
Of course, she hadn’t updated the DNS (it still had the old registrar’s info listed) so they couldn’t actually do anything (such as holding the domain hostage). If she had updated it, I suspect it would have been much harder to get a refund.
I’m sure they’d rather you don’t switch the domain over….just take the money and run (whoo-hoo-hoo!)
My dad’s company gets them about once a month, and I know lots of other people who get them. It just makes me angry, as I’m sure it works like a hot damn.
I get them once in a while, too, so they aren’t just targeting businesses (none of my domains are business-related). As far as I’m concerned, it shouldn’t be legal. While they don’t outright lie to you in those letters, it’s some of the most deceptive advertising I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there are thousands of people who fall for it every year.