Domain Scams

There are a number of scams involving domain names that our customers frequently see. The two most common are:
Domain "renewal" services which are actually domain transfers
"Listing" services or search engine registration services

For each category, there are a number of companies that engage in questionable or predatory behavior. Two companies are better known for each of these scams. These are Domain Registry of America (http://www.droa.com) (DROA) and Internet Listing Services Corporation (ILSCorp). (http://www.ilscorp.net/) Check out what Google has to say about each of these two companies by searching for "droa scam" and "ilscorp scam".

Note, DROA also does business as Domain Registry of Canada (DROC).
Domain "Renewal" Services

DROA monitors domains which are coming up for renewal in the near (but not too near) future and sends out letters via snail/postal mail to the registrants of the domain. These letters look like domain registration renewals, though their fine print is very careful to state that they are in fact transfers (early versions of this scam, before the FTC got involved, failed to state this at all).

Customers who don't notice the fine print (and it is often easy to miss) and who return the form to DROA along with payment for the "renewal" will end up receiving an e-mail from DROA with instructions on how to complete the transfer. Domains which are transferred over to DROA often have their DNS servers changed to list DROA's servers. This is particularly destructive as this often results in a complete DNS failure.

Customers who use our Custom DNS service that get into that situation can, contact our support department to help get things straightened out.
Domain "Listing" Services

ILSCorp. does not even offer something as useful as domain registrations. They sell "listing" in various search engines. Shortly after registering a new domain you may receive a letter from them in the mail. This letter is a solicitation for them to enter your domain into various search engines, but the design of the letter makes it look very much like a bill. If you do get one of these things, put it in the trash, burn it, shred it, whatever, but don't send them any money.

If you are feeling particular annoyed, contact the FTC and file a complaint. Complaints from consumers are what eventually got the judgement against DROA and ILSCorp deserves the same treatment.

DynDNS never sends snail mail to our customers, so if you have a domain through us and get something in the mail regarding that domain, treat with healthy skepticism. And, any email from us will always come from the dyndns.com domain, be in plain text format without attachments, and any links will always point back to our dyndns.com domain. Anything not meeting that description should be handled with the utmost care.