Anyone had one of these ? Domain Renewal Group

[exsedo]

I received a letter the other day from an organisation called Domain Renewal Group.
They have looked up one of my domains and used it in the letter to make a renewal form.

The thing is they are charging £25 for 1 year,
£40 for 2 years (save £10), and £75 for 5 years (save £50) for .com domains.

Yea right. As if I am going to pay that ridiculous amount when it only cost half that amount at my registrar.

I looked on the back of the letter and there is a registration agreement T/C in microscopic font.
Looking through it with a magnifying glass I discovered that Enom inc, Wild West Domains inc, Brandon Gray Internet Services Inc, and Domain Renewal Group are all involved in this, and the contact address is:-
56 Gloucester Rd, Suite 526,
LONDON, ENGLAND SW7 4UB.

Enom must be in a real desperate position to be trying to scam people like this.

 

[Bannen]

I receive one of these letters every few months, but I think it's by a Canadian version of that registrar, I think the name is the same but my letters come from Canada. But to the same effect: they say one of my domains is expiring soon and I can transfer it to them and register for another year for *only* $75 for the first year.

They obviously output a sizable investment in doing this, since they use professionally-printed letters and envelopes, so they must suck in enough out-of-the-loop domain owners to actually make it worth their while.

Too bad. Yet another scam to bilk the less-educated domain owners out of $65 more than they need to pay for a domain renewal.

 

[Erdy]

I received one of those. They try to scam clueless people. Wild west domains is owned by godaddy. Both godaddy and enom provide reseller accounts. They are just a reseller.

 

[Kate]

BTW I seem to remember that Brandon Gray was terminated as a CIRA registrar (.ca domains) recently.

 

[TheBaldOne]

Yes, as Bannen above I get them every few months.

It is of course a total scam against the uninformed domain owners who actually make up the majority of domain owners. The thing is they rely on the fact that many domain owners actually already pay between 3 and 10 times the cost of a domain registration for their domain anyway. Just a few hundred yards from me is a company that charges between £25-£50 a year for a domain renewal, they even charge up £600 for a basic site design using a CMS that is totally free - the owner has to upload everything themselves. The joke is that people pay it willingly because they know no better.

Anyway back the OP, just be satisfied that they have wasted money on sending you the letter, this is how I look on it.