idns envelope

I received a letter in the mail from iDNS (Internet Domain Name Services) today. Inside was a “Domain Name Expiration Notice” for one of my domains. It purposely looks like an invoice and has vague wording to make you think it is a bill.  To avoid being called a scam, they say in the letter “This is not a bill”. IMHO this is a very deceptive way to get you to transfer your domain name and pay excessive fees. It also means it’s technically not illegal.

Your domain is most likely not registered with this company. You can check by going to www.easywhois.com and typing your domain name in.

For example my domain for SClark Consulting shows up as follows.

Domain name: sclarkconsulting.ca
 Domain status: registered
 Creation date: 2010/05/28
 Expiry date: 2016/05/28
 Updated date: 2015/05/26
 Registrar: Name: (10dollar.ca) 10 Dollar Domain Names Inc. 

The ‘Registrar’ is what you are looking for, in my case it’s 10 Dollar Domain Names. (A good company I may add!)

iDNS will charge you 4x the price for a years service. Don’t be fooled. You do not have to transfer your domain before their ‘offer’ expires.

If you get one of these sorts of letters the best thing to do is to throw it out. Your domain registrar will email you when your domain is coming due. Other things you can do to prevent getting these sorts of letters include activating the privacy service on your domain through your registrar.

The domain the letter references was a old one I don’t currently use and I had not turned the privacy on. This has now been fixed!

If you are not sure feel free to contact me and I can help. I will be happy to check your domain registrar for you for no cost.