Official looking notice warns you about UDRP and urges you to register a .us domain name.
There are a number of scams that try to trick unsuspecting domain name owners into paying hefty prices to renew their domains or register new domains.
Here’s one that just came across my desk from a reader this week. It’s sent directly to the fax number on whois records, so if you don’t include a fax in whois, you may not have seen this before (although it appears to have been emailed at some point, too).
Titled “Final Notice” with a subhead “Intellectual Property Notification”, the fax says that a .us domain name matching your existing .com is available for registration. The fax then goes on to throw out provisions of the UDRP and try to scare you into thinking that if you don’t register the .us domain, you’re going to lose intellectual property rights…and maybe even your existing domain name!
This is similar to emails that purport to be sent from an Asian registrar that has received a request to register domains similar to the one you own. The sender says they are just trying to verify with you that it’s OK for this third party to register the names (and of course get you to register them through the scammer instead).
The fax, which you can view here, advises you that “US Domain Protection” is offering a “first right to use preference”. It continues:
You are required to advise the domain notification processor of your intent to (a) secure this domain name or (b) release your first right to use preference.
It warns you that if you ignore the notice:
a) The licensing rights of this domain name may be assigned to any other applicant
b) UDP and or any ICANN accredited registrar will not be liable for loss of domain license, identical or confusingly similar use of your company’s domain name, or interruption of business activity or business losses.
I dialed the number on the faxed notice, 1-800-936-8089, and played dumb. I told them someone at my company had received a notice that I needed to register a .us domain, and I wanted to know how much it would cost.
The person responded that they’d need the tracking number on my notice first. I said I’d have to go get that, but wanted to know how much it would cost. They responded that they’d need the tracking number in order to know what the notice was about.
I then told them that my domain was at Network Solutions, and asked if the new domain would be there, too. No, he responded, it would be a different company.
“Oh, where will may name be registered?” I asked. He again said he’d need the tracking number. I said, “You need a tracking number to tell me what registrar this is?” At which point I was hung up on.
A commenter on 800notes.com wrote that the company tries to get you to pay $350.00 for five years or $450.00 for 10 years.
The web address on the notice has changed over time. The example I link to in this article, which was faxed in 2012, included the address USNameRegistrar.com. That domain has expired and was registered by someone else.
The latest notice is from USDomainRegistrar.org, a domain that was registered on April 4 of this year. It’s merely a parked page.
It’s been hard to get misleading operations like this shut down in the past, although it occasionally happens. In a related case over deceptive trademark notices, a law firm has sued the perpetrators.
There is, of course, one way to make life harder for these people: waste their time. It doesn’t really cost them anything to blast faxes (or emails) to possible victims. What does cost them is the time they spend on the phone with you. If you get one of these notices, you can give them a call and chat them up a bit. If you don’t get one, just try giving them a bogus tracking number. They appear to be in the format EXP1234567.
John Berryhill says
We can expect more of this with enhanced WHOIS verification schemes in the pipeline. For example, when ICANN required the annual WHOIS data verification email, thus inuring registrants to the notion they would have to respond to regular emails in order to keep their domain names, it provided a phishing vehicle.
One of the architects of that policy, Thomas Roessler, has said, “With hindsight, it’s a bad policy…” (http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120719_a_confession_about_icann_whois_data_reminder_policy/) Of course, it was known to be flawed, for the reasons he states, with 100% foresight by others at the time.
The new plan – requiring telephonic verification by SMS-transmitted PIN – provides much richer opportunities. It’s one thing to have a telephone number which, for large corporations is typically their general number or, for many others, is often a landline number incapable or receiving SMS messages. It is another thing entirely for WHOIS to provide verified SMS-capable telephone numbers of individuals within such organizations. But that is the direction we are headed. What is brilliant about this scheme is that when those odd little charges start showing up on your cell phone bill, it won’t be traceable back to someone using WHOIS data as the source data.
RaTHeaD says
this was too long to read as a a comment. then i looked at the posters name so i read it anyway. good for you john berryhill. thanks for doing such great work.
Kassey says
“emails that purport to be sent from an Asian registrar that has received a request to register domains similar to the one you own.” I received something like that last year and I was silly enough to respond to them (sent from a self-claimed IP law firm) by explaining in details what I was doing with my domain. It’s only after the second email from them that I suspected that it’s a scam.
Stephanie says
Just received the exact thing via fax yesterday. Looks very official. Glad I googled the phone number before calling the 800#.
Terry Oregon Realtor says
I just received a similar fax from internetregistrations.org with a phone number of 800-250-7593 and a fax number of 888-908-6399. Fax was titled Intellectual Property Notification.
Cyber Que says
Received the same fax today
Anonymous says
Also received one of these faxes. Is this a scam?