Corporate Blog

Warning about ongoing domain registration scam

9 October 2015 09:12:28 +0000

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear from a client with questions about a spam email that they have received regarding their domain registration(s). We appreciate hearing about these as it gives us the chance to reiterate with individual clients what to look out for in these emails, and to learn about new scams as they arise or determine that the old ones are still running.

One old one looks like the following:

From: Charles Zhang [mailto:charles@yiguandns.com]
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 6:01 AM
To:
Subject: yourdomain CN domain and keyword

(Please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On Oct 8, 2015, we received an application from Huamei Holdings Ltd requested “yourdomain” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?

Kind regards

Charles Zhang
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
B06, Yujing Building, No.1 Jihe Road,
Shanghai 201107, China
Tel: +86 21 6191 8696
Mobile: +86 138 1642 8671
Fax: +86 21 6191 8697
Web: www.yiguandns.com

Note that “yourdomain” in the email above is the client’s actual domain, without the TLD — top-level domain, the part to the right of the dot. For example, if your domain is example.com, the subject of this email would be “example CN domain and keyword”. Of course, the actual wording of the subjects and bodies of these scam emails can and do vary, as well as the senders.

These emails are nothing but unsolicited solicitations to register (in this case) the same domain as your existing domain in the dot-cn (China) ccTLD (country code top-level domain) — e.g., example.cn if you already own example.com. There are other variations on these attempts to scare you into registering domains you almost certainly don’t need, usually, we have noticed, in TLDs in East Asia. However, scams like this can and do originate from all over the world. Also, remember that there is no such thing as an “internet keyword”; you cannot buy such a thing, it’s just a general description of a concept.

As always, if an unsolicited email (or, for that matter, phone call, postal letter, fax, smoke signal, etc.) tries to scare you into taking some sort of action — especially if it involves getting you to spend money — it is certainly a scam. Whether it involves domains or anything else, check with a trusted and knowledgeable advisor in whatever industry is involved before you take any action. Don’t even reply to these people, and certainly don’t send them any money.

As always, if you have any questions about emails you have received regarding your domains or hosting, we’ll be happy to address them.

Tags: domains, scams
Categories: Warnings
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Delaying tactics by Network Solutions

21 January 2015 23:55:41 +0000

Businesses hate to lose customers, there’s no question of that. We hate to lose customers, there’s also no question of that. When a client tells us that they will be closing their account with us for one reason or another — it happens! — we’ll ask if there is anything we can do to keep their business. More often than not we’ll learn (often to our surprise) that the client is actually closing shop, and they’re not moving to another hosting provider — which is a bit of a relief (to us) in that we know they’re not leaving because of something we did, or something we didn’t do.

Sometimes, of course, the client is actually moving to a new hosting provider. As we’ve stated before, we do say that we’re sorry to see them go — and we mean it — and we ask if there’s anything we can do to keep their business, but if they’re committed then we back off. Importantly, we also don’t do anything to impede their progress into the sunset. In our opinion, that would be unprofessional, and we’d then deserve to lose that business. And given the number of clients that end up returning to us months or a year or two later, we’d be idiots to burn that bridge.

So it was interesting to learn today that Network Solutions (owned by Web.com) has apparently (at some point) implemented a three day waiting period if you ask for the “auth code” for a domain registered through them. (The authorisation code is required to effect a domain transfer from one registrar to another.) Now, it is our assertion that every domain name owner should ask for and make a note of the auth code for their domain as soon as it’s registered, and should also change it (if permitted by the registry) after a registrar transfer. (There is a long history of domain owners being caught flat-footed in times of crisis without this information.) But most of our incoming clients have not done that, and so now this client is being held hostage by Network Solutions for three days, waiting for the information — information they already own — that they need to effect the transfer they want to make. Network Solutions give the following reason, after a couple of screens of FUD-generating warnings of imminent Armageddon that are clearly designed to scare the domain owner into not obtaining the information to which they are entitled:

Your request for an Auth Code has been received and your information will be validated to ensure the security of your account. If your request is approved, you will receive your Auth Code by email in 3 days.

To cancel this request, please call one of our Customer Service Representatives at 1-800-779-4903.

Thank you.

Now, it’s all well and good that Network Solutions claims (or hides behind) the excuse of “[ensuring] the security of your account” (which is not surprising, considering they were responsible for one of the biggest screw ups in domain history when they allowed the fraudulent registrant transfer of a domain registered with them back when they held the monopoly on gTLD registrations), but this is clearly a delaying tactic to give the customer time to lose the will to transfer because now it’s just too much of a problem, too much effort, too complicated, too time-consuming … or whatever negative feeling develops in the mind of the domain owner as he or she spends three days mulling over (and perhaps having nightmares about) the things they read in the two screens of dire warnings before finally screwing up the courage to click the “yes, I really do want my auth code” button.

Shame on you, Network Solutions, for impeding the progress of this customer who has decided — as they’re free to do — to move their business to a competitor. But this is not surprising of a company that has a longer list of “controversies” listed in their Wikipedia article than most companies, along with those of their former parent company Verisign. They both also appear prominently in the “Domain name scams” article, as well as here on our own blog.

Tags: domain registration, domains, netsol, network solutions, registrar transfers, scams, verisign
Categories: Warnings
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Domain contact information MUST be valid

15 January 2014 11:38:43 +0000

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) — the organisation in charge of all generic top-level domains (e.g., dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, etc., and the upcoming new gTLDs) — has introduced new rules that came into effect on 1 January.

The rule most likely to affect you at some point is the requirement for a valid email address associated with your domain. People generally register a new domain with a working email address, but over time that address may stop working for one reason or another. ICANN have taken steps to ensure that such a situation is not perpetuated.

Effective 1 January, if one of our automated emails to a contact address for your domain bounces, we are required to send you a verification email asking you to click a link in the email to confirm that your address does actually work. Of course, you’ll only receive that email if your email address has started working again in the meantime. Unfortunately, if you do not receive and act on the instructions in the verification email, we will have no choice but to suspend your domain, which will automatically happen fifteen (15) days after the first verification email is sent. If your domain is suspended, any services (email, websites, etc.) that rely on it will stop working until you respond and update the email address in your domain account. This is an ICANN rule applicable to all registrars and domain registrants, and we are contractually obligated to comply with it.

You may receive the same verification email when you register a new domain, when you transfer an existing domain into your domain account with NinerNet from another domain registrar, or when you change the contact information for your domain.

Please take this opportunity to log into your domain account (if your domain is registered with us) to check the contact information we have on record for your domain(s). If the contact email address you see there no longer works, exists or is no longer controlled by you, please update it immediately. (You will then receive a verification email, and you must follow the instructions in that email to complete the change to your contact details.) If you have multiple domains, you can update all of them at the same time. If you need the log-in information for your domain account sent to you, please advise us of that. Please note that your domain account is different and separate from your hosting account, and needs to be maintained separately by you. Thank-you for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions, please contact support. Thank-you.

Tags: contact information, domain registration, domain renewals, domains, icann, registrar transfers
Categories: Notices
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Dot-net and dot-com: The domains that define the Internet

31 December 2013 18:49:44 +0000

Define your ideas on the domains that define the Internet.

With all the hype about new top-level domains (TLDs) entering the market late this year and early in 2014, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that most people still prefer to register new domains under the dot-com and dot-net TLDs. In fact, about 83% of the domains we host are either dot-coms or dot-nets. And there’s good reason for this: they are still the most widely-recognised TLDs out there, considering they have been around since 1985. That’s almost thirty years!

While some people — mostly people advocating use of less known TLDs — talk about domain depletion in dot-com and dot-net, we register new domains for clients in these name spaces every month. The fact is, domain names based on company names and/or locations are and will continue to be available to imaginative business owners. Besides, even though you might sell widgets, widgets.com isn’t necessarily the best domain for you; it may very well be widgetsgalore.com (reflecting your full company name), or widgetsvancouver.com (reflecting your location and market). Many of our clients register more specific domains like these as they better identify who they are and the markets that their companies serve.

If you’d like help selecting and registering a new or additional domain for your business, get in touch and we’ll be happy to help you.

Tags: domain registration, domains
Categories: Interest
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iCash.ca domain on auction

29 December 2013 01:18:35 +0000

We are selling the domain iCash.ca, and it is currently on auction until Thursday 2 January 2014 at 15:11 EST (20:11 UTC, 3:11 pm Eastern Standard Time). (See the World Time Server to calculate the time in your time zone.) The minimum bid to surpass the current bid, which has met the reserve price, is US$1050. Please visit the auction website, run by the domain brokerage Sedo, to place your bid.

Because the reserve price has been met, according to Sedo rules the domain will sell at the end of the auction, so if you want to buy it you need to bid on it now.

With the ubiquitous “i” prefix everywhere these days, iCash.ca could be used to promote a banking app for mobile phones — the iPhone in particular, of course.

If you have any questions, please contact NinerNet support. However, please note that all bidding and payment transactions (including escrow) must take place through Sedo on their website.

Tags: apple, branding, domain sales, domains, dot-ca domains, iphone
Categories: Announcements
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Christmas and New Year hours and wishes

24 December 2013 22:25:28 +0000

It’s the end of the year again, and a fitting time to thank you once again for the custom that you have given to NinerNet in 2013. This year was challenging in some respects, but looking at things from the positive side the challenges were the result of growth. Some of that growth continues to be the new business that you, our existing clients, continue to refer to us, and for that we are most grateful.

Looking forward to 2014 we, as always, have plans to expand and improve the services we offer to you. Some of the new services will involve “private clouds”. We have avoided the buzzword “cloud”, bucking the industry trend in recent years, but with the news that broke this year about pervasive, worldwide, government surveillance — especially through big hosting companies based in the USA — we’re getting more enquiries about setting up a cloud-type infrastructure for in-house use only, and on servers outside the US. Look for an announcement about this in 2014.

On a wider scale, 2014 will see the introduction of new top-level domains (TLDs) and stronger enforcement of the requirement to use real and working contact data for domain registrations. Early in the new year we’ll be contacting you about the latter. As for the new TLDs — a TLD is the part of your domain to the right of the last dot (e.g., .com) — early registration for some of these are underway. Their introduction has been controversial, but they may see use in certain regions and niche industries. At this time they would appeal to only a limited number of our existing clients, but we’ll be providing information about them early in the New Year too (although we can immediately register in some of them). Some examples of new TLDs include .bike (e.g., example.bike), .clothing, .construction, .contractors, .diamonds, .enterprises, .guru, .holdings, .singles … and so on. Eventually there will also be a .africa too. Please be aware, though, that there are already scams involving fake registrations in these new TLDs, so if you get spam about these please keep that in mind and ask us if you need guidance.

Finally, our offices will be closed over the Christmas break for routine business, but support continues to be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We will re-open on Monday, 6 January.

We wish you and your family, business, organisation, employees and/or colleagues who celebrate it a very happy Christmas, and all the best for the New Year.

Tags: domain registration, domains, facebook, google, new services, scams, service hours, support
Categories: Announcements
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Deletion of domains by Zamnet continues

14 June 2013 14:32:22 +0000

Not satisfied with having deleted 37 per cent of domains earlier this week, it appears that Zamnet continue to delete even more domains! Today we find out that domains that were still working on Tuesday have now been deleted, causing more clients to scramble because their email and websites have suddenly stopped working. This brings the percentage of domains deleted without warning due to Zamnet’s incompetence to 42 per cent … almost half! When will this stop?!

We encourage clients affected by these arbitrary and unannounced interruptions to their business to file a complaint with the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority. (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: The complaint form disappeared shortly after we posted this. Try their “Complaint Handling” page instead.)

Tags: domain registration, domain renewals, domains, dot-zm domains, zamnet
Categories: Notices, Updated posts
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Massive, unannounced deletion of dot-zm domains by Zamnet

11 June 2013 11:15:39 +0000

Over the last few days it has become apparent to us that Zamnet’s accounting department — just as Coppernet’s did almost three years ago — awoke from a long hibernation and realised that a chunk of active domains hadn’t been paid for. As a result, 37 per cent of the dot-zm domains hosted by NinerNet that are (or were) registered with Zamnet — which includes .co.zm, .org.zm and .sch.zm domains — were deleted by Zamnet, taking them off the Internet completely. One client tells us that Zamnet informed them, when they enquired, that they were supposedly four years behind! (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: Another client tells us they had not been invoiced for their dot-co.zm domain in thirteen years! They’ve since switched to a dot-com with “zambia” tacked onto their name, as so many people do to avoid the hassle and expense of registering a dot-zm domain.)

It seems unlikely to us that so many Zamnet customers had simply ignored their invoices for several years. It’s more likely that they were never invoiced. In fact, our own domain (ninernet.co.zm) came up for renewal over a month ago, and we still have not received an invoice. Perhaps Zamnet are too busy disabling over a third of the country’s Internet infrastructure to send out invoices! (CORRECTION, 2013-06-28: Oops, seems we hadn’t updated our records correctly. Zamnet [when they do invoice] bills for domains every two years. Ours does not expire until next year. Our apologies for the incorrect statement, although it doesn’t really change much!)

Screenshot of Zamnet home page, 11 June 2013

Other countries take the management of their ccTLD (country code top-level domain) far more seriously than this. They have published rules and procedures governing what exactly happens after a domain expires. They also operate a WHOIS service so that the public can look up “who is” the owner of a domain and the dates that it was registered and will expire. Zamnet and Coppernet, as co-stewards of the dot-zm ccTLD — an odd arrangement that we are not aware of in any other country — do not provide any such information, at least to the public. In fact, judging by these arbitrary and cavalier mass deletions carried out by both companies, they don’t even have any such policies! They just seem to make this up as they go along.

Screenshot of ZICTA home page, 11 June 2013

You would think that — given that deleting 37 per cent of the country’s domains has all of the appearance of a planned and concerted effort — Zamnet would, at the very least, post a prominent notice on the home page of their website. However, there is no such notice as of posting this. (Click on the thumbnail at left to see.) I’m also not aware of any notices posted in newspapers. So much for their laughable slogan: “Nobody delivers IT better.” Right now, more than a third of their customers are not getting anything delivered, and it’s clear that their slogan doesn’t apply to the delivery of invoices.

And where is ZICTA in all of this? You’d think they’d be interested in the disabling of 37 per cent of the country’s domains, but there’s nothing posted on the home page of their website either! Maybe a few complaints via their complaint form might get their attention. (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: Hmm, the complaint form disappeared shortly after we posted this. Try their “Complaint Handling” page instead.)

Please note that, if you did not register your dot-zm domain through NinerNet, we do not know when it is scheduled to expire and we cannot help you in dealing with Zamnet. We don’t know how effective it would be to request an update to the contact information for your domain so that we can monitor it, from an administrative (not technical) point of view, but if you’d like to try we’re certainly game to assist and cooperate. Let us know if you’d like to try.

Issues such as these mass and arbitrary deletions, as well as the entire dot-zm ccTLD going down occasionally, are the two main reason we discourage clients from registering dot-zm domains. This is unfortunate, of course, but clients expect their online services to actually be … online! It is also the reason that we created the alternative ccTLD for Zambia: dot-zam.co. They’re only K66 per year (as opposed to hundreds for a dot-co.zm and hundreds more for a dot-com.zm) and don’t require paperwork.

Tags: domain registration, domain renewals, domains, dot-zm domains, zamnet, zicta
Categories: Notices, Updated posts
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Price increase for dot-co.za domains

4 June 2013 11:52:29 +0000

The dot-co.za registry has announced a price increase of 50% for registration and renewal of dot-co.za domains, effective 1 March 2013. As a result, we too must increase our prices, and this will be effective immediately.

The new prices are live on our rates pages. Please check there for the new rates in your currency.

We appreciate your understanding.

Tags: domain registration, domain renewals, domain sales, domains, dot-co.za domains, rates
Categories: Notices
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Domain renewal scam warning

22 March 2012 12:25:40 +0000

We have had a new domain renewal scam brought to our attention. The example we have seen includes the following wording (changed to preserve our client’s privacy):

Domain Name: EXAMPLE.COM

To: Client Name

Your order #12345678 has been received and is currently processing. Registration includes SE submission for EXAMPLE.COM for 12 months. There is no obligation to pay for this order unless you complete your payment by Mar 25, 2012. SE Services provides submission services and search engine ranking organization for domain owners.

Failure to complete your search engine registration by Mar 25, 2012 may result in the cancellation of this order (making it difficult for your customers to locate you using search engines on the web).

Here is a redacted image of what the email might look like:

Domain renewal scam email.

Clicking on the links takes you to a website that looks like this:

Domain renewal scam website.

While this email carefully avoids any mention of the expiry or renewal of your domain registration, the intent is clearly to fool and scare the recipient into thinking that their domain registration is about to expire so that they click one of the prominent “PROCESS SECURE PAYMENT” links and complete the payment process. If you do this, your domain will not be renewed, and you’ll be out $75 (in this case) for services of dubious value that you may or may not actually receive. Additionally, you might be opening yourself up to identity theft and/or the abuse of your credit card information.

In fact, if you have already fallen victim to this scam, we suggest that you contact your credit card company immediately, and check to ensure that your domain is “locked” and still registered to you and under your control.

Some of the domains associated with these emails and websites are the following:

annualurldom.com
iglobalmerchantservice.com
urldomannual.com

NinerNet attempts to protect our clients from these kinds of domain-related scams by having a policy of “locking” (as mentioned above) all domains under our management that can be locked. However, you should still be cautious before acting on any emails not from NinerNet (or your actual domain registrar if it’s not NinerNet) regarding any domains you have registered, especially if they attempt to scare you into taking action.

Please contact NinerNet support if you have any questions about emails regarding your domains, and we will help you.

Thank-you.

Tags: domain locking, domain registration, domain renewals, domains, scams
Categories: Warnings
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