I got the letter from Domain Renewal Group today and had my checkbook ready before deciding to Google the name. Thank goodness, it led me to you and saved me $30. Thanks for the information.

I received one of these letters a few days ago and thought “huh, I didn’t register through them… and I’m not paying 30 dollars to renew.” This is definitely deceiving and practices like this should be made illegal.

I recieved the exact “notice” from the Domain Renewal Group as you have posted here. The way it is presented led me to percieve it as a notice of “maintenance” for my present domain provider. The key word is “switch today”, prompting to this research them and find this sight. It reminds me of the companies sending out false virus notices to entice people to buy thier software to “fix” the notice they sent out! What a world, what a world.

Absolute top man, I just sat down in front of my laptop ready to pay this bill for £65 for 5 years, when I Googled this company just in case it was a scam. Your site came up about 3 down and just saved me big time. Thank you very much for sharing this with the world, and I owe you a drink.

I just called the 800# on the letter and asked them to remove my mailing address. The guy was polite, and it only took a minute.

Bluehost keeps my physical address private, listing my site under their business address instead. BUT for the first time I received this scam letter from Domain Renewal Group. This means either:

1: Bluehost sold my physical address info.
2: Domain Renewal Group challenged to obtain my legal physical address from Bluehost, and they were tricked/caved.
3: ???

by the way, my mailing address is not listed anywhere on my website (it is a porn site, so I have good reasons) and I have been successful up till now to not have it leaked. Where do I rage: Bluehost or Domain Renewal Group?

I am screwed up by this company. I got such a mail. I suspected at first. But then I thought I still need to trust people and paid $50 for two years. Later on, I noticed that I registered with less than $10/year before. And I got an email from them saying:

The transfer and renewal of your domain name, … is
not yet complete at this time.

Reason:
——-
1) The Domain name is currently in a “REGISTRAR-LOCK”
status with …
2) We require that you provide us with an EPP
Key/Authorization Code from …

Now I need to find out if I can get the $50 refunded and how.

Hi James,
I know how you feel, I too paid my $65 for 2 years and got the same reply as you did, so I notified my bank to do a “hold” then emailed Domain Group with my complaint about dishonesty etc etc, and demanded a refund. Within 2 weeks I had been refunded my $65 no problem.
Good luck, I guess that for every one that does something about it there must be hundreds who just “put it down to experience” which is what “Domain Group” are making $$$ from.
Annie

Thanks, Annie. They already cashed my check so bank can not hold any more. But I will try my best to get it back. It is not money issue, but feel bad being cheated.

I’m sure you will get refunded James, I paid by credit card which was an immediate payment and yet they still refunded money back into my account.
Think positive and good luck!

Annie

There are far too many scams going for domain renewals. My box gets bombarded with fake renewal letters. Someone not paying attention might actually think it’s a bill. It’s not! It’s junk mail!

Even in the UK, I get those mail outs from Domain Registry of America. You’re right, they are incredibly deceitful and designed to scare unwitting domain owners into renewing their domain with them. I now register every domain privately.

Yeah I got one of those sent to me in Australia and I have helped 5 friends this year, to cancel debits they subscribed to online and can’t figure out how to get out of. I use Godaddy as well (always using a coupon code at checkout), the up-sell minefield is annoying but otherwise I am happy.

Domain Renewal Group – Scam

Just received a letter here in the UK from the Domain Name Renewal group. I own a lot of domains and have heard nightmare stories about such companies in the past but have never received one of their letters before now. I can see why a lot of people may get sucked into this crap but at least your blog post is right up there in the Google UK results when searching for “domain renewal group”.

Fill the return envelope full of dirt and send it back to them.

One week ago i received a similar letter in Austria, Europe – pricing was 28,-€ for one year. I indeed first thought it was a bill they sent me and was about to call my registrar, because i just payed that bill.
thanks for the post.

My mother almost sent off this renewal (for 5 years) after receiving it at home after I'd moved out. I asked her to scan me a copy and was astounded. If you read it carefully you can tell that it's soliciting business, but it fooled my mum.

domain renewal group has cause us to lose our website that we just purchase with our business they not only mislead us by the bill but our website got shut down and they directed us to Melbourne which we couldnt get thru for days and no reply until weeks later from email and they said they never had our original acct. and now we lost our website and someone else has it that was the reason we bought this motorcycle business because of this large existing advertise site so they cost us thousands and now we are at such a lost on what recourse to do. any ideas?

Hello David and thank you for giving us a heads up. I noticed that many other blog owners have wrote about this scam and think it's quite an admirable initiative: letting the people know they can get fooled. As you said the email looks quite real and if someone isn't really paying attention they can get fooled. Before answering to such letters do a domain name search and see what's what, check the Whois and see the expiration date and the service the domain is registered under.

Totally agree with Bluehost Blues.
I use Hostmonster (Bluehosts’ sister company). I always opt for private registration on all my domains. What’s the point of that if these guys still have access to that info. I’m suspecting someone is selling info because I found this page on their site which clearly shows once you opt for privacy, all correspondence goes through them: https://www.hostmonster.com/privacy.html. So I’m going to call and find out how these guys got my home/billing address, which is actually totally different from my office address which appears on my site.

I knew something was wrong immediately I saw the letter though because Hostmonster has never contacted me by mail before.

Sad stuff

I just got a letter from them. Thanks to all of you who post on the internet that this is a scam. Luckily I remembered that I got that particular domain half a year ago so no way that was due for a renewal.

Isn't there anything one can do to outlaw these idiots? Someone may actually pay them by mistake!

Today I received the same letter.

That’s a great idea! I’m sending their returning envolope back, without a stamp and with a little note telling them what I think about them!

I keep getting the same letter’s, unfortunantly they caught me out last year and I sent them £20 UKpounds, thank goodness that’s all it was. Ive recently sent them a very large note to the address they provide 56 Gloucester Rd suite 526 London SW7 4UB….. and told them to GET LOST!!!!!!