Many say Liberty Names of America are Scammers
A few months ago I got a letter in the snail mail from Liberty Names of America that looked like an invoice for a domain that was set to expire shortly. I had to give it a second look, since I knew that I had never registered a domain through a company called Liberty Names of America. My first thought was "you scammers!, Nice try….damn, how people pay these because they have no idea?" I tossed this letter in my computer bag, and meant to blog about it…but time went by and I never did…..until today.
Today I received an email from one of the hosting companies that we do business with stating:
Recently some of our customers became victims of a domain renewal fraud by the company called \"Liberty Names of America\". They send out domain transfer agreements, which look like invoices for domain renewals ($25 per year).
Be informed, that ROUThost.com has nothing to do with this company and for all domain and hosting renewals you will be contacted directly by ROUThost.com. You are free to disregard any e-mail or written communication from \"Liberty Names of America\". They have no power over your domain name unless you choose to sign up for their service.
Which reminded me of that "invoice" I was going to blog about.
I’m sure many of you have seen these letters….I found this copy of one of these letters for LIberty Names of America online (pdf) (scroll down past the first page).
How can they legally get away with sending what appear to be "invoices" when what they’re really trying to do is get your domain moved into their register account….what many are saying that amounts to Domain name hijacking.
I mean just run a search in Google for Liberty Names of America and see results like:
-
etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Can’t something be done?
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January 1st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Absolutely deplorable behavior - I’ve come across similar letters from another company that routinely mails me under the same pretense and their language looked pretty innocuous. However, the format is what would throw most people. This is unfortunate that making web publishing so accessible to the “non-techy” crowd opens the door for this type of abuse.
What to do? I’m not sure another piece of legislation would solve anything. It’s hard to legislate morality… or even to define an acceptable set that people will abide. After all, how many laws do we have in the United States in order to explain the 10 commandments?
January 1st, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I was approached by one of the VP’s at work with one of these invoices just the other day. It all looks very official. I’m sure they operate out of some country with very little law enforcement.
January 1st, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I once got one of their “invoices” sent to me in the UK. It took me a minute to figure it all out, but damn did it scare me.
I recylced the papers to make sure something good came out of the episode.
Pierre
January 1st, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Happy New Year Jim
Methinks something was just done about it!
But you’re right. I’m sure it’s to the letter of the law, but the intent is to deceive you’d think. But I imagine that would be so much harder to legally prove.
Cheers
Brendon
January 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 am
Well, wouldn’t paying $25 for a service they have nothing to do with count as fraud or theft? I’d suspect it is a matter of time before someone gets some lawyers on them.
While I don’t get snail mail spam, such stuff sits often in my mailbox (until I wake up, that is).
January 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 am
I just got a notice from the Domain Registry of America scammers who do the same thing as Liberty Names despite this…
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/12/domainreg.htm
January 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 am
I have gotten several over the last year, can’t someone start a class action if they fell for it?
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:41 am
Yeah, Domain Registry of America is an old hat at this. Methinks they adapted their practices to ensure they are only just within the letter of the law.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:45 am
A few years back one of my clients sent in the “invoice” and their domain name, which at the time they controlled themselves, was transferred over to these scammers. The client contacted me after the fact, and I immediately contacted these hucksters, and they immediately responded and transferred the domain name back and refunded my client. When that happens, you know they do this quite often. I have since informed my clients of these types of scams, and as I manage just about all of their domain names, I become the gatekeepers, and it doesn’t happen anymore.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:58 am
Well I was lucky enough to read this article. Anyways I do not respond to anything that I had not requested for. Whether it is online or offline. I think the best thing to punish these guys is by spreading awareness among the webmasters regarding this.
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
Phishing in meat space. I get these all the time and I’ve had clients fall for it (one was a charitable organization, which really pissed me off). These scammers should be sued for everything they’re worth.
January 6th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Thank you for this post.
These spammers must die slowly, very slowly!
We are still receiving 99% of spam daily. Each day 40-50 letters are populates viagra, sells vista and office, asks for money and other crappy requests. Spam filters are powerless if you sell shareware software and have many customers.
The Help Desks are one way out.
January 6th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I got these all the time but from “Domain Registry of America”. (or something similar). What’s bad is my church got one for their website, and they almost paid for it! I’m sure they make a ton of money from people paying..
January 7th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I have been getting these as well. Sadly, some of our clients have fallen victim to these scams and I, as the domain technical contact (the domains are stored under a master account), have begun receiving emails requesting the transfer. Ultimately, I politely inform the client of the nature of the scam and tell the registrars to refund the client his/her money and to take a hike. It’s hard to say how one can appropriately deal with this, but I hope something can be done; it really angers me as well.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:23 am
The letters I’ve seen over the past year are from Domain Registry of America, and yeah, it’s phishing. I thought someone that fell for it would get a change of registrar, right? Not change of registrant.
I’ve seen other junk mail that looks like billing, and it’s apparently legal, as long as “This is not an invoice” is printed on it somewhere.
It’s semi clever marketing, with suckers falling for it every day, to be sure, and it heavily leans towards the shady, but is it really a scam? For the people they convert from Network solutions, aren’t they saving them $10 a year?