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Internet Corp. Listing Service: $35 Invoice*

Internet Corp. bill largeDomain names come up for renewal every year, and if you own one or more of them, you might receive what looks like a renewal notice via snail mail like the one on the right.

As it turns out, the notice is not quite what it appears.

*MOUSE PRINT: In all caps, “This is a solicitation for the order of goods or services, or both, and not a bill, invoice, or statement of account due. You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer unless you accept this offer.” [From mailing dated May 31, 2006]

The mailing is actually trying to sell you a $35 service to submit your domain to various search engines, and it is apparently sent to domain owners at about the time their domain is up for renewal. The service does not include domain renewal however.

The disclosure is in the middle of the document in type similar to other type being used on it.  The question is, does it overcome the general impression created by the mailing that it is a bill?

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is looking into companies that use similar tactics.  See story.

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10 thoughts on “Internet Corp. Listing Service: $35 Invoice*”

  1. This is not a case of deceptive fine print. It’s a scam. The problem is that it’s made to appear as an invoice, not an offer. Companies like this are well aware that the technical contact and administrative contact for a domain are often not the same person. If the administrative contact gets a bill, it might just get paid if the administrator is not diligent.

    It happened to me with a website I set up for the cub scouts. The administrator got a “bill” and asked me about it just to make sure. He was surprised when I told him to rip it up and toss it in the recycle bin.

  2. Gah! I hate this. I own a few domains and I regularly receive official looking mailings with my full name, address, and domain plastered on the front of them. It always takes me a few minutes to realize it’s a solicitation, not an important notice from my registrar. I now register my domains using a registrar that allowss for “private” registration by masking the personal data in the “whois” directories, which is where I’m certain these companies scrape the data from. I would never switch to a company that advertised in this manner, no matter how good their price claimed to be. Is it illegal, I wonder, to use the whois database for advertising purposes?

  3. I almost paid this. I got it and thought it was for my domain name and that I was about to let it expire. I am a free-lancer and I use my name as my domain name and have my resume posted there because it is easy if someone calls me for possible work to just look my resume on-line. I was afraid that if I didn’t make sure it was re-registered, I would lose it and forever have a porn site linked to my name. Fortunately I caught it at the last minute and shredded it. Why can’t people make honest livings in this country?

  4. I did the same thing as many others… about to write the check and noticed
    ‘not a bill’… but that was AFTER I paid it the first time!!!! Live and
    Learn, but I feel better knowing I am not alone! THANX Mouseprint!

  5. I used to work for Pacific Bell (now SBC) in California, and a scam very similar to this was quite common. Customers called to question an invoice they received for renewing their Yellow Pages ad, when they knew they had already paid. It turned out to be an independent Yellow Pages directory, whose marketing strategy was to clip a customer’s ad from the Bell Yellow Pages, paste it to a sheet of paper and add some official-sounding text, and mail it to the customer. Many people didn’t think twice before sending in the amount requested, thinking they were renewing their Bell ad, when in fact they were purchasing a new ad with the independent book. Unfortunately, the fine print explained what they were really buying and although we agreed this was a nasty scam, we had no way of helping them to recover their money since technically the company hadn’t done anything illegal.

  6. Hi- I received one of these about two weeks ago, only it was for $65. I didn’t immediately notice the text (on the back) saying that it was not a “bill”, but a “solicitation.” I did, however, question why I was getting the notice, as it was not expected, so I saved it for reference.

  7. I wish I found this site earlier. I would have posted a simlar one we recieved that looked virtually identical to a typical invoice… right down to an
    “INV# 12312”. It was for over $60 and DID include renewing the domain along with search service. My boss almost paid it and then checked with me. (The fact we register our domains for around $9/year was the main tipoff.)

    The INV# btw, was ostensibly for “Invitation #”

  8. A quite similar scam happenend over here (Germany) but they used a slightly different strategy. Since here you normally pay your bills by automated money transfer they could not send you bills to pay. So they thought up a new company, called it “Domain Registry of America” used *really* expensive paper. (In color and this this special print you often find on the cover of paperback novels) and plastered it with american flags. The mouseprint said that you were actually switching providers to them. So after that they would have had the *legal* right to bill you for their “services” .

    I can’t even begin to imagine what living hell I would have had to go through would I’ve wanted my domain back.

  9. I get around three of these a year it seems. All making it look and read like a renewal notice until the final last little bit. I was sceptical to say the least since I pay for my domain name through Yahoo Bussiness and everything is done online with it.

    I’ve warned others about these ads also.

  10. It must be amazing how many people and employees respond and pay these bills.
    In the case of an employee of a company you do not want to be one to take the blame for the loss of a domain name to the firm and its vital website
    Worse yet these firms ( leeches) often target trusting people in small towns etc. Often social engineering is done to obtain information – for example for similar scams with office equipment consumables contracts ( at high prices) , the phone rings innocently . Its Mary – what model is your photocopier etc.
    What is amazing in the case of domain names is how these groups are able to get names and emails of registered users who are supposed to have their identities shielded by proxy owner services of the isps or domain issuers. Thanks for the article and warning. It is the first such description and warning to this practice that i have seen online.

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