Sneak: Another Invoice....That Wasn't An Invoice

There seems to be a trend nowadays when it comes to what I call Sneaks, those legal, but not-quite-ethical actions designed to separate us from our hard-earned money. This is a Sneak that takes the form of the bill that actually isn't a bill.

I wrote about this first in a post called "Double Check That Bill" about a company that sent me a something that looked remarkably like an invoice for a domain name I'd recently registered. You had to search rather carefully through this thing to realize that it was actually a solicitation for listing services. Had I been a little less suspicious by nature, I might have sent this less-than-honest company the $65 the "invoice" seemed to be demanding.

Well, I've received another such missive, this time from "Domain Registry of America." At the top is the line "Domain Name Expiration Notice"; below is a paragraph informing me that "As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registration that is due to expire in the next few months." It then lists my domain name and an expiration date, both in bold, finishing with "Act today!"

Below that, when I read the whole thing, was what a little forehead-wrinkling revealed to be, again, a solicitation for me to transfer my domain name to DROA, not an invoice from my current registrar. The yearly fee DROA wanted was $30, a price about three times what I'm now paying. There may have been information on additional fees in the fine print on the back of this letter, but not having a magnifying glass handy, I was unable to read it...and, frankly, that in itself was a red flag. (Fine print should never be that fine.)

I did a little online checking. The Federal Trade Commission, it turns out, obtained a court order in 2003 against DROA for this kind of thing, though in fairness, their current mailout would seem to be not nearly as deceptive as their original one:

...DROA has mailed millions of such “renewal” notices captioned “IMPORTANT NOTICE,” to urge consumers to act quickly to avoid “Register Lock” or “loss of your online identity.”

The missive sent to me didn't include that kind of language. Still, my version looked enough like an invoice that my first impulse was to simply pay it. But it struck me as odd that the expiration date was a good four months distant. Like I say, I'm suspicious by nature, so instead of doing what most busy people do--stick the thing in my to-be-paid pile-- I read it over carefully. Had I not, I'd probably be out $30, and worse, have my domain name in the digital clutches of these people.

So....take nothing for granted. If you get something that looks like an unexpected bill, read it carefully before you reach for your checkbook or credit card. Because anyone can print up what looks like an invoice...

...but isn't.