Domain Name Renewal RipOff

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  bunkstrutts · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 4:29 am

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  ATTENTION WORDPRESS BLOGGERS: RIPOFF ALERT: As my website is approaching its domain name renewal date, I received a notice via snailmail from a company called “LibertyNames of America” of Niagra Falls NY. They offered to renew my domain name for $29.00 for a year’s registration. WordPress offers the same renewal for $15.00 via email notice with link to PayPal. Sump’m just don’t feel right. If you’ve received a similar message, let WordPress know.

  What disturbs me more is that a third party apparently was able to connect my website with my home address in order to send the “invoice.” WordPress security has been breached.

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  raincoaster · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 4:32 am

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  WordPress security as you perceive it does not exist. You gave Whois the correct information; that was never confidential.

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  raincoaster · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 4:41 am

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  See, that’s not info that WordPress controls: that is info that the heap big Domain Registration Mucky-Mucks control, and it is not generally kept confidential. There IS a way around it if I recall correctly, but it requires you to use that workaround from the very beginning. This is one reason people register corporations and give the corporate address, or PO boxes.

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  airazor · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 5:20 am

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  I believe you pay a fee ontop of the domain fee to keep your information cofidential (where applicable).

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  raincoaster · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 5:34 am

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  You wouldn’t pay that to WordPress, though. The information at Whois has nothing to do with them, it’s just that giving name and address is a condition of having a domain name.

  The Libertynames spammer probably just goes through ALL the names and addresses that are coming up for renewal and emails them automatically.

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  tellyworth · Staff · Jun 8, 2008 at 7:42 am

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  These are common scams unfortunately, the domain registration equivalent to those phone service “slamming” scams. Whois information is required to be public and accurate. There was no security breach here — they were using public information.

  We don’t offer a private registration feature yet, I believe there are limitations to the domain reseller api that make that difficult, but I’ll note this as another request for that feature.

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  bunkstrutts · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 7:56 pm

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  I was unaware that this is a common scam. Thanks for the clarifications.

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  blaxter · Member · Jun 8, 2008 at 8:39 pm

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  When I registered my domain name with 123-reg I was told that individuals can stay anon but that companies have no option. I chose to be public though.