We’d thought we would share some important information regarding an email scam regarding domain renewals. The e-mail scam is similar to other scams we have discussed including the iDNS renewal scam & bitcoin email hacking scams.

The scam consists of receiving a fake renewal email (or in some cases, a letter in the mail) from a company separate from your original domain registration company.

How to spot this spam email:

• The email address is usually not your hosting company, or a random hijacked email. For example, this letter was sent from info@shaxiachapter.top
• The price is usually much higher than a regular domain renewals. A regular domain should cost you between $10 – $25/year rather than the $85/year the email is suggesting.
• The email will mention things such as “Search Engine Submission” rather than domain renewal. Your domain company will typically not include Search Engine Submission along with your domain renewal.
• In small grey font at the bottom of the email you can see the following (with spelling errors) “We do not directly register or renew domain names. This is not a bill. You are dont need to pay the amount unless you accept this notification.”

A copy of the letter is included below along with a text excerpt:

Domain Name: [removed]
Attn: [removed]

This important expiration notification notifies you about the expiration notice of your domain registration for 368durham.com search engine optimization submission. The information in this expiration notification may contain legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the Domain Seo Service Registration to our search engine traffic generator. We do not register or renew domain names. We are selling traffic generator software tools. This information is intended for the use of the individual(s) named above.

If you fail to complete your domain name registration [removed] search engine optimization service by the expiration date, may the dismissal of this search engine optimization domain name notification notice.

Failure to complete your seo domain name registration [removed] search engine optimization service process may make it difficult for customers to find you on the web.

This domain seo registration for [removed] search engine service optimization notification will expire 09/06/2019.

Instructions and Unlike Instructions from this Newsletter:
You have received this message because you elected to receive notification. If you no longer wish to receive our notifications, please unlike here. If you have multiple accounts with us, you must opt out for each one individually to unlike receiving notifications. We are a search engine optimization company. We do not directly register or renew domain names. This is not a bill. You are dont need to pay the amount unless you accept this notification. This message, which contains promotional material strictly along the guidelines of the Can-Spam act of 2003. We have clearly mentioned the source mail-id of this email, also clearly mentioned our subject lines and they are in no way misleading. Please do not reply to this email, as we are not able to respond to messages sent to this address.

Always check with your domain company and pay for any services through the website. Reputable companies will advise you of renewals months before the renewal date and advise you to login to an existing account that you created to renew. As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions.