There’s nothing new about domain name renewal scams and you might say they’re not even scams at all – but one thing they all have in common is they’re unsolicited, will cost you more money and can cause you a real nuisance.

Customers who don’t choose our domain privacy option have their personal data made available to everyone simply by doing a ‘WHOIS’ lookup. This information provides the (legally required) ownership of the domain name including name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. You can view a sample WHOIS lookup for simplewebhosting.co.uk here and another for simpledomainnames.com here.

‘Enterprising’ companies with official-sounding names such as the Domain Registry of America or Domain Renewal Group then write to you suggesting that you should pay them to renew your domain name with them. You MUST NOT do so!

1) The example shown from Domain Renewal Group charges £20 for a .com domain – if you renew with simplewebhosting.co.uk or simpledomainnames.co.uk, we charge you just £9.99!

2) By renewing your domain name with one of these companies, you are transferring your domain name away from our control and to a company in the USA. These companies seldomly have telephone support and are typically difficult to get hold of.

So if you get an official-looking letter from one of these companies, you are quite safe to shred it. If you’re not 100% sure and want to run it past us, get in touch.