If you’ve recently received an email from the Domain Notification Central, you can delete it and be at ease.
This grammar-and-spelling-challenged company will try and scare Web site owners into buying redundant domains with the .us suffix. For example, from the email I just received:
Please be advised that the above noted domain name has now become available for registration.
Consequently the possibility of a conflicting domain registration may occur.
I mean, what the hell does that even mean? "A conflicting domain registration" doesn’t even mean anything. The email I received had paragraph after paragraph of meaningless, lawyer-like gibberish meant only to frighten people out of their money.
Since I can’t blog about every scoundral out there, here’s a good tip for anytime someone or some business you don’t know asks for money: Google them.
While the Domain Notification Central (the name sounds like it was written by an automated translation service) come up first for their own name, the rest of the Google results page are warnings against this company.
Googling a company’s phone number or fax number seems to give even better results, as often people share horror stories at their blog or in a discussion forum, sharing these tidbits of information. Googling 1-800-270-5944 brings up posts like:
- Web Piracy, Scams, and Dastardly Deeds – Smyrl.Biz
- Stupid TOASTEDspam – notificationcenter.us 0001 – 2004-07-26 …
- Consumer Alert and
- really great sex call 1-800-270-5944 in Printable view
I’m guessing the last one was a prank to get back at the Domain Notification Central, but perhaps further investigation is required.
No matter what the medium, there will always be people trying to scam you. At least with the internet, you’re one search query away from an answer.
Rich Brooks
Reporting Internet Scams
