Domain Registry of America Letter in the Mail
Read this before you respond to any letter from Domain Registry of America (DROA). I have received many letters over the years from this company. While the company seems somewhat legit, their practices of scaring the recipient are not very trustworthy. The letter keys in on domain renewal date and tries to convince you to renew your domain with them. There are a lot of registrars on the web that handle domain registration including this site.
Domains from WA
If you have registered a domain from WA or another registrar like godaddy or namecheap, you should simply throw those letters from DROA away. In most cases the cost to registrar a domain with them or transfer to them is much higher than it is on this site. As of this post, the costs for new domains and transfers was $45/year. I personally recommend staying away from that company.
Educate your Fellow Colleagues
If you will be heading back to an office environment ( once the COVID-19 things ends), make sure anyone that may be involved with domains or websites for the company is aware of these letters from DROA. I once had a client pay Domain Registry of America for the renewal. As soon as the money cleared, the emails and phone calls ramped up to complete the transfer process. The client wanted me to send the domain to that company because they paid the invoice. It took a little time to convince them of their mistake. Fortunately, the domain was never actually transferred. It did cost them $75 at the time.
Transfer it Away from DROA
I have never had to go through the process of transferring a domain from DROA to another registrar, but I expect it could be difficult. Handling domain transfers from compaines like Godaddy and Namecheap are pretty easy. Some companies do not want to let go and make it difficult. If you are not in complete control of your domain registration, you need to work on getting that control as soon as possible.
Are you in Control of YOUR Domain?
I have registered domains on behalf of clients for over 20 years. Most of the time, I set-up an account for them and put it on their credit card. There have been times I regetted that decision. If you have your domain registered with WA, you are in good hands. If a domain that you are associated with ( like your company's website) is with a person or company that has your domain on their bulk account, you may be at risk of losing it due to an oversight.
If you are new to WA, go through the training on domains. You may be able to provide assistance to your employer. Make sure the owner of the company has the ability to control domains associated with the company.
If youwant to do a little research on domains, use the whois feature and see if you can figure out who controls the domains for your company website.
Use the Whois Tool and see who controls the website
If the company is not using privacy, you can learn a lot with that tool.
Have you ever received one of those letters from DROA?
I hope you ignored it or will ignore it in the future.
Recent Comments
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I've received lots of them. And from others.
Had one registrar that up and died on me. Had six names with them, managed to get three back, since they defaulted to Enom. Was DomainOrb.com.
The other names were grabbed by others.
So make sure you are with a *reliable* registrar. I thought these guys were, till they just poofed.
I have seen many 'poof' I have had clients lose great domains becasue they ignored the email warnings from legit companies like godaddy. Used "junk" email to register domains and an expiring credit card that they forgot was used to register domain.
Thanks for sharing Bo.
There have been a few posts on here about this company, with people mainly receiving emails demanding $75.
I figured some had written about it, but was unable to find one. I guess I need to refine my search
Its good that more people do share such things so it spreads far and wide.
We all have a wide variety of people in our connections which all helps in getting the information out to the greatest number of people.
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This is great information to know and to look out for.
It reminds me of particular companies calling businesses to sell them updated OSHA & labor law posters. I ran across this while working in a office. They threaten fines if your company doesn't have updated posters, and they charge about twice as much what you can get them for normally.
I think the boss fell for it once, before the regular renewal came in. We remembered the scam from that point on. The company that did this would even call and make threats that we would be reported for not being in compliance. They can be pretty persistent, so you always need to stay on the lookout for these types of things.
Thanks for passing this information along.
I would hate to be part of a business that relied on revenue obtained this way.