In the past few weeks I’ve gotten a couple of different inquiries from customers regarding a mailer from a “Domain Listings”. What’s unique about this mailer is that it is:
- A physical piece of mail
- Listing your specific domain on the invoice
- Appears to be a bill due for some sort of services rendered
First, let me be perfectly clear, this is not a bill from us, nor is it a legitimate bill. It can be discarded.
This invoice does state: “THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER”. Yet the offer it is providing is quite confusing.
So the question comes up, what is this offering, and why would people pay it if it’s not required?
Domain Listings
Well, the naming is quite confusing. The company name is “Domain Listings”. It makes it sound as though not paying will make it so that your domain will no longer be active or become unlisted. That’s a scary thought, all of a sudden your domain is useless!
Have no fear, your annual domain registration fee takes care of that. Typically this fee ranges from about $10, to $30 per year, depending on the TLD (.com, .net, .org, etc) and your domain registrar (Us, GoDaddy, NameCheap, etc). You don’t need to pay anything more than that to ensure you have a valid and usable domain.
$288 Annually?
I often wondered why this insane amount of money. It’s not particularly specific, it is not nearly the cost of a domain. However, after a bit of gentle thought, I realized this is likely what people are used to paying annually for their hosting, or at least right around this price. Some people may pay around $250, others around $300. Therefore, coming right in the middle will make people pay that amount for their website without a second thought.
Notice the deceitful text near the bottom part of the invoice “Domain / Website”. If a standard secretary in an office, or someone in a standard office, is simply trying to pay bills, of course this will just look right compared to previous year’s bills. They will sign off and send it.
Where did they get my Information?
This is the part most bothersome to me I think. For the most part, domains have privacy set on them. This means the actual owner’s information (such as their address) isn’t easily found. Any of our clients will actually have their domain’s information pointed to us as the owner. This way, any spam calls and emails will be intercepted.
This means the only real way this information can be gathered is through some means of web scraping. Either by going through Google Business Profiles, grabbing addresses directly off the domains, or some other means. Clever on their part, annoying on ours, the recipients.
Conclusion
As is a best practice any time something comes in the mail, be sure before you pay an invoice you know exactly who it is coming from. Regardless if the bill is for $5, or $5,000 please be sure that you talk with the proper channels to ensure you’re paying the right bill.
As for us, you can always be sure that the invoice will have our name, address, and logo on the letterhead, and we’ll always welcome your calls with any questions.
We hope this helps with any confusion now, and even in the future!