These scamers have been operating for awhile now. They are a tucows
client, this mean they have bought the contact list for the .biz domains
or have broken their license agreement. Since I have received spam from
them for .biz domains registered at different registrars, I'm guessing
they have mined the whois data illegally.
I doubt tucows could do much even if they wanted to.
~jb
Robert L Mathews wrote:
>We've seen another renewal scam being sent to our customers in the last
>couple of days. It's targeted at .biz owners, sent via spam e-mail to the
>WHOIS contact.
>
>Here's a sample:
>
>
>
>>Dear Registrant,
>>
>>Your domain EXAMPLE.BIZ is due for renewal shortly. If you wish to
>>renew your domain name please see our web site:
>>
>>http://www.domain-renewal.biz
>>
>>IMPORTANT: FAILURE TO RENEW YOUR DOMAIN BEFORE ITS EXPIRY DATE
>>WILL RESULT IN LOSS OF SERVICE.
>>
>>Registration Fees:
>>
>>2 Years - $30/year
>>3-5 Years - $22/year
>>6-10 Years - $19/Year
>>
>>All costs are US Dollars. Should you have any questions on renewing
>>your domain please fill out our online contact form.
>>
>>.BIZ Renewal
>>http://www.domain-renewal.biz
>>
>>----------------------------------
>>If you no longer wish to receive domain renewal notifications
>>via email see http://www.domain-renewal.biz/notifications.htm
>>This email was sent to example@example.com
>>
>>
>
>There's no mention in the e-mail, or on the site, that "renewing" your
>domain name with them is actually a transfer.
>
>People who "renew" with them might get a few surprises. For example, they
>don't even have a control panel that you can use to update the
>nameservers... this feature is "coming soon"(!). They're also using
>servers hosted in China in an attempt to avoid anti-spam restrictions,
>and they don't accept support requests by phone.
>
>By the way, domain-renewal.biz is registered through TUCOWS; I don't know
>if they're a TUCOWS reseller or not. Perhaps compliance can do something
>about this...?
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Oct 19 2004 - 23:37:45 EDT