April 1, 2008
This is not an April Fool's joke - This is REAL
It’s been a couple of years since I have seen one of Domain Registry or America’s scam invoices. Mostly because I moved all of mine my own and clients domain registrations away from Network Solutions to a different registrar. I haven't seen or heard about Domain Registry of America for a while, till this weekend that is.
I hadn’t given much thought to them scamming any more of my hosting clients. Domain Registry of America had in the past scammed several of my clients and by the time I found out about it, it was too late for the clients to get their money back.
Well Domain Registry of America stepped across the line and scammed a non-profit battered women’s shelter out of $50.00. Non-profits and charities have limited budgets and DROA got them. The Safe Haven folks just paid the invoice thinking it was legitimate and until I got a domain transfer request from DROA/Name Juice I had no idea that Domain Registry of America were still scamming US domain owners.
I am afraid it is too late for Safe Haven to get their $50.00 back from Domain Registry of America because they sent them a check and DROA most likely didn’t send the transfer email until after the non-profit’s check had cleared. Of course there will be no domain transfer so Safe Haven has been effectively taken for $50.00. There are many people that have been mislead with Domain Registry of America’s “invoices”, so you can image in that DORA is raking in cash without having to do anything but put a stamp on a misleading advertising that looks like a bill.
I wouldn’t even been aware of it had I not received a domain transfer request from Domain Registry of America over the weekend. It was sent via namejuice.com which appears to be owned and operated by the same folks that are scamming unsuspecting people via misleading Domain Registry of America invoices.
I did some investigating on Domain Registry of America (DROA) and Name Juice and found some interesting things out.
Domain Registry of America (DROA) and NameJuice operate out of Ontario Canada and their website droa.com and namejuice.com are hosted on Verizon Business Hosting (Shame on you Verizon).
Domain Name: NAMEJUICE.COM
Registrar: BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES, INC. DBA NAMEJUICE.COM
Whois Server: whois.namejuice.com
Brandon Gray Internet Services Inc.
7100 Warden Ave
Unit 8
Markham
ON, L3R 8B5 CA
+1.9054152681
+1.9054152682
registrar @ namejuice.com
Same registration for DROA.com
Email header (IP): Received: from mail02.namejuice.com (mail02.namejuice.com [209.167.25.68])
209.167.25.68
OrgName: MCI Communications Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business
OrgID: MCICS
Address: 22001 Loudoun County Pkwy
City: Ashburn
StateProv: VA
PostalCode: 20147
Country: US
Verizon needs to pull the plug on these scammers…
What is even worse the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) got a court order barring Domain Registry of America for doing what they are still doing 5 years later.
Stipulated Order Requires Payment of Consumer Redress, Prohibits Future Deceptive Conduct
The Federal Trade Commission has requested that a federal district court enjoin Domain Registry of America, Inc., an Internet domain name re-seller, from making misrepresentations in the marketing of its domain name registration services and require it to pay redress to consumers.
If you search Google for “Domain Registry of America Complaints” or even “Domain Registry of America” you will find countless complaints about the Canadian company.
Why hasn’t the Canadian government or even the city of Ontario not investigated these scammers?
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