Domain Registrar - Liberty Names - Sends Misleading "Domain Name Expiration Notice"
If you own any Internet Domains you already know that they require a valid Domain Registrar to hold your registration information, before they can go live on a web host or server. I have had website domains since around the year 2000, and they have all been registered through the same Registrar; Dotster.
Today I received a deceptive letter in the mail from Liberty Names of America, apparently a Domain Registrar. At the top right, in large bold type it said: Domain Name Expiration Notice. After that, in small print, it stated: "As a courtesy, we would like to remind you that it's time to renew your domain name, which is expiring on April 27, 2007." Below that it listed one of my various domain names and a reply by date of March 14, 2007. The rest of the details in the letter are in small type, except for the parts where it outlines the renewal rates for 1, 2 and 5 years, and the place where the gullible would fill in their credit card details to "renew" their domain with these pirates.
As I stated in the first paragraph, Dotster, Inc. is and always has been my domain Registrar. Liberty Names Of America is harvesting the Whois records for as many domains as they can lookup, then sending out phony renewal notices to capture business away from the existing Registrars, by deceiving gullible recipients of these letters. To be fair, the letter does state, in small print, that they are not your current Registrar, and that they want you to transfer to them. The back side of the letter contains almost 7" of type that is so tiny that it requires a magnifying glass to read it. In that tiny type are the legal details and disclaimers for their transferring of your service.
As a reference to you all, I currently pay $14.95 per year (1 yr renewals) to maintain my domains at Dotster. Liberty Names is offering me the fabulous opportunity to transfer my domain away from $14.95 a year with Dotster to them, for the low rate of only $25.00! Hmmm. Simple math tells me that they are charging almost twice what Dotster charges for common TLD domain name registration. PIRATES! Take me off your mailing list, Liberty Names of America. You are slimeballs, just like DROA, who sends out similar Expiration Notices to domain owners. Are you the same slimeball company under a different name? Go F yourself!
Now that my tirade is over, if you really do need a decent domain registrar, one that won't dick you around, I recommend Dotster. For $14.95 you can register your domains, not $25, or $35, or $40 per year that the ripoff registrars charge. They do have sliding reduced rates for 5 or 10 year renewals and charge only $8.95 to transfer your existing domain, plus they add one year to it's expiration date.
Nuff said.
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