Verisign Sending Deceptive Domain Renewal Mail?

General_Corto writes: "Declan McCullagh's PoliTech list just forwarded a message detailing how Verisign is sending letters to people who own domains through other registrars, attempting to make them change registrar on renewal. Looking at the letter it is very unclear that you are signing up with a different registrar. Sneaky games are being played."

Register.com does this as well

[Bloodwine]

My PHB often comes in with letters from register.com and always says, "I didn't think we had domains with them? How did they get our domains?!" and I have to tell him that those renewal letters are just gimmicks to trick you into changing registrars.

I'm not one who is satisfied with the incompetence of Verisign, but I can't let them take the blame for coming up with this scam.

Re:Haven't we heard this sob story before?

[Cutriss]

"Switch to MCI/Sprint from AT&T, it's better!"

"Switch to Linux, it's better!"

This is *totally* different. The difference is that Verisign isn't really telling you that you're switching, other than in the teeny tiny fine print. By your logic, this is akin to MCI sending you a bill for your AT&T service, indicating underneath your signature line that you'll be authorizing them to take over your service. There are laws against this now that specifically require you to say something along the phrase of "I agree to have *** as my long distance provider" on the phone where they can record it, as well as citing some personally identifiable information, so that the telco can prove that you authorized the change in proper sound mind and body.

Re:"Interland" does this as well

[TheTomcat]

Yeah, I was at godaddy.com this morning.. there's a big yellow "A WARNING TO OUR CUSTOMERS" button on their homepage.
Links here [godaddy.com].

Deceptive renewal notices

[Visualocity]

We've received numerous calls from customers of ours regarding this issue as well. We've posted a sample of one of these Verisign notices at:

<a href="http://domainscams.com">http://domainscam s.com</a>.

There's also a good thread on the OpenSRS discuss-list mailing list. <a href="http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list /0203/">OpenSRS discuss-list archive.</a>

What is disturbing to me with this is that while similar renewal scams have been running for some time, these have usually been run from small time registration service providers like Domain Registry of America/Canada. This one is from Verisign, and they've the money behind them to hit a lot of domain holders with this.

Their notice also includes a reply date which is timed 40 days following the expiry date of the domain, the day that most other registrars will drop the domain if not renewed.,

The notice itself is entitled Domain Name Expiration Notice, and looks as close to a renewal form as possible.

If you have received one of these & paid it, you should contact your bank/credit card company about reversing the charge. Verisign won't be able to complete the transfer without you authorising it by an email that is sent to the existing admin email contact for your domain.

You may also want to visit http://www.usps.com and in the search box type in "false billing". You will find the first result link is for: "False Billing Schemes Against Business".

"Notify your local postmaster or nearest Postal Inspector if you receive a questionable invoice or have been taken in a false billing scheme. This will help postal inspectors protect other companies with weak controls."

Not the only way Verisign plays dirty...

[thesolo]

Things like this are exactly why I no longer use Verisign/NetSol as my registrar. However, unfortunately this not their only dirty trick.

Aside from this, which is very similar to long-distance carrier slamming, Verisign also has a nasty habit of holding onto domains/not allowing customers to transfer their own domains. I know several people who were forced to wait for MONTHS for Verisign to finally go ahead and transfer their domains to another registrar, and that was only after repeated calls to them. Verisign's own transfer process was completely ignored, in the hopes of squeezing another $35 out of the billing contact.

Verisign also uses deceptive overbilling; if you register a domain with them for a year, come renewal time, they will send you a renewal bill for $70 or more! Of course, only in the very fine print do they tell you that it's $35 a year, so they are trying to make you renew for 2+ years. Yes, you can select 1 year, but they should not default to 2 years unless you previously paid for 2 years. It is very carefully worded to make it look like you actually owe them $70+.

Lastly, they make it ridiculously tough to modify your own contact information for a domain. I had a domain which was registered in my name, and with an email address that was now expired. So, you have to fax them a paper requesting a change of email address. Fine, no problem there. However, I had to send them nine faxes before it got changed. I would call to followup the fax, and they would repeatedly claim that it was never received. It took over 3 1/2 months for me to get an email address changed on a domain contact!! Of course, if you sign up for their expensive premium services, it only takes a day; glad to know where regular customers stand with Verisign.

I recommend that anyone who does use them to switch elsewhere. A company like Verisign/NetSol does not deserve our business.

Re:I just recieved one.

[3waygeek]

A brick won't work -- check out the Straight Dope [straightdope.com]

Re:"Interland" does this as well

[zangdesign]

Instead of ICANN, I would suggest contacting your State Attorney General's office for deceptive trade practices, or the Postmaster General for mail fraud. ICANN can't prosecute these scumbags the way they should be.

Re:Ads?

[thesolo]

I'm not one to normally be conspiratorial, but I think that it's not Verisign that's sending these letters, it's their competitor, GoDaddy, making it look like Verisign is to blame.

Please check out a good scan of the letter in question here: http://www.domainscams.com/ [domainscams.com]. It is not from GoDaddy.

Re:"Interland" does this as well

[NearlyHeadless]

Instead of ICANN, I would suggest contacting your State Attorney General's office for deceptive trade practices, or the Postmaster General for mail fraud. ICANN can't prosecute these scumbags the way they should be.

Excellent idea. If you personally have received one of these cards, report it to http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFra udComplaint.htm [usps.com]

If you have already paid this, you could complain at the FTC [ftc.gov], too.

Re:Expired domains

[Strog]

My brother-in-law let his expire. He thought they would delete and he can go renew it somewhere else for a fraction of the price. 90 days comes and goes with no word. I start emailing them pretending that I'm interested in registering it. They give me the run around about batch deleting etc. but thanks for your interest. A week later it became available. He registered it at godaddy for $8.95 instead of $35.

Re:it's a

[Da Schmiz]

Scams through the Post Office are punishable under mail fraud laws.

See: http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFra udComplaint.htm [usps.com]

As for unsolicited postal mail, this search at Google [google.com] will get you started.

Don't get me started on Interland

[Infonaut]

My saga with Interland convinced me that I should take every opportunity to share the tragic story, in hopes that it would keep others from having to undergo the same sad fate.

The short version is that I signed up for a domain transfer to Interland. Everything went fine (that is, they were very efficient at ringing u the sale on my credit card). Then, the troubles started. Various snafus at their end made the domain transfer take not one, not two, not three days - but NINE.

To make matters worse, their POP server went down repeatedly. Their "helpful web-based admin tools" didn't work properly - for example, WebTrends worked, but only sporadically. Server response times were atrocious - I regularly ran traceroutes from a variety of locations and found response to routinely be 2x slower than most other comparable sites.

Tech support failed to respond to any of my above complaints, but each time I received a handy message from their automated system, telling me that the problem had been resolved. How had it been resolved? There was no problem in the first place, so everything is OK!

Finally, I elected to end my misery. I switched to another host, which has given me none of the above-mentioned difficulties. I complained yet again to Interland and they finally promised to send a refund for the unused portion of my 1-year contract.

I faxed in the appropriate form over two weeks ago, and haven't been credited the amount due. Why am I not surprised?

Contact info for Verisign

[Boatman]

I got a letter too. It says to fax it back to
1-866-234-4134, or call 1-800-810-6298 if I have questions.

I think I'll mail the letter back just to be sure, and *boy* do I have questions.

I got one the other day...

[Wakko Warner]

...for one of my domains. It's actually pretty obvious that it's a transfer application, but I can see how it might confuse some people. It's just a single sheet of paper that you write your name on, check a couple of boxes to renew (and transfer your domain to them), and print your credit card info on.

I guess if NetSol wants "what--the--fuck.com", they can have it.

A lesson in POSTNET barcodes

[intuition]

If you look at the image [godaddy.com] of the letter you will see that they blocked out the address, but not the postnet barcode.

To my eyes the POSTNET barcode looks like this to me : (where t represents a tall bar and s a short one)

t ttsss sstst sstts stsst tssst ssstt ssstt sstst ststs sstst ststs tssts t

This decodes into 0 2 3 4 7 1 1 2 5 2 5 8.

which is ZIP+4+2: 02347-1125-25 Checksum 8

The way the POSTNET checksum value is given by (10-((Summation of all digits) Mod 10)). The total of our digits 02347112525 = 32... (10-(32 mod 10)) = 8. The checksum is valid and our decoding is probably successful.

Next step... head to the usps [usps.com] website to find that 02347 is in Lakeville, MA. Mind you, a ZIP+4+2 code in most cases is a unique address. However, the USPS is not going to make this easy for us.

Lets try our friend Google instead... searching [google.com] for 02347-1125 give us the personal web site of Steve Douillette [steve-d.com].

But how can we be sure that this is the letter Mr. Douillette recieved and diligently forwarded to godaddy to warn other customers? I wonder where [internic.net] Steve registered his domain name steve-d.com.

If you want to be anonymous, please be careful with what you post online.

Re:At least they've gotta ask...

[argent]

Slamming domain names used to be a bigger problem. We lost NMTI.COM because Verisign (then Network Solutions) screwed up and bythe time we had things cleared up with them Register.COM was squatting on our domain.

And the phone companies got slapped for slamming, and they got slapped for sending out letters like this one (here's mine, at [taronga.com]
http://www.taronga.com/~peter/io/vs/ ).

Finally, it's interesting to note that thy refused to let me transfer another domain away from them when it was still over a month from renewal, and yet here it is right on the deadline and they're going after scarydevil.com...

If you want to see an unmunged copy...

[argent]

Go ahead and look at mine. After all, all the "personal" information in the letter is straight from my "WHOIS" entry, so anyone can look it up.

Follow this link [taronga.com].

Or just wait by your postbox. I'm sure you'll get one before too long.

My register sent me a warning email...

[Mandelbrot-5]

To: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: [e-mail]
Subject: A WARNING TO OUR CUSTOMERS

Please be aware that Verisign, Inc. (formerly Network Solutions) is sending via the US Mail, what we believe to be deceptive and predatory domain expiration notices.

The purpose behind these notices is to get the unsuspecting customer to transfer to and renew their domain name(s) with Verisign Inc. at significantly higher prices.

The domain expiration notices are designed so that it is not obvious that the notices are from Verisign, Inc. as opposed to Go Daddy Software. To see a copy of one of these deceptive expiration notices, please go to the following URL: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/private_vsrn.asp?dis play=letter.

Those customers who fall prey to the Verisign, Inc. scheme will have their domain name(s) renewed at a price more than 3 times higher than would be the case if they renewed with Go Daddy Software.

For a .com, .net or .org domain name renewal, the victimized customer would pay $29.00 to Verisign, Inc. instead of the $8.95 charged by Go Daddy Software.

Those customers who fall prey to this scheme, will not receive any better service or value. They will however be tricked out of $20.05 per domain name.

Renewal notices from Go Daddy Software are sent via email, and always mention the Go Daddy name. You can be sure that any communications you receive concerning your domain name that do not explicitly and obviously display the Go Daddy name are not from Go Daddy Software.

If you believe, as we do, that this practice of Verisign Inc. is misleading, predatory and improper, we invite you to make your feelings known by writing to ICANN (who is the governing body for all Registrar?s and Registries) and to Verisign Registry. Email links for both are provided below.

Sincerely,

Bob Parsons, President
Go Daddy Software, Inc.

ICANN Registrar Complaint Form (hosted at InterNIC)
http://www.internic.net/cgi/registrars/ problem-rep ort.cgi

VeriSign Registry Customer Service
[e-mail]
Phone: [phone]

(oh, and the funny thing was they sent it with screwed up mime headers)

Actually...

[SimplexO]

he's right. check out for yourself [buffalo.edu] or use javascript [triskelion-ltd.com] for your needs. Thanks for playing!

This is illegal. See 39 USC 3005

[Animats]

It's illegal to send out a solicitation that looks like a bill. And the rules on that were tightened up recently. See the relevant sections of the postal regulations. [usps.gov] There are some very specific requirements on sending out stuff that looks like bills. Like "THIS IS NOT A BILL", in 30-point type. See below.

• Any otherwise mailable matter that reasonably could be considered a bill, invoice, or statement of account due, but is in fact a solicitation for an order, is nonmailable unless it conforms to 1.2 through 1.6. A nonconforming solicitation constitutes prima facie evidence of violation of 39 USC 3005. Compliance with this section does not avoid violation of Section 3005 if any part of the solicitation or any information with it misrepresents a material fact to the addressee (e.g., misleading the addressee about the identity of the sender of the solicitation or about the nature or extent of the goods or services offered may be a violation of Section 3005).
• 1.2 Required Disclaimer
  The solicitation must bear on its face either the disclaimer required by 39 USC 3001(d)(2)(A) or the notice: 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. The statutory disclaimer or the alternative notice must be displayed in conspicuous boldface capital letters of a color prominently contrasting with the background against which it appears, including all other print on the face of the solicitation and that are at least as large, bold, and conspicuous as any other print on the face of the solicitation but not smaller than 30-point type (see Exhibit 1.2).
• 1.3 Surrounding Matter
  The notice or disclaimer required by this section must be displayed conspicuously apart from other print on the page immediately below each portion of the solicitation that reasonably could be construed to specify a monetary amount due and payable by the recipient. It must not be preceded, followed, or surrounded by words, symbols, or other matter that reduces its conspicuousness or that introduces, modifies, qualifies, or explains the required text, such as "Legal Notice Required by Law."

If you get a solicitation that looks like a bill, and you don't see those disclaimers in huge type, contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. [usps.com]

Re:Could It Now Do This?

[csbruce]

I wonder if the Telco Act as it stands now already cover this?

Isn't mail fraud already a serious crime?

Re:How do you decode the numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simplex0 posted [slashdot.org] a URL [buffalo.edu] describing the method.

Basically, the bits have values: 74210. Every digit uses five bits and exactly two bits are on, and the number zero is encoded as an eleven.

Wrong. It is 100% deceitful

[bani]

This is exactly as if you were subscribed to e.g Sprint as your long distance carrier, and then all of a sudden you start getting "past due" bills from MCI.

1) MCI has NO BUSINESS sending me "bills".
2) It's deceptive.
3) It's illegal.
4) The FTC *has* spanked companies over issues like this.

Why should verisign get away with it, just because "others do it too"?

Using that logic, M$ should be let off the hook just because "other companies violate federal law too".

That doesn't make it OK.

[bani]

Just because others do it doesn't mean it's OK for verisign to do it too.

Every registrar using these deceptive and illegal practices should be fined and/or shutdown by the FTC.

Re:A lesson in POSTNET barcodes

[httptech]

I found this pretty cool, but I'm too lazy to do the math each time. So here's a short perl script I whipped up to decode the barcodes in the form of sststsstst, etc.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
my @digitcode;
my ($sum, $maxdigits, $checksum);
my %codes = ( ttsss => '0', ssstt => '1', sstst => '2', sstts => '3',
stsst => '4', ststs => '5', sttss => '6', tssst => '7', tssts => '8',
tstss => '9');
chomp(my $code = <STDIN>);
if ($code =~ /[^st]/) { print "Invalid code (use combinations of s and t only)\n"; exit }
if ($code !~ s/^t(.*)t$/$1/i) { print "Framing bars not present!\n"; exit }
$maxdigits = length($code) / 5;
print "Decoding $maxdigits digit zip code...\n";
my @codestring = split(//, $code);
for (0..$maxdigits - 2) {
$digitcode[$_] = join("", @codestring[$_ * 5 .. $_ * 5 + 4]);
print "$codes{$digitcode[$_]}";
if ($_ == 4) { print "-" }
$sum += $codes{$digitcode[$_]};
}
print "\n";
$checksum = join("",@codestring[($maxdigits - 1) * 5 .. ($maxdigits - 1) * 5 + 4]);
$sum += $codes{$checksum};
if ($sum % 10) { print "Checksum invalid!\n"; exit }