We receive calls from customers every few months asking if the letter they received from the “Domain Registry Of Canada” is a legitimate registrar… and they are!
But they prey on anyone Canadian who owns a domain name out there and hope that the customer will take their service over their current registrar and ten times out of ten you shouldn’t go through with it honestly.
We understand it looks like an official document from even the government, but it is not – this is just a registar out there preying on customers who may be unaware of this scam.
It’s very expensive alternative and they provide no service, and gives away the control of your domain to them and we’ve heard it gets even more difficult to make changes to your domain once in their control – be very careful!
If you receive a letter and have your domain with Treefrog call us immediately, do not fill out their form. Once you do we are unable to assist you and you’ll be out the cash (although we have saved a few domains because we were the admin contact and just cancelled their transfer).
This is a warning! Be careful!
(We’re not linking to them, they don’t deserve the link but you can Google their name if you’re that inclined or have received a letter – contact them, or shred the letter and burn the pieces)
Know Who Controls Your Domain, DNS and Hosting
Letters like this work because many businesses don’t know who looks after which part of their website. It helps to think of it as three layers.
- Registrar. The company you register (really, rent) your domain name through. Whoever controls the registrar account controls the domain, so this is the layer scammers go after.
- DNS (domain name system). The settings that point your domain to the servers that run your website and email. It can be managed by your registrar or by a separate provider.
- Website and email hosting. Where your site files and your mailboxes actually live. These can be with the same company or with different ones.
Your domain also lists an administrative contact and a technical contact. Renewal and transfer notices go to those email addresses. If they belong to someone who left the company years ago, important notices go nowhere.
What Happens If Your Domain Expires
Registrars usually send renewal reminders in the months and weeks before your expiry date. If the renewal is missed, the domain stops resolving. Your website goes offline and email to your domain addresses stops arriving.
Most domains then sit in a grace period, and sometimes a redemption period, where the owner can still recover them, often for an extra fee. The length of each stage depends on the extension (.ca, .com and so on) and the registrar. After that, the domain is released and anyone can register it, including people who watch expiry lists for names with existing traffic or brand value.
- Renew for several years at a time, or turn on auto-renew with a payment method that won’t lapse.
- Keep your administrative and technical contacts current.
- Keep your domain with a registrar you know and trust, and ignore renewal or transfer offers you didn’t ask for.
Keep a Domain Cheat Sheet
Write down your registrar, your DNS provider, your website host and your email host, along with the admin and technical contacts for each. Store the logins in your company password manager, not in one person’s head. It saves time during a website rebuild or migration, and it saves you when the person who set it all up moves on.