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It seems that no matter how cautious we are, we can always fall victim.

Five years ago this coming April, our church decided to create a website. Nobody in our congregation had any idea how to do it. At that time, there was a foreign exchange student from Denmark staying at my neighbors and she volunteered to help us get the website created and registered since she had experience.

About a month ago, our treasurer got what looked like an invoice in the mail informing us that our domain name registration was up for renewal. She wasn't sure what it was as she is not internet saavy in the slightest so she passed it on to one of the ladies in our church that has been keeping our website up to date. She didn't know what it was either and brought it to me as I am the council chair. I brought it to our council meeting which was scheduled about a week later. It was decided that we would renew it for another five years at a cost of $180.00.

As I mentioned before, nobody in our group has any experience in these matters and so we were not alarmed by the price and did not know this company was not our domain name registrar.

About a week ago, we got a thank you letter in the mail along with a request for our current domain code key or something along those lines to finalize the process. This caught my attention because I figured if we were just renewing, they should already have this information. Turns out, the original letter was not an invoice but rather an offer to transfer our domain name services to the new registrar and now they need additional information to complete the transfer.

I decided to do a web search to find out about this company called iDNS (Internet Domain Name Services, Inc.). I got page upon page of hits identifying iDNS as a scam. It appears that the company, iDNS, is a legitimate domain name services company but they use shady and deceptive tactics to obtain new clients. I also learned that they may tend to be very rude and belligerent when called.

We decided that I would try to get our money refunded so I looked up their contact information and sent an email. Here's what I wrote...

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that we, the Salem and Sauk Valley Lutheran churches, have unintentionally submitted payment for the transfer of our website domain services to iDNS. After further review we came to the realization that we had mistaken your solicitation for transfer of our domain services to iDNS as an invoice.

We appreciate your generous offer but at this time we must decline and request a refund of the $180.00 which was sent to you.

Please accept our apology for any inconvenience this may have caused. We will try to be more careful in the future.

Instead of a reply attempting to sell me into finishing the transfer, I got the following...

?

To which I replied...

Wow, interesting reply from a place of business. Is there additional information you need? I can send you a photocopy of the letter you sent thanking us for the payment and then requesting additional information to complete the transfer if that will help.

If we are unable to get a refund, we'll be forced to ask our bank to cancel payment on the check. Just thought I'd share this and maybe others will not be caught off guard.
 
It seems that no matter how cautious we are, we can always fall victim.

Five years ago this coming April, our church decided to create a website. Nobody in our congregation had any idea how to do it. At that time, there was a foreign exchange student from Denmark staying at my neighbors and she volunteered to help us get the website created and registered since she had experience.

About a month ago, our treasurer got what looked like an invoice in the mail informing us that our domain name registration was up for renewal. She wasn't sure what it was as she is not internet saavy in the slightest so she passed it on to one of the ladies in our church that has been keeping our website up to date. She didn't know what it was either and brought it to me as I am the council chair. I brought it to our council meeting which was scheduled about a week later. It was decided that we would renew it for another five years at a cost of $180.00.

As I mentioned before, nobody in our group has any experience in these matters and so we were not alarmed by the price and did not know this company was not our domain name registrar.

About a week ago, we got a thank you letter in the mail along with a request for our current domain code key or something along those lines to finalize the process. This caught my attention because I figured if we were just renewing, they should already have this information. Turns out, the original letter was not an invoice but rather an offer to transfer our domain name services to the new registrar and now they need additional information to complete the transfer.

I decided to do a web search to find out about this company called iDNS (Internet Domain Name Services, Inc.). I got page upon page of hits identifying iDNS as a scam. It appears that the company, iDNS, is a legitimate domain name services company but they use shady and deceptive tactics to obtain new clients. I also learned that they may tend to be very rude and belligerent when called.

We decided that I would try to get our money refunded so I looked up their contact information and sent an email. Here's what I wrote...

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that we, the Salem and Sauk Valley Lutheran churches, have unintentionally submitted payment for the transfer of our website domain services to iDNS. After further review we came to the realization that we had mistaken your solicitation for transfer of our domain services to iDNS as an invoice.

We appreciate your generous offer but at this time we must decline and request a refund of the $180.00 which was sent to you.


Please accept our apology for any inconvenience this may have caused. We will try to be more careful in the future.

Instead of a reply attempting to sell me into finishing the transfer, I got the following...

?

To which I replied...

Wow, interesting reply from a place of business. Is there additional information you need? I can send you a photocopy of the letter you sent thanking us for the payment and then requesting additional information to complete the transfer if that will help.

If we are unable to get a refund, we'll be forced to ask our bank to cancel payment on the check. Just thought I'd share this and maybe others will not be caught off guard.
unbelievable - do the scammers ever run out of ideas?
 
Thankfully you are keeping all the correspondence. I would stop the check. I would also consider changing your bank account number.
 
Here is my concern.
It sounds like you signed and paid a fee to transfer ownership of your domain to this company. The codes they were asking for would allow them to change the name of who owned the domain.

If you would have given them the code, they could have held your site for random with you never knowing. I imagine they would start billing you on a regular cycle and as long as you continued to pay, you would be unaware that you didn't own the domain name...

I pay everything with my credit card. I get cash back on every purchase and I can dispute any charge. In your situation, once they cash the check, you'll never see your money back because your not going to hire a lawyer for $180.

If they haven't cashed the check, cancel it immediately.... Like right now.
 
Yes, you need to cancel that check even though it cost to do that, but at least they will not hack your checking account as I would even change that too. These scammers are getting better at scamming people, but people are also getting better at realizing they are being scammed.
 
no, crooks and theft will always be until the Return.
i suppose - too bad - innocent unaware people get so hurt by these people

i know some seniors who never answer their phone - they let the answering machine screen all their calls because they don't want to talk to scammers and they are too gentle know what to do - they grew up in an era when people cared about each other
 
There is a lot of phone scams here too. My daughter-in-law got caught in one and they emptied her bank account.
 
This morning I sent a photo copy of the letter we received thanking us for the payment and reaffirmed my request for refund. I got a reply that we can expect the refund within 3 to 5 weeks. I've alerted our treasurer and recommended that she and the bank keep an eye on the account for any unauthorized or out of the ordinary transactions.
 
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