Just had a company call me at work, telling me that someone is trying to buy 10 domain names, which are basically our company name and is going to have them re-directed to his website.
They say this is happening all the time now and that he is probably a rival company, so when someone sees a van with our name on it they type in our name in a search engine and will be directed to his site, it sounds a bit sus to me, as the only way they can stop it is if I buy the domain names as what he is doing is not against the law.
A domain name is £9.99 a year so I just don’t understand why a firm would go to the lengths they are going to if it was a scam for such a small amount, when I could always buy the names elsewhere, what does it sound like to you ?
I have found another domain selling website, for half the price and double the time they are offering so may as well buy from there had I not ?! lol
the domain squatting thing is dubious. it can be illegal. Your best bet would be to buy the domain from another independant domain reseller.
Does this sound like a scam ?
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the domain squatting thing is dubious. it can be illegal. Your best bet would be to buy the domain from another independant domain reseller.
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More likely a threat. People take names and attempt to sell them back to companies that would identify easily to the name for large sums of money. Not as common like it was because so much is already taken.
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Yes that sound like a bit of scare marketing.
They are probably relying on the fact, it is such a small amount that some people will go ahead anyway, and all those £10 will soon add up.
I wouldn’t touch that one with someone else’s barge pole.
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It is only a scam in that they are trying to get you to buy up all possible domains that include your company name.
Your argument is logical, as that is exactly what is happening BUT put it this way, if you have the most common domain(s) (e.g. ‘.com’:’.co.uk’) I wouldn’t worry, as most people only have time to see your company name from the van and probably chose .com or .co.uk as the first step to trace you even though a search engine may give all options.
As for why people would pay the cost of all of these ‘other’ domains is precisely so that they can then contact you saying that ‘x’ amount of hits have been received on a particular domain and try to sell it back to you at an inflated price.
Depending what your company profit is and if buying all these domains could be substantiated, I would just treat it like a scam and ignore it.
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BIG time scam
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“Fellside” is 100% right and I can’t understand why someone has marked it down!
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It does sound like a scam, or at least very dubious marketing practice. They might be testing you with a low initial price and if you 'bite', the price could escalate in the future, however, even £100 per annum, per customer is worth a few phone calls to someone.
If you think they are a registered company, you can find details about them on the Companies House website
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/625369fb2463be3ce8222232feac3498/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo
Here is also a link to ICANN, the domain name regulator
http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/
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