You may have noticed that this site was down briefly yesterday. That is because I got scammed by the Domain Registry of America, an unscrupulous group out of Buffalo, NY, who has been the target of numerous investigations and lawsuits.
Here is what happened. The balloon-juice domain name was set to expire on 17 January, and a couple of weeks ago I got a letter from the DROA crew, which looked much like this letter (obviously, names and dates were different). It read:
“As a courtesy to domain name holder, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registration that is due to expire in the next few months. When you switch today to the Domain Registry of America, you can take advantage of our best savings.”
I then promptly paid for a 2 year renewal. I then started receiving email notifications from my real Domain Name company, ItsYourDomain.COm (who is great), so I emailed them to see why they were still contacting me. They alerted me to the fraud.
If you get a letter/email like this, it is a scam. I called them and am supposed to be refunded in the next 72 hours, and I will let you know if it happens.