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Domain Name Registry of America Scam

In the last couple of weeks an official sounding company called the Domain Name Registry of America has been sending letters to the owners of non UK domain names (.com, Example scam letter.org, .net etc) telling them their domains are about to expire and that they need to renew.

If you're not used to dealing with domain name issues or if you read the letter quickly it would be easy for you to assume (which is the intention) that the domain is registered with this company and they are just being helpful in letting you know it's time to renew. However this is actually a scam. This company is based in Canada and is sending out these letters in order to dupe domain name owners into transferring their domain names to this company. They have nothing to do with the domain names in question and the domains usually aren't about to expire.

As we handle the renewal of quite a few domain names I've seen a couple of these letters so far (as have a number of our other clients). On first glance they look quite convincing, and if you don't know the terminology it would be very easy to fall for the scam. So who's behind it?

  • The letter I received has a UK address: 56 Gloucester Rd, Suite 526, SW7 4UB London. This happens to be the same address as Mail Boxes Etc, so it's probably just a mail box.
  • The letter was shipped from "Jamaica, NY", which seems to be the USPS post office in John F Kennedy Airport. The address on the DRoA site says "2316 Delaware Avenue #266 - Buffalo, New York", which apparently is again a "Mail Boxes Etc" location.
  • A legal document of the Federal Trade Commission (Dec 2003) places them in Ontario, Canada. I found a "PO Box 4577, Markham, Ontario, L3R 5M7″ address on their Canadian site. Again no 'real' address.
  • A search in Canada's WHOIS comes up with: droc.ca was registered in Aug 2001 by a Mr Pearl Bitton. A search in Canada's 411 phone directory gives us one Mr. P. Bitton in Thornhill, Ontario - about 15km away from Markham. I can't be sure it's him, of course.
  • The FTC final judgment of Dec 2003 mentions a Daniel Klemann, President of DRoA. Mr Klemann must be seing a lot of court rooms, because he was already convicted in Canada in June 2002. So this man has been told twice by a judge that he should stop his practices, but still continues. What a hero. There is a D. Klemann living in Markham and in Toronto.
  • His partner in crime, James Tetaka, equally popular in courtrooms, was convicted for similar facts in May of 2004 and described as a Toronto-area man.
  • The company under which they operated is "1473253 Ontario Inc", which is run by Peter Kuryliw, also from Toronto.
  • So they first ran a scam as Yellowbusiness.ca, then as Internet Registry of Canada (IRC), and now they are basically active all over the world. Global scumbags.

Other mentions of the scam:

Date - 08 September 2006

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