Category Archives: Security

Don’t Be Scammed – Ignore The iDNS Domain Registrar Spam Letter

Security, Spam Hall Of Shame

From time to time, some of Northwoods Web Designs (NWD) clients as well as ourselves, receive letters from fraudulent domain registrars who prey on people who don’t fully understand the domain registration service by sending letters in the mail about their expiring domain and requests payment.

We get asked about these from our clients, which tells me they have clearly deceived their letters pretty well to try to trick some domain owners into thinking a domain renewal invoice.

So I first wrote about this a couple of years ago, but my clients and myself are still receiving these. Which is a problem. Why? Because it means many of you are still falling for the scam and paying United Arab Emirates 300-500% higher cost to own the registration to your domain.





Why is this considered Spam? Because its unsolicited (you didn’t ask for it) and is a fraudulently deceiving letter, making you think the worlds going to end if you don’t transfer your domain name to them. In which after they own your domain name registration, they can jack your price higher/hold your domain hostage to force you to pay.

So we want to provide this information to protect you, whether you have registered your domain name with Northwoods Web Designs or some other provider. Here is the word for word mailing that you may receive. Hoping you are finding this from searching, ultimately protecting yourself from this spam company.

These companies who send these letters, such as iDNS,  attempt to convince you into transferring or renewing your domain using their service. Which on average is 500% above the market rate for domain name services. 
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Spam Hall of Shame – Be Cautious of Scam Voicemails Left Trying to Get You To Call Back

Security, Spam Hall Of Shame

Stop Spam - Although some of it is funnyWelcome to our Spam Hall of Shame. Where we post some of the most bizarre, funny but potentially harmful scam/spam to the unknowing victim.

This spam showcases around voicemail phishing (Vishing), which is a type of scam done through Voicemails.  Unfortunately anyone can be a target of this scam and doesn’t matter whether you provided your number with others.

Phone numbers in the U.S. follow a predicted value so a simply computer program can be created to obtain the numbers (everything from (111) – 111 – 1111 to (999) – 999 – 9999 for example. Which makes it easy to have a computer to simply do the dirty work and leave a recorded message (scammers are also lazy people).


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Spam Hall of Shame – Someone Complimented You Text Message Scam

Security, Spam Hall Of Shame

Stop Spam - Although some of it is funnyWelcome to our Spam Hall of Shame. Where we post some of the most bizarre, funny but potentially harmful scam/spam to the unknowing victim.

This spam showcases around Smishing, which is a type of scam done through text messaging.  Unfortunately anyone can be a target of this scam and doesn’t matter whether you provided your number with others.

Phone numbers in the U.S. follow a predicted value so a simply computer program can be created to obtain the numbers (everything from (111) – 111 – 1111 to (999) – 999 – 9999 for example.


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Important Notice Expiration Notice For Your Domain Scam

Security, Spam Hall Of Shame, Web Wise


As we know there are people all over the world using different unethical tactics to try to obtain money from unsuspecting victims. Some do it without actually breaking the law. Such as leveraging these bogus domain expiration emails that are pouring in to unsuspecting business owners email accounts.

If you received a similar email such as the one below, and wondering what you should do, read on to find out more.

First, how are they getting all your companies information? Well that is easy, as every domain name registered displays the registrants personal email, company address, phone number to the public.

You can find your public listed information by typing in your domain name at the official ICANN Domain Name Registrar site: https://whois.icann.org/en Unless you purchase additional services to hide it or have a reputable web firm registrar it on your behalf, its fair game.  We offer both secure domain registration options for our clients.

These folks that send these emails scrape the internet for this public information, even get triggered when new domains are registered so they have all the info needed, including your name, email address, home address and when the domain expires, which is all used against you.

Next, they add fear and limited time to the equation. The whole email structure is to capture fear that something is going to happen if you don’t respond. So the next step is to have you quickly read the headings, since they know your busy and don’t have time to read the whole thing.

They figure you know you need a domain name to properly display your website (and keep your email working), so they state its going to expire.

Here is the fine print:

This important expiration notification notifies you about the expiration notice of your domain registration for yourdomain.org search engine optimization submission. The information in this expiration notification may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the Domain Seo Service Registration to purchase our search engine traffic generator. We do not register or renew domain names. We are selling traffic generator software tools. This information is intended for the use of the individual(s) named above.If you fail to complete your domain name registration yourdomain.org search engine optimization service by the expiration date, may result in the cancellation of this search engine optimization domain name notification notice.

But in reality, its a ploy to buy some type of SEO service service, which they don’t explain what that entails unlike our SEO service page.  I have tracked many of these types of emails coming from mail servers located in other countries outside the US.

So what do you do if you receive an email like this and its not from your website hosting or domain services provider? Simply delete it and/or mark it as spam in your email client.

What happens if you did fall for this and send them money for it? Technically consider it a lesson learned. As they will not provide a refund and they keep changing the company and email these come from to prevent action taken on them.

Hopefully this provides a little insight on these types of scam emails targeting specifically to business and non-profits that have websites.

Let us know if you have received a similar email or if you know of anyone who actually signed up for this in the comments below.

Spam Hall of Shame – Craigslist Scam Attempt Text Message 256-255-4277,509-497-7137

Security, Spam Hall Of Shame


Stop Spam - Although some of it is funnyWelcome to our Spam Hall of Shame. Where we post some of the most bizarre, funny but potentially harmful scam/spam to the unknowing victim.

This spam showcases around Craigslist’s SMS Phishing attempts.  Below is the actual automated reply(s) from the phone number(s) listed in this article regarding our very own craigslist ad.

Because we always post in two or more regions with similar titles, we know its a scam when you get two identical spam text that try to appear there interested.  If you are wondering if craigslist has voicemail, the answer is no.


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