A very pervasive scam asks you to pay a “domain listing” service or something similar. But they’re literally just scammers. Don’t pay a dime, and make sure everyone in the office knows to delete that email or throw that letter in the trash.
What is the scam?
When you register a domain, you are required by the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to supply certain identifying information, which while it can generally be avoided by paying the registrar a little extra to mask your data, most people don’t pay, so your name, address, and email address are all publicly available to anyone that knows how to do a WHOIS lookup.
The result is that enterprising but unscrupulous individuals can access your data, and mail you letter or send you an email claiming to offer some sort of services associated with your domain registration. People unfamiliar with how the internet works may make the mistake of assuming that they have to pay money to these companies, which is the end goal of the scam.
You don’t have to pay a dime
Please note that once you have paid the annual domain registration through a registrar (GoDaddy, Tucows, etc.) or through your hosting provider (InMotion, Dreamhost, etc.), you don’t have to pay anything else for your domain, no matter how many emails or letters you get from scammers. Domain registration is annual and will always be through the registrar or hosting provider you started with, and those letters are just offering fake services for a fee that will get you nothing.
These scams are, unfortunately, legal, since right on the letter it will state somewhere that they are offering you a service, it’s not an invoice for anything you actually owe, and that you are not obligated to pay. However, the rest of the letter uses confusing language to make it seem like the recipient owes money to this nefarious “service provider”.
So, don’t waste your money, and don’t pay a dime to these scammers. Church budgets are typically tight already, so let’s not waste even a little money on some creepy scam that preys on general ignorance of internet technology.
Our recommendations
If you control your own domain registration, or are looking to register one, consider creating a free Cloudflare account. Cloudflare charges the lowest prices available on domains, and doesn’t try to upcharge you like many other providers. They do offer numerous other services and plans for your domains, but you can scroll to the bottom and use their free tier on any and all domains you register with them.
For hosting, if you need a place to host your website, consider InMotion for their shared hosting plans. Very few churches need more than what InMotion offers on their lowest tier. However, if you need a VPS (and if you need one, you know what the acronym stands for), we recommend Cloudways, the platform we use for KJV Churches.
Regardless of who you use, just remember to NEVER send money to pay a random, unsolicited “invoice” that comes in the mail. It will do you no good and is a complete waste of good money.
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