WARNING: Domain registration scam from “Domain Register Pty Ltd” – April 2013

ANSA Customer Service was made aware of a new Domain Registration scam, currently in operation from the “Domain Register Pty Ltd” (ABN: 127506807), a company registered in WA (despite listing a Melbourne VIC office address).

This scam is similar to the previously published WARNING: Domain Registration scam from “Domain Name Group Pty Ltd” – July 2010 and it’s likely to be operated by the same group.

This group is sending out invoices for payment of domain registration for a .com, .net or .org version of their .au domains.

The invoice is misleading customers to pay the registration fee of $249 AUD for 2 years of the .com domain equivalent of their .com.au license, despite stating that the domain is available.

This group harvested postal address information belonging to ACN/ABN owners of the .com.au domain equivalents. The way the group acquired the addresses was simply by searching the public WHOIS database for .au domains, and then used the ACN/ABN details to search for the postal address details via other available online resources.

Aus Net Servers Australia would like to warn customers against registering the .com domain equivalents with Domain Register Pty Ltd. The individuals operating this company are suspected to be associated with the original scammers who owned a pretend company “Netregister” which was setup in an attempt to confuse Netregistry client base into transferring their domains and services away. Additionally, the charges per registration are disproportionately high compare to standard pricing.