We automatically call on domain registrations that are five years or greater. We use a control panel that has domain registrations built into it. This control panel allows us to set a monetary limit on automatic registrations and holds anything above that limit for moderation by us, sending us an email to check the account.
It is legal in this state to tape telephone conversations as long as one party is aware the conversation is being taped but we tell them upfront that we are taping the conversation for training purposes. We then explain that we verify orders to ensure no one is using their credit card without their permission. We verify name of person placing order, asking them to spell the name, the credit card number, address, CCV number on back of credit card, domain name with spelling and the number of year they are ordering. We then verify the amount with them. We have not been asking how they found our site. That is a very good suggestion. We find that very few become upset over being called as most appreciate the extra security. We have caught several attempts to register fraudulent domains and hosting accounts with this system. Although I do not understand why anybody would attempt to open a one year hosting account with a bad credit card number. The most they would get to use the account would be 2-3 months even if we did not have this system in place. If I was using a stolen card I would only open a basic account paying by the month. That would get by all the checks and be automatically set up. We advertise our hosting service on a monthly basis, every month, but do not advertise domain registrations. I just checked and almost all of these are individual domain orders. A few ordered 2-3 domains but most only ordered one domain. Unfortunately most have not ordered hosting from us and this is the only reason we offer domain registration. It appears that we may need to lower the price on our starter account hosting service as we may no longer be competitive on starter accounts. I receive a lot of spam from hosting companies offering under $10 accounts every day but hate to become involved with such accounts. You can not provide decent service at that price level and most starter accounts require a lot of tech support during the first three months. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert L Mathews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Discuss List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 12:16 AM Subject: Re: Increase in registrations during February > At 3/3/03 6:53 PM, ezgoing wrote: > > >However during the month of February we averaged 3.71 domains per day, with > >a average registration period of 3.1 years. We receive a large percentage > >of five year registrations and several ten year registrations. > > > Hmmm. Even if overall registrations are increasing (and ours didn't > change noticeably in February), I wouldn't think the number of years per > registration would increase by a factor of 3. > > If those were my statistics, I'd be checking the IP addresses to see if a > lot of them are coming from countries like Malaysia, indicating credit > card fraud. More than half the five- and ten-year registration attempts > we've ever received have been fraudulent. > > Or maybe you've done some advertising, or got a couple of big new > clients? > > I'd give a couple of the ten-year ones a call, claiming "we just needed > to check the billing address on the card" or something like that. See if > the person really exists, and if they do, ask how they heard about you. > > I'd be interested to hear back if they're legit. > > ------------------------------------------------- > Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies >
