I've always been skeptical of companies rebranding their logos and company names. Although the reasoning always sounds positive, I can't help but feel there is more to it than just wanting a new look. Afterall, it costs hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars for a company to rebrand. Recently, facebook announced a rebrand which many feel is simply a publicity stunt. In 2017, the CIBC bank bought PC Financial and rebranded it to Simplii. Many believed this was an attempt to "kill" the PC Financial brand which was on a downward spiral with respect to customer satisfaction.

One of the services we offer to our clients is domain name services where we ensure the security and privacy of our clients domains. We continuously monitor for domain name scams and a very popular one that affects thousands per year is the iDNS Canada Domain Scam. Google "iDNS Canada" and see for yourself the hundreds of pages, images and videos indicating what a scam this company is.

So what does a company do when their brand reputation is ruined yet still eager to scam people into overpriced and impersonal services? You guessed it! REBRAND!! Today we received yet another letter from iDNS.. err.. Domain Registry offering to renew one of the domains we manage for a client at price that is currently 2x higher than the "market price." Typically, most domain registrar companies send out a 30, 15, 7 and 1 day notice of a domain name expiring. We feel these timelines are plenty to ensue the owner or domain name professional can renew the domain to ensure the website continues to operate without interruption.

However, iDNS / Domain Registry mails out a domain renewal letter well ahead of these timelines in order to fool the domain name owner into renewing with them rather than with their actual provider. In their renewal letter, they also offer a ridiculously high renewal price. Twice as much as our current fees! In this particular situation, we received the notification on November 5 2019, for a domain that expires on February 27, 2020. That's 114 days or roughly 4 months notice!

Although technically they are a legal entity and do offer renewal services, they do it in a very misleading way with threatening verbiage within their letter. We've also tried to contact iDNS / Domain Registry many times via email and phone without ever receiving a response. It seems to be a very small operation with limited service and hopes of simply having people follow their automated renewal process without any human interaction.

Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity...

You must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the web...

We firmly believe that your domain name is your most prized possession when it comes to your website. Without it, your email will not work and your website will not be visible. For this reason, we urge all our clients to trust their domain name management to a professional with experience in domain name registration, protection and renewal. As an added service, we continuously monitor all activities pertaining to our clients domain name (for example these scam letters!!) and are knowledgeable enough to filter legitimate and illegal requests.