COMBELL is getting more and more reports from customers who got contacted by the Dutch company \u201cDomain Management Group\u201d. The situation culminated when Pieter, who works for our own sales department, was contacted by the company with respect to one of the domain names that he manages. Obviously, Pieter didn\u2019t tell the company that he works for COMBELL and acted as an unsuspecting customer.<\/p>\n
The dishonest company had contacted Pieter regarding the domain name cantaertaxel.be, which he manages for his father. The company mentioned that they had received a request from a company (of which they couldn\u2019t disclose the name) to register cantaertaxel.com and cantaertaxel.info.<\/p>\n
Since \u201cDomain Management Group\u201d had noticed that this is also a commercial name, they managed to halt the registration in the nick of time. In an act of extreme generosity, the company was so kind as to give us the first opportunity to register the domain names, thereby depriving their own customer. Nevertheless, we had to decide immediately (or at least within the hour), because they wouldn\u2019t be able to delay their customer\u2019s order any longer. The cost for this \u201cunique service\u201d (as they called it) of registering the domain names would amount to 229 euros per domain name. Despite the fact that \u201cDomain Management Group\u201d claimed that they had temporarily blocked the domain names, COMBELL was able to establish that both domain names were still open for registration.<\/p>\n
The problem is that this is certainly not an isolated case and that several organisations use similar practices. If you get a message of this type, ignore it. And if you want to play it safe: register your domain name with your trusted domain partner. Keeping in mind the general idea of typo-squatters<\/a>, it is definitely wise to register your domain names with other extensions as well.<\/p>\n