Oct 31, 2020
Domain Registry Scam by giv.com
There has been a domain scam particularly in Canada that has been going on for quite awhile. When I was introduced to it taking place and being a person, they also tried to target. I decided it would be best to expose how they try to scam people so that people do not fall prey to them. I have heard stories of people falling for this scam. This post is for the ones that end up landing on this blog post for more info.
Why is this important
Personally, reading all the comments and posts online about these scammers. I feel the right thing to do is to create some awareness, so more people do not fall prey to the scam. There are many innocent victims, who may fall for this scam due to the lack of cyber security awareness. So, lets go out there and educate people and let them know about this scam. Hopefully, it can at least prevent a few people from falling prey to this scam.
What did they do
This organization is sending thousands of letters on an ongoing basis to people. These mailed letters show up at your home or offices and make it seem like it is an urgent matter to address right away. The letter will state a domain name you own, the expiry date of the domain, a section to paste your credit card number, and an envelope the mail the form back.
Many users (the stories I have read online) end up calling the number and have gone as far as giving their credit card information on the phone to these people. What most users do not realize is that this letter is NOT coming from their actual domain registrar.
So many get confused and end up transferring their domain over to this scam organization called giv.com. And, once a registrar has your domain, they can make your life exceedingly difficult when it comes down to managing and controlling your domain. They could essentially shutdown your online business or website, as they will now have full control over your domain name.
Who are “they” – (giv.com)
This organization goes by many different domain names and identities. They mainly go by the name called and listed as Giv.com on the mailed letter head. But, it seems they have multiple names that are used such as idnsinc.com (shown below) and a few other names.
A whois lookup (shown below) shows that the org. is registered through Domain Jamoree.
If you search Google for giv.com (seen below) you’ll find tons of “beware”, “I was scammed” and other hits where users were targeted by this organization.
The image above is from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which mostly contains 1-star complaints for this registrar. You see some incredibly sad and unfortunate stories there. And an clearly see how many of these people were taken advantage of. It comes down to poor security awareness were many people just did not understand how domain names and registrars’ function. And, that lack of knowledge led to many of them losing out their hard-earned money and/or their prized domain names.
You can read tons of other complaints on the BBB website: https://www.bbb.org/us/nj/jersey-city/profile/web-hosting/internet-domain-name-services-idns-0221-90170042/customer-reviews
How do they obtain someone’s information
From what it appears, they target domains that DO NOT have whois privacy enabled with respect to the domain owner. Many registrars allow you to anonymize your information for WHOIS searches.
For example, as seen above the registrant information for StealthBay.com is redacted. Only the actual domain registrar would have this information. However, many domain owners sometimes may not purchase the option to anonymize (privacy option) their personal information. Many domain registrars are now slowly starting to offer it as a free when you register or renew your domain name. So, there is no reason to not take advantage of it if you are given that option.
How can I protect myself
Enable all privacy and private/anonymous whois options that are available at your domain registrar. This way when a user does a WHOIS lookup on your domain name. There is going to be no sensitive data shown, and anyone targeting users will not be able to do much. If your registrar does charge extra, decide if the fee is worth it. Usually, it is only a few extra bucks on top of the actual domain fee. If not, I would advise moving to many other popular registrars that offer privacy & security features for free!
As for protecting your domain names. Always be sure of which registrar you have signed up with and under any circumstances that feel odd (getting a random renewal letter). Always reach out to the domain registrar you signed up with and follow up with them. I’ve listed a few good reputable domain registrars you can use (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, Google, Porkbun)
Passing this post along
In order to protect more users from falling for this scam. Please pass and share this post with others out there. Let us get this notice out there and help others from not falling prey to this scam.
If you have found any more information about them, or have had experience with them feel free to share your experience below in the comments section!
My name is Harry Taheem
I am a Cyber Security Engineer.
My aim is to post things I learn or find interesting and allow others to hopefully gain some more insight. I also plan on posting general IT related issues, as I’d like 
This company is definitely a scam. I contacted our webmaster after I had paid and efforts were made to receive a refund and cancel the subscription. All our efforts failed. They have the $$$$ and we have no subscription.
This company needs to be fined and shut down.
Sorry to hear that Rosanne.
I was hoping my post would get to more people and prevent others from getting scammed.
Feel free to share this along so others don’t fall for the same scam.
I thought the letter from Domain Registry was legitimate. It’s been sitting in the ‘to do’ file for some time – so this morning I went to process a credit card the payment of $50. Fortunately I encountered difficulty with the system accepting my credit card information. I ‘googled’ the site again and saw the ‘scam warning’.
Glad you were not scammed.
Also, if I were you, I’d watch my credit card. It’s possible when you entered the info in. That they saved a copy of the credit card numbers, expiry etc..
And, could process it at a later time.
Your best bet would be to get a new credit card number just to be safe.
But, for sure monitor the charges on it.
I fell for the renewal scam & sent in money for 5 YEARS. So now I guess the question is do I have 5 years of registry?
Hi Nancy,
Sorry to hear about the sad news.
If you paid by credit card, I’d advise you call your credit card company and request a charge back to get your money back.
Also, if you want to check if your domain was “actually” renewed for 5 years.
You can go here ->
Type in your domain name and view the “DATE” section, which will list the expiry date (eg.Expires on 2026-09-01)
I should have checked them out. It looks like I’m out $90 unless I can get the bank to stop payment.
Sorry to hear that Michael.
if you paid by a credit card, you can easily submit a chargeback.
Hopefully, your bank can stop the payment in time.
Is there any way we can stop these people doing this ?
It’s been years now that they are in business…
Is there any attorney on this case ?
Can we report a claim ?
SB
Hi Stephane,
I would say we need to pass on this post to more people.
If you can share it on Facebook, Twitter etc… The more people that see it can be safeguarded ahead of time.
In terms of lawyers going after them ?
Not sure, as I am not a lawyer.
You could also file a complaint here on BBB: https://www.bbb.org/ca/on/markham/profile/internet-marketing-services/domain-registry-of-canada-0107-1090726
I received a notice to renew my husband’s website through this company. My husband passed away in November, and I didn’t realize that this was not the company his website was through, so I paid $90, and the site now is no longer available. I paid by check. Is there no way to retrieve the money after the check has been cashed? Apparently there is no way retrieve the data on the website, either.
Sorry to hear this Cindy.
If you sent a cheque call your bank and see if the funds can be held. It is possible they have not been transferred over yet.
If they were already transferred over, then there won’t be much you can do at that point.
Also Cindy, is your site called cradleknollfarm.org ?
If so, it looks like you can still register this site again through a reputable domain registrar. At the moment, it looks like it expired and was deleted for anyone to register.
The company you paid never re-registered it for you and just took your money.
I’M AM HAPPY TO SAY THAT I DID MY HOMEWORK AND WENT STRAIGHT TO THE REVIEWS SYSTEM. AS I FOUND IT’S EASIER TO LOOK AT THE COMPANY BEFORE DOING BUISNESS WITH THEM. BECAUSE AFTERWARDS IT’S REALLY JUST A BLUR. YOUR MONEY IS GONE AND YOUR SITTING WITH YOUR PEERS LOOKING LIKE A REAL UNDERDOG. I AM REALLY SAD TO HEAR ABOUT ALL TJE PEOPLE AND BUISNESSES THAT HAVE BEEN TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.WHAT A SHAME THAT THEY CAN CONTINUE TO DO THIS TO HARD WORKING PEOPLE.
SINCERELY CONROES CHOICE AUTOMOTIVE
Fortunately, I decided to research first so looked fo giv.com on Google search. Numerous scam reports came up, including this one. Thanks for the info and clarification!
I do not remember what organization I registered my website with – how can I find out?
Thanks for everyone’s input. The more our modern tech world gives us, the more it can take advantage of us and threaten us. We need even more vigilance than when we were being chased through the forest by a bear. Take care, protect.
Hi Joan,
Glad this post was able to help you out.
If you want to know who you registered your domain name with.
Use something like https://whois.domaintools.com/
and search your website name. They will list the company that managed the domain name for you.
Thank you for letting us know. I was JUST ABOUT to pay…not knowing. Whew!!!
Glad this post was able to help you.
Almost fell for it myself, glad I checked with Google. The one thing that gave it away was how pixelated their website logo was. Thanks for spreading the word.
I got the physical mail but knew that my domains were with a different registrar, so went and renewed with them. THEN I came here and realized I got lucky and didn’t fall for their scam. My heart goes out to those who were taken in by this.
I just dealt with this ordeal yesterday. I had received the letter last week and decided to renew it online and paid for the 5 year plan. I noticed it said it was for “transfer and renewal” instead of only “renewal” and I’m not too good with website stuff so I emailed them back asking the difference in the service I bought from them, and they just reiterated that they just need my key to move forward. I emailed them back that their response didn’t answer my question.
Luckily, due to me not being too tech savy, I had trouble finding my key and kept me thinking long enough to question if this was a scam and I found this page (thank goodness!)
Suprisingly, the next email I received from them was an offer to cancel/refund my money if I didn’t want their service anymore. I emailed them back saying yes, and they responded “Refunded.”
So hopefully I do get my money back. I’m wondering if I should change my VISA card too since I entered it online.
I would say you should monitor the card for now for any odd charges.
Hopefully you get your money back, if not you should be able to call your credit card provider and ask for a chargeback.
They will be able to pull back your funds for you.
i just received this letter from accounting. i said leave it with me. as it confused me as i deal with the hosting and dns renewals and i keep track of it. also didnt recognize the company. so i did a google search and ended up here. if it smells like fish, and looks like fish, it isnt chicken. but i can very much see many people getting lead astray by this.
Everyone who receives a letter from them should wipe the order form in the nearest pile of dog crap and send it back in the addressed envelope.
If they get a few dozen of these surprises, then they’ll have rethink their strategy.
Almost got hoodwinked….
I went to the website on the expiration notice for my domain and saw this post warning of the scam…you saved me $190 and a whole lot of grief!
Thank you so much from this small business owner!
Just received a notice about our domain registration from giv.com. The mail looked suspicious and upon Google search I stumbled upon this trail. Thank you for sharing everyone!
I got a letter from these guys, and since I register everything through a different company I wondered what the heck was going on, did a search about them and found this, pretty bad business practice on their part. essentially they are trying to poach others clients with higher costs AND shady business practices, it’s amazing that ICANN lets them operate and they are not shut down. also the weirdest thing is I have and have had all my domain privacy enabled, so my information is not public, I’m really curious how they got my info.
One method might be going back in time with tools that record registrant information. So, if in the past at any point in time you registered the domain, and had not applied the anonymize option. There are tools out there that save this information and build a database around it. So they can go back 10, 20, 30+ years and view WHO owned the domain name at that point in time. My guess is they are leveraging this tool.
I recently received a bill to renew but wanted to change our address and called and the phone number wasn’t any good. Then I noticed the website address had change to http://www.util.com. That’s when I realized my wife had been scammed for years.