MorphZone recently recieved what appeared to be a bill from "Internet Corporation Listing Service." From top to bottom, this simply designed form looks like a power bill, phone bill, gas bill, etc. Dual sided, multi colored, with a description of services and the now famous line, "Please remit payment by...."

That simple statement which appears on credit card statements, car payments, and nearly every other bill is used to give the appearance of a real bill. This, of coarse, wasn't enough; no, ICLS included a "Customer Number" and a "Notice Date." In fact, the only thing that visably seperates this solicitation from a bill is some text (likely required by law).

In the end, this isn't a bill but a very carefully crafted advertisement. While the idea is far from new, I thought it would be a good to share this experience with everyone. Don't get caught by something that looks like a bill, but isn't.

I understand that many of us has tossed these kinds of things away before, but it occurred to me that this tactic may just work on those who don't know about it. In that light, I just wanted to share the word about such tactics used by cerain companies.

I've seen this sort of thing come in at my business. Got a 'bill' from a yellow page company last week. Good idea to look things over very carefully before writing a check.

I've gotten two of those, one for each of (only) two domains I own, both on the same day. They grab this info using the WHOIS information. It sucketh verily.

One thing you could try is Domains By Proxy. It is an offshoot of GoDaddy that puts anonymous information in the WHOIS fields. It costs about $10 on top of the registration fee ($8), so you get privacy for about the same cost as a domain from elsewhere. Give it a shot!

Damien

Both are good ideas.

Still, I just want to make sure that people know to look at any unknown bill before opening their checkbook.

Aaaah, now that would explain my latest phonebills.
Die dialup, die!