A few customers of http://123cheapdomains.com who have
never registered their domain name with Verisign received
paper renewal notices via US postal mail.
These $29 renewal notices were designed by Verisign to
look so authentic that the letter were able to mislead some customers
into thinking that the renewal notice is from their
current domain registration company.
Verisign forged the letters to look like a real billing statement.
After customers unknowingly pay for the renewal, Verisign transfers
the domain away from their current registration company
without their knowledge.

Note: These notices are designed to look like real billing statements,
except that hidden on the very back of the letter,
there will be in very small print that admits that they
are not currently your domain registration company.

Verisign's fine print on the back page reads:

"By signing the reverse side of this form, you hereby authorize us to
transfer the registration of your domain name(s)
away from your CURRENT REGISTRAR to Verisign."

If you have been deceived into transfering away your domain
to Verisign and are angry about having to pay more for your renewals
than you really needed to, you may have even contacted Verisign.
But Verisign will tell you that they have not misrepresented anything
and will tell you that you should have read fine print.
Don't let them tell you this. They know this is wrong and so
do you.

This is definitely not fair for consumers to have to receive a
"transfer away" agreement disguised as a billing notice,
and what is even more compelling is that the
consumer's domain name is not even with Verisign.

As a analogy, lets pretend that you have an insurance policy from
company AAAAAA. You like company AAAAAA because they are reliable and helpful.
But then company ZZZZZZ sends you what looks
like a renewal bill for an insurance policy. You sign off the
bottom with your signature assuming that the renewal policy is from
AAAAAA and but actually end up sending payment to ZZZZZZZ.
Now your insurance policy has been switched to using ZZZZZZZ.
Company ZZZZZZ will then try to convince you that it is legal because
of their hidden fine print right after you complain.
You know this is not legal but am trying to figure out what you
can do about this.

This tatic is almost similar to telephone slamming.

Since the FTC will definitely have a problem against companies
misleading consumers with renewal billing statements,
the FTC might do something about this and investigate if they
can get enough complaints.

If you, or someone you know has been fooled by this
billing misrepresentation, or have received this notice,
you can do your part to stop this from happening to someone else.

Complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can be made at:

https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

Note: You can tell if your domain is with Verisign or not,
simply by reading the back of their billing renewal notice.
If it mentions a "transfer" anywhere on the notice, then you
know that your domain is not with Versign,
and the domain should not be renewed with them.
It doesn't do you any good to renew with Verisign as
as you will be paying $29/yr for domain renewals
instead of our $13.95/yr price at 123cheapdomains.com.

They both do deceptive cold contacts with domain owners trying to convince them to transfer and/or purchase domains at inflated prices.