# High pressure domain name scam targets charities

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2002/10/24/high-pressure-domain-name-scam-targets-charities/
- Published: 2002-10-24T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

While it is essential that your charity protects its reputation online by acquiring
relevant domain names, you should ignore the companies using high pressure sales
and scare tactics to persuade you to buy them at an inflated cost.
Battersea Dogs
Home warned charities earlier this month about a company that had contacted them
and tried to persuade them to buy domain names from them. The company said that 
it was helpfully warning the charity that another unnamed company was registering
names similar to its own but with suffixes such as uk.com, eu.com and gb.com. It
then tried to persuade the Dogs Home to register the names for two years for £300
each. The usual fee is under £70 + VAT.

A similar approach was made to Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital Trust. Susan Pollock,
Web manager at Guy’s, told vnunet.com “Three people pursued me saying that someone
was trying to register variations on the Guy’s Hospital domain name which would 
direct users to sites with inappropriate material.” They tried to sell nine domain
names to the hospital at a total cost of £1,400, about £1,130 more than the average
cost.

These scams should not put you off registering relevant domain names for your charity.
However, there are plenty of legitimate domain registration companies so you do 
not need to pay premium prices. You can find out about domain name issues at [Nominet](http://www.nominet.org.uk),
the national registry for .uk registered names. If you contacted by high pressue
sales companies Nominet recommends that you take down details and make a complaint
to the local trading standards office.

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Read “Domain name scams hit the NHS” by Dinah Greek at vnunet.com.

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