“Your domain name expires today”, “Your hosting will be suspended” or “Your mailbox is full”: anyone with a website regularly gets emails like these. Some are genuine, but many are fake. They try to make you pay for something you don’t need, or to steal your login details. In this article you’ll learn how to spot a fake email about your domain name or hosting, and what to do when you’re in doubt.

The most common fake emails

  • “Your domain name is expiring, pay now.” With a payment link and often a short deadline. Your real provider sends such a message from its own domain, with your customer number, and usually well in advance.
  • An invoice for “registration” or a “listing”. An unknown company sends an invoice for including your domain name in a register or search engine. This is not a required service; you don’t have to pay it.
  • “Someone wants to register your name.” A foreign “registrar” claims that someone else wants to register your business name with another extension, unless you buy it first. A well-known trick to put you under pressure.
  • “Your mailbox is full” or “your password is expiring”. With a link to a fake login page, so that you type your password in for the scammers.
  • “Your hosting will be suspended.” With the threat that your site will go offline today unless you pay or log in immediately.

Six ways to spot a fake email

  1. Look at the actual sender address, not just the name. Does the email come from your provider’s own domain, or from something that only looks like it?
  2. Hover over the link (without clicking) and see where it really goes.
  3. Watch out for urgency and threats. “Today”, “within 24 hours”, “last chance”: scammers want you to act before you think.
  4. Are your details missing? A real provider uses your name, your customer number and the correct domain name. “Dear customer” is a warning sign.
  5. Are the domain name and extension correct? Fake emails sometimes mention a domain name you don’t even own.
  6. Do you know the company? If you’ve never dealt with the sender, an invoice from them is almost always fake.

What to do when in doubt

  1. Don’t click links and don’t open attachments.
  2. Log in yourself via your provider’s website, using a bookmark or by typing the address yourself. If there’s no notice or outstanding invoice, the email was fake.
  3. Ask your provider, using the phone number or email address you already know, not the details in the suspicious email.
  4. Never pay an invoice from a party you have no agreement with.

Already clicked or entered your password?

Don’t panic, but act quickly. Change the password of the account concerned straight away, and of any other accounts where you use the same password. Turn on two-factor authentication wherever you can. If you’ve paid, contact your bank immediately. And report the fake email to your provider, so they can warn other customers.

How to prevent problems

  • Keep your domain names, hosting and email with one trusted provider, so you know exactly who genuine messages come from.
  • Use a unique password for every account and a password manager.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication for your email, your hosting account and your WordPress admin.
  • Have your domain names renew automatically, so threats about expiry can’t touch you.

With us: your domain names, hosting and email are in one place, you have one fixed point of contact, and you can always call or message us if you don’t trust an email. Better five times too often than once too few.

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