Liberty Names of America Domain Renewal SCAM
Written by Harmonie • Filed Under Bad Business • April 2, 2009
Last year, I registered a domain name for a client and didn’t turn on the free WHOIS privacy that I get through my registrar at no charge when I purchase a domain name for $14.95 (ah hem…Godaddy charges $9.95 for the domain name and $25.00 per year for privacy – that’s how they get you ).
What happened as a result of not turning on this privacy has been a host of fake domain name renewals from various domain name renewal services all with an address of Niagara Falls, NY but the name varies each time. This time they are called “Liberty Names of America.”
I remember last time I got a fake renewal letter like this, I called them up and told them to take me off of their mailing list. They blatantly said “No!” I said “Yes! You are sending this letter to the wrong person – I know what is going on. Don’t send me anything else from your company.” They replied, “Don’t worry, we will.” And they didn’t lie, I got another one, this time from Liberty Names of America.
I know this is an age old scam and I remember in the 90′s working for a company where the president had bought 20 or so domain names. We received hundreds of renewal notices for these domains – so many that it seemed like every day our domains were up for renewal.
It’s a shame that this problem still exists and that no one is stopping them. I guess my best piece of advice is make sure your domain registrar is an accredited I-CANN domain name reseller and stick to only one registrar to avoid confusion.
As for Liberty Names of America, I hope somebody shuts you down or your wasting $.42 on each bogus renewal letter puts you out of business. I recycled this piece of junk mail so at least some good came out of it.
Do not renew your domain name with Liberty Names of America, they are a SCAM!
The BBB has granted Liberty Names of America the grade of an “F!”
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18 Responses to “Liberty Names of America Domain Renewal SCAM”
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Several years ago I got scammed by LIBERTY NAMES OF AMERICA. For over a year, I have been working on getting my domain registered back with YAHOO DOMAINS, (where it first started)
I fell for the scam letter I had received, and now, for 2 years in a row, I have had to renew my domain through that scamming company.
I have been going through a back and forth run-a -round. Does anyone know how to undo this error, without losing the domain name I currently have?
Below is an example of what I have tried. Note that LNOA DOES NOT REPLY TO EMAILS!
Lloyd,
I’m sorry about the problem you are experiencing with lloydkuhnle.com. I
can assure you that Liberty Names is a reputable company and they do answer
their phone when you call. In this case you will need to call them in order
to manage your domain name. If you have any difficulty let me know.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Watkin
DomainDiscover Customer Care
support@domaindiscover.com
Sirs
>
> Several years ago I was scammed into transferring my domain
> away from YAHOO web hosting to LIBERTY NAMES OF AMERICA.
>
> http://www.lloydkuhnle.com
>
> All I want to do, is get it back to YAHOO.
>
> I followed your instructions, see below, to no avail. They
> do not respond, and they do not fix anything.
>
> YAHOO Small Business is currently hosting my site. I WANT MY DOMAIN NAME
> REGISTERED THROUGH
> YAHOO. NOT THAT SCAMMING LIBERTY NAMES OF AMERICA!
>
> Their bad business practice is plastered all over the
> internet.
>
> YAHOO says I have to contact you, then you say I have to
> contact LNOA. Since LNOA ignores all contact, I have no options, other
> than asking YOU to fix it.
>
> Thank you
>
> Lloyd Kuhnle
>
> Your email to me:
>
> Hello Lloyd,
>
> Thank you for your e-mail inquiry regarding the domain “lloydkuhnle.com”.
> To update your domain’s nameservers to “yns1.yahoo.com” and
> “yns2.yahoo.com”, you will need to contact your registrar
> company of Liberty
> Names of America, or LNOA. Their e-mail address is “support@lnoa.com”,
and
> their phone number is (877) 696-5662. They
> will be able to update this
> information for you.
Hello Lloyd,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Domains.
I understand that you received an email from LIBERTY NAMES OF AMERICA
regarding your domain expiration and you paid money to them. Now, you
are being charged by them every year and you want to get your domain’
back to Yahoo! and want to pay to Yahoo! for service.
Lloyd, please note that this alert relates only to the domains that you
have registered with Yahoo!. It does not relate to domains that you have
registered with other companies.
It has been brought to our attention that companies other than Yahoo!
may have sent domain name (Web Address) holders such as yourself domain
name expiration notices and solicitations that specifically relate to
the domain that you have registered with Yahoo!. We are alerting you
that you are not required to respond to such notices from other
companies about your Yahoo! domain.
Lloyd, if you registered your domain name through Yahoo!, your domain
renewal fees are automatically paid by Yahoo! as a part of your
recurring monthly or yearly service fees, as long as your service is
active and not past due and as long as your domain hasn’t transferred
away from Yahoo!.
If you would like to keep your current domain and associated services
with Yahoo!, do not respond to renewal solicitations from other
companies which specifically relate to the domain you have registered
with Yahoo! Be sure your Yahoo! Wallet information is up to date.
If you renew your Yahoo! domain through any other company you will be
transferring your domain away from Yahoo!. We also want to remind you
that transferring your domain away from Yahoo! does not automatically
cancel your Yahoo! Domains service.
As per the public who is record current registrar for your domain is
DOMAINDISCOVER.
Domain Name: LLOYDKUHNLE.COM
Registrar: DOMAINDISCOVER
Currently, your domain’s registration has been transferred to
DOMAINDISCOVER and your domain is being hosted at Yahoo!. Please note
that at this time Yahoo! Domains does not offer the ability to accept a
registration transfer of your domain name.
Further, if you don’t want to keep your domain’s registration with them
and want to use this domain’s registration with Yahoo!, you need to
cancel your domain at DOMAINDISCOVER’s end and then request
DOMAINDISCOVER to release your domain to public pool so that you may
resign up the same domain with Yahoo!.
Please note that before signing up this domain with Yahoo! you need to
cancel the service with Yahoo! so that you may sign up a fresh domain or
its registration with Yahoo!.
To cancel:
1. Log into your account with your Yahoo! ID and Password.
2. Select Cancel Plan by clicking on the “Cancel Plan” link.
3. Click the Continue button to process your request.
When the cancellation is complete you will receive a cancellation
complete message.
If you face any problem in cancellation or have any billing concern, I
would suggest you to contact our billing help desk.
To better serve you, we now provide care for billing-related concerns
exclusively over the phone.
1-866-800-8092, option 3, option 2, then option 4, Monday through Friday
from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST, and a Yahoo! Customer Care representative
will be happy to assist you.
Lloyd, I have tried my best to address the issue in the best possible
way. I appreciate you for taking time out and being patient in reading
the entire content of this message.
I hope you will find this information helpful. If I can be of some more
help, I would be happy to assist you.
Thank you for your understanding.
Please do not hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.
Have a nice day!
Regards,
Jason
Subject: Using your domain with Yahoo!
Browser: Internet Explorer
Operating System: Windows Vista
Email Tool: none
Site Building Tool: none
Internet Connection: Dial-up
Permit Test: yes
Hi Lloyd!
I just called them for you. Give it 48 hours and you should receive an email saying your domain is unlocked for transfer.
Once your domain is unlocked you can go to Yahoo and purchase the domain for another year and select the transfer option (instead of new domain).
There are avenues you can take if this does not happen.
1.) Contact ICANN – the governing authority for domains. They may be able to help.
2.) Contact the Attorney General in the State of New York where LNOA resides as this was a trick to get you to switch your domain and it’s clearly FRAUD!
I have more avenues – but let’s see where this gets you.
Best of Luck!
Harmonie
P.S. If you need more assistance please feel free to use my contact form.
Update: As of 8.15.2009 – Lloyd has reclaimed his domain name.
If you have been SCAMMED BY LNOA, please comment here and I will help you at no cost. Perhaps I can restore your faith in mankind. LNOA should be ashamed of themselves.
I just looked up their whois information and the funniest thing is they are in Canada. Even their company name is FAKE. Liberty Name of America. They’re not “of America” at all.
See for yourselves: http://whois.domaintools.com/libertynamesofamerica.com
Harmonie
Thank you for the great work you did in assisting me with my domain registration transfer. You have done for me a great service.
Also, thanks for helping to inform possible future scam victims to this con that LNOA has been running.
Best Regards,
Lloyd
I have also been duped by LNOA. What are the best steps to take to safely and securely transfer a domain name from them to a new provider? Should I just call them and request them to unlock the name before I have a different provider? It is such a delicate issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Hi P! Thank you for stopping in. While I don’t agree with LNOA’s marketing method, I have to say they handled Lloyd’s domain right away.
Yes! I would just call and say you would like the domain to be unlocked for transfer. They will tell you it takes 48 hours. This is true.
When 48 hours is up, go to your registrar, in my case I use http://www.r4l.com – enter the domain name and “lookup transfer” (not register new domain). It should be unlocked at this point in time for transfer. You could even use http://www.r4l.com to check. You can use any registrar. I suggest using an I-CANN accredited registrar as they are governed by domain rules. Good luck!
Before Harmonie had made the phone call to LNOA on my behalf, I had made numerous complaints about them, (even so far as to contact the Better Business Bureau). When I did try to call them on several occasions, there was no answer.
That was about a year ago. I then gave up, and let them own my domain name for another year.
This year I was determined to fix my error, and with Harmonie’s help, it got fixed. One thing I know for sure about LNOA, is that they are selective in responding to e-mails. If you request a Domain name transfer to them via e-mail, LNOA will ignore it.
THEY ARE A SLEEZY OUTFIT.
I was going to suggest “P” that you say you are the web developer for your domain. Perhaps you would get more respect from them.
Dear Harmonie and Lloyd,
Thank you very much for your help!
May I ask one more question: Does LNOA give out a Authorization Code? Does one really need this code? I have seen that domain hosts have asked for this code.
Thanks again!
P
P
In my case,in order to keep my same domain name, I needed that code, and it had to come from LNOA.
P –
You are welcome! LNOA did not give me an EPP code. I did just call them and they do give EPP codes.
Good luck!
Harmonie
Thanks again for all the excellent information!
P
You are welcome! Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
My domain has been trapped with LNOA for some time now. I’ve tried in the past to switch registration back to my web hosting service, but too busy to deal with LNOA’s shinanigans.
Hi Kent,
Welcome to Ponder Consulting! I have all good news to report from the people I have switched back from LNOA. Each time we were successful and LNOA did what they were supposed to. Here is the process.
1.) Call LNOA 1-877-696-LNOA (5662) Mon to Fri 9am – 7pm EST
2.) Ask them to unlock your domain so you may transfer it to another registrar. This process takes 2-3 days (they are correct if they say this).
3.) On the third day, once the domain is unlocked, go to http://www.r4l.com (or your preferred registrar), if you choose http://www.r4l.com, instead of registering a new domain, you will want to “lookup transfer”.
If it says it is available for transfer you may purchase it right there or go to your registrar of choice. Done.
It’s rather simple. I know their marketing technique is unethical and the whole process frustrating but well worth the time to get your domain back!
If you need further assistance, I am here to help.
Thank you!
Harmonie
Kent
Follow Harmonie’s instructions. She helped me so much in getting out of that scamming outfit. I also was too busy to deal with the LNOA crap, but, on general principal, take a few minutes, and help run them out of business. (Just because it’s the right thing to do)
Lloyd
Hello! After all the valuable help from this website, I am happy to confirm that transferring my webpage away from LNOA went very smoothly. I was quite surprised. Everything went exactly as Harmonie stated. When I called LNOA to request the unlocking of the domain, I also asked for an Authorization Code. This was sent to me after 2 1/2 days. The operator did not even try to convince me to stay. It was all straightforward and friendly.
So, everyone stuck with LNOA who wants to transfer away: Just follow the steps mentioned above and all will be well. Hurray! Thanks again to Harmonie!
P
Thank you P for coming back and providing feedback after regaining ownership of your domain. Glad it all worked out as planned. Wishing you the best!