I sat down at my computer this afternoon only to find this in my inbox:

Dear Customer,

Your domain name domain name removed.com is scheduled to be renewed and we have noticed your domain’s hosting is up for renewal on Friday May 05, 2006. If this is not taken care of by then, you will have a balance on your account. You had signed up with the online check option; we do not automatically charge checking accounts. In order to complete the renewal process of your domain name registration, we must receive payment by the renewal date. Please contact our billing department at: phone number removed. Our office hours are: Monday through Friday, 9am – 6pm central time.

If we do not receive payment on your account within 14 days, your domain name registration will not be renewed and may be released to the public for someone else to register. If your domain name is released to the public, you will be charged a one-time $50 setup fee to have the domain name registered for you once again.

If you no longer wish to use our hosting services for your domain name, please submit a cancellation request to our billing department through our online ticket system at URL removed. Your account may be billed a pro-rated amount to cover any hosting fees accumulated up to the cancellation request date.

Sincerely,

name removed

Sales Representative

company name removed

You see, we paid for this hosting renewal two weeks ago. But, according to this email, while the renewal fee is due sometime next year, if we do not pay in 14 days, it will not be renewed.

On top of that, the message (to me) looked very unprofessional. The purple text on top of the already-ugly “Network Blitz” template that comes with Outlook Express made me want to vomit like a pre-teen kid in a Spam®-eating contest at Spamarama™.

We were not sure if the message was legit, so Michael called the company, waited on hold for some time, and finally determined that this message was, in fact, a mistake.

Oh well, no harm, no foul, I guess. Just call it yet another minor annoyance.

Beware the Muuj