Trading Standards warn of ‘unsolicited’ Nodots invoice

Net services

Trading standards officers have warned businesses to be on their guard for letters containing an unsolicited invoice for £499 from Internet naming outfit Nodots.

Officers in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire are known to be looking into the matter after receiving a number of complaints over the last couple of days.

The letters look like invoices complete with a paying-in slip at the foot of the document for £499.

Denmark-based Nodots claims that its Qname service allows businesses to be found online just by typing in the name of the business without the need for http://www etc.

One trading standards officer told The Register that businesses "need to be on their guard" and not to pay up if they haven't signed up to the service.

However, when we called Nodots they claimed they were doing nothing wrong and certainly "nothing illegal".

They pointed to the accompanying letter sent with the invoice, which reads in small letters: "Should you not want a Qname, please disregard the invoice. Your Qname registration will then be deleted when this promotion is over."

However, the company admitted that it had received a number of complaints from people and revealed that some of the invoices had been sent out without the accompanying letters.

Around 300,000 letters have been sent out in the UK. Others have also been sent out to businesses in Sweden and Denmark. ®