Why should you spend money on business email hosting?

For starters, @gmail and @yahoo (not to mention @AOL) addresses just scream “Unprofessional!”, but there are many other reasons why you owe it to your business to have email using your domain.

1. Credibility
Free email addresses make potential customers wonder whether you’re a “real” company and they make you look cheap. Plus, why would you want to advertise Google, Yahoo or your internet or cable provider on your business cards and collateral materials?

A “real” email address gives your company credibility (maybe it shouldn’t, but it does). Savvy consumers aren’t comfortable sending personal information to jimmydogg69 @yahoo.com or even YourCompanyName @gmail.com. Branded email addresses give customers the added assurance that your business is legit and their information is secure.  If you don't care what your own email address looks like - how are you going to treat your customers? 

2. Control
If an employee uses their personal email address for business and they quit or get fired, you lose access to those emails – especially, if they leave under less than amicable circumstances. With premium email hosting, you can easily redirect those emails to yourself or another employee.

3. Portability
With your own email domain, your email address is as portable as your cellphone number.  You aren't tied to Verizon, Comcast or any oterh ISP.  This allows you to switch internet service providers without losing your email address.

4. Less Spam
Are you fed up with spam? With a premium email address, spam won't even make it to your inbox and you have full control over inbound and outbound spam filters.

5. Flexibility
Even if your business goes from 5 employees to 500 employees, we can scale right up with you.

6. Access
With premium email, your employees can access their email from anywhere through mobile, webmail, and other mail clients, allowing them to be more productive.

Concept Digital Media offers:

• Secure POP/IMAP/Webmail
• Premium anti-spam and anti-virus
• 25GB Mailboxes
• Outlook auto-setup
• Custom email filtering
• Free user aliases
• Up to 50MB Attachments

And, for an additional fee, you can get:

• Mobile Sync to sync contacts and calendars
• 30GB Cloud Drive for storing and sharing documents
• Online editing of documents and spreadsheets

There is an email scam that seems to pop up every couple years. The sender poses as a Chinese registrar company and attempts to convince the receiver that a company is trying to register variations of the receiver’s domain name.

Here is an example:

Subject line: It's very urgent, please transfer this message to your CEO. Thanks

We are the domain registration and solution center in China. On Oct 24, 2019, we received an application from Kangwei Ltd requested "conceptdigitalmedia" as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (conceptdigitalmedia.cn, conceptdigitalmedia.com.cn, conceptdigitalmedia.net.cn, conceptdigitalmedia.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it's necessary to send this message to your company and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?

Best Regards

***************************************
Adrian Liu | Service & Operations Manager China Registry (Head Office) | 6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China
Tel: +86-02164193517 | Fax: +86-02164198327 | Mob: +86-13816428671
Email: adrian @ chinaregistry .org .cn
Web: www. chinaregistry. org. cn
***************************************
It might look like a legitimate domain name registry, but it is not.

This fake site sends out thousands of emails every month to scam business owners into sending money to secure a domain name.

These emails tell you to act quickly to protect your domain name. They claim a Chinese company is attempting to register your domain name with the .cn extension. For a fee, the company will prevent this from happening.

Responding to these emails will only result in exorbitant prices for your own domain name.

In addition to seeking money, the purpose of the scam is to gather more specific information about your company and in order to commence a targeted attack.

What to do if you receive this email?

If you get one of these emails, send it to your company’s IT department for evaluation, and then delete it. And Remember the three key anti-phishing rules:

1. If you receive an email from out of the blue, never click on a link or attachment.
2. If you receive an email from someone you know, but it includes an attachment that you were not expecting to receive, call the sender to confirm it came from the sender and not a hacker.
3. Finally, if you forget rules 1 and 2 and click on something which opens a dialog box asking you to supply additional information—or click on something to enable a later software version or to open a zip file—close it immediately and call your company’s IT department to have a scan run on your computer.

Never under any circumstance provide information about your company or yourself to someone you don't know, regardless of the form in which the request is made (email, text, or phone call). What may seem like innocuous information can be used by hackers to develop a strategy to target you or your company.

What customers say about your business online… is powerful.

Reviews give your business credibility and help new customers find you online.

It’s no wonder 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations more than any other form of advertising.

This Makes customer reviews the single most effective piece of marketing you can invest in. 

Concept Digital Media can help you harness that power with our complete solution for review management and local search marketing.

Our review management platform provides an easy and unobtrusive way to ask and remind customers to review your business on the sites that matter most to you.

Now you can amplify the voice of happy customers by making it easier for them to leave reviews…

Reach unhappy customers to improve their brand experience…

Monitor all of your reviews…

…and share your great reviews on your website and social channels.

Contact us today and learn more about the #1 review management and marketing platform for your business.

I just received the following email this morning – it has been cut and pasted with nothing added or removed.

He (or she) forgot to set up the form email so it would auto populate the fields. Maybe they are just getting lazy – or maybe this is done on purpose because unfortunately, I’m sure someone somewhere will still reply to them.

No one online knows your business exists...

What do I mean by that?

I did a quick Google search for [Name] in [City] and I noticed your business is not in the Google 3-pack.

The "3-pack" is the place on Google that shows 3 businesses in a specific area at the TOP of the search results.

If you aren't in the 3-pack that means your competitors ARE.

54% of your customers will do a Google search at least once per month to find a local business - although it's likely more.

Most business owners have no idea how to get into the 3-pack, but I've mastered the art of ranking there and I can help you...

If you'd like to know how it's done and maybe even have me just do it for you -- simply reply to this email.

I can only help 3 businesses per city since the Google 3-pack only lists 3 businesses...

I sent this same email to your competitors and I work on a first come first serve basis. Don't miss this opportunity!

Don't let your competition outsmart and outrank you.

Check out << Link >> or Call me now at 555-555-5555 or reply to this email and I look forward to helping you get more clients in the door.

Best,
NAME
NUMBER
COMPANY (optional)

Well Mr. Coe, and that’s probably not your real name to begin with, I think what you need to worry about is your fellow email spam competitors outsmarting you.

You would never hire a plumber or auto mechanic that contacted you out of the blue, so when you get an email like this – just delete it!

The following is just one of many spam emails that are sent to anyone who has registered a domain.

The spammer gets the name and email address from domain information on file and never actually visits the website. This is the same email that thousands of people will get.

Hi Sir/Madam,

I was looking at your website and realized that despite having a great design; it was not ranking high on any of the search engines (Google, AOL and Bing) for most of the keywords related to your business. We can bring you more clients and customers. I will do this by advertise your business structure and its merits on different social media platforms with the help of my SEO skills. I will put you on the first page of Google; this will help clients and customers to find you more easily. This will be done within your budget which doesn’t affect your business a little.

I am affiliated with a SEO company that has helped over 200+ businesses achieve (1st Page Ranking on Google) search result page for highly competitive keywords.  Let me know if you are interested, I will send you our SEO Packages & price list and our company details.

Kind Regards
Nancy Jain
Business Development Manager

So let’s break down this email.

1. I was looking at your website and realized that…. No They never did visit the website otherwise they would say something specific that applies to only your site – i.e. the colors, layout, content, etc. remember these emails are sent to anyone who regsiters a domian name. I regularly get these emails for domains that do not even point to a website yet.

2. We can bring you more clients and customers. I will do this by advertise your business structure and its merits on different social media platforms with the help of my SEO skills. A good way to spot spam emails is to note misspelled words and broken English. Many of these come from India, Russia, China, etc.

Nancy Jain is a Business Development Manager? For what company, where are they located? Why can’t she give an address or phone number? Why would anyone working for an SEO company use a free AOL address?

These type of emails are only some kind of scam to get your money. SEO strategy is complex and, done right, quite time-consuming. When you revive one of these emails ask yourself the following question: Do I really want to hire someone I don’t know who contacted me through an unsolicited email from another country and is not using their real name?

After all – would you hire a doctor if they sent you an email like this:

Hi Sir/Madam,

I was looking at your facebook photo and realized that despite having a great smile, you could use some plastic surgery so people find you more attractive. We can bring you more compliments and a better paying job by making you more appealing to people who will spend money on you and buy you gifts such as new cars and homes. I will do this by removing extra fat from your stomach and butt, you’re your cheeks, remove eye wrinkles, and make you look 20 years younger. This will be done within your budget on weekends and at night as to not disrupt your life.
I am affiliated with a well-known hospital that has helped over 200+ people look better using my special techniques.
Let me know if you are interested, I will send you our plastic surgery packages & price list and our hospital details.

Kind Regards
John Smith
Plastic Surgeon and Barista

If you got a bill from Sunshine Biz Services – It’s a SCAM! The fake invoice looks like a real bill

The invoice is a fake renewal notice for annual website hosting. It shows a bill of $180 payable to “Sunshine Biz Services Inc.” It also says: “To pay with a credit card or to avoid receiving paper invoices in the future, please sign up for paperless billing at www.trendywebsolutions. com.”

Unsuspecting businesses may get an invoice like this and pay it – that’s what Sunshine Biz Services is hoping you do!  Scams like this try to confuse people by sending these type of invoices knowing that people usually don’t read the fine print.

While this looks like a bill, it does say : “You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer unless you accept this offer. This notice is not a bill, it is rather an easy means of payment should you decide to renew your web hosting with Sunshine Biz Services.”

But if they aren’t hosting your website to begin with how can you renew hosting with them? Trendy Web Solutions does have a website that appears to offer various hosting packages. But if any company is this shady – would anyone trust their business website to them?

If you try to call the phone number listed you will end up waiting through many prompts and the automated voice eventually says “This is a solicitation, goodbye!”

This particular scam has been around at least since 2015, according to a Reddit post.

According to the BBB

BBB Alert - Pattern of Complaints

BBB files contain a pattern of complaints from consumers that allege they received solicitation that looks like an invoice to be paid in the amount of $180.00.

On January 18th 2019, BBB sent correspondence to Sunshine Biz Services requesting their voluntary cooperation in providing steps it will implement to eliminate the pattern of customer complaints.
BBB will continue to monitor and update the company's report as needed.

What to do if you get a scam letter?

Tell the FTC: Because keeping consumers safe is a major part of their charge, report the scammers to the Federal Trade Commission. You can file a claim at ftc.gov/complaint.