TL;DR: Several of our clients across Cheshire and North Wales, including a golf club we work with, have received an official-looking domain renewal email from a company called IDM UK.
- It is not a domain renewal notice. IDM UK is not your registrar, and their own email says so in the small print.
- The invoice charges £86 for a "domain renewal notification" service nobody signed up for, using a renewal date that has nothing to do with the domain's actual expiry.
- If this lands in your finance team's inbox, don't click "View Invoice." Check your real registrar account directly or forward the email to your IT team for verification
One of our golf club clients in Cheshire forwarded us an email last month with the subject line "Renewal notifications for: www.[their domain]." It named their business correctly, referenced their actual domain, and asked for £86 to keep a renewal service running. It looked exactly like the kind of email a registrar sends when a domain is about to lapse.
Several other customers have also received similar emails from multiple companies.
This one wasn't from their registrar. It was from a company called IDM UK, and once you read past the headline, the whole thing falls apart.
What the email actually says
The email comes from info @ idmuk.net, with a registered address at 82 King St, Manchester. It tells the recipient their "domain renewal notification service" is due to extend on a specific date, quotes an amount due, and includes a black "View Invoice" button that leads to a payment page taking Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
There's also a built in deadline: reply within 5 days to cancel, or they'll assume you want to continue. That kind of negative consent, where silence gets treated as agreement, is a classic pressure tactic dressed up as customer service.
This is not a renewal notice
Here's the part that matters most, and it comes straight from IDM UK's own email footer, not from us:
"This is an offer to receive notifications regarding your domain. We are not your registrar."
Read that line again slowly. IDM UK are telling you, in their own small print, that they have no registrar relationship with your domain at all. The invoice that follows even describes the line item as "domain renewal notifications," not a domain renewal. Somebody has built a professional looking invoice and payment flow around a service that, by their own admission, isn't connected to keeping your domain live.
The renewal date is also not real
The email quotes a specific renewal date, made to look like the date your domain will actually expire. It isn't. The date given is simply a few days after the email itself was sent, unrelated to your domain's real registration anniversary. It exists to create urgency, not to inform you of anything.
How they get your details
The business name, contact email, and domain in the email are all correct, which is what makes it convincing. Domain ownership records are public. Anyone can look up who owns a domain and use that information to send a personalised, professional looking email. Personalisation here is not proof of a genuine relationship with your domain, it's proof that someone did five minutes of research.
What we're telling our clients
If this email or one like it lands in your inbox:
- Don't click "View Invoice" or enter any payment details.
- Check who your domain is actually registered with. Log into that account directly rather than clicking any link in the email. If you are unsure you can easily check on services such as https://app.domainhelp.com/
- Forward the email to your IT provider or internal IT contact before anyone in finance actions it.
- Make sure whoever handles renewals and invoices in your business knows what to look for, because these emails are built to reach exactly that person.
Would your finance team catch this?
Most of these get through not because someone wasn't careful, but because the email looks routine. A renewal notice, an invoice, a payment button. It's designed to be actioned quickly, not scrutinised. The one thing that gives it away is sitting in their own footer.
If you want a second pair of eyes on something like this before anyone pays it, get in touch. No pitch, just answers.