COMPANIES in Worcestershire have been warned to be on their guard against a scam that tries to "trick" people into registering domain names.

Letters that look like official invoices are being sent to firms who have a registered .co.uk domain name.

The "invoices" tell the recipient the .com version of their domain name is available, for £175.

They have been described as misleading by Worcestershire Trading Standards because they look like invoices and people may automatically sign them without checking.

As well, any company can register a domain name for two years for £80.

"This sort of scam is not unknown," said Graham Rowberry, enforcement officer for Worcestershire Trading Standards.

"It is not necessarily illegal - although we are checking into it - but the letters can be misleading in that they look like invoices. Once signed, it could take ages to reverse."

He said another "trick" was to tell the recipient a third party wanted to register their domain name.

"If the letter says 'we have had an approach from another company wanting to register this domain name' the best thing to do is contact that third party and check if it's true.

"If you already own a domain name, you should get first refusal to re-register it anyway when it runs out."

He said companies should always check with their Internet Service Provider (ISP).

"Make sure you're not going to lose the name - as the letter would have you think - and that will put your mind at ease. The letters play on peoples' fears of losing revenue.

"Anything at all suspicious should be passed to Trading Standards."

If a pattern began to form, with the letters all coming from the same place, the Trading Standards authority in that area would be notified.

The documents were forwarded to Trading Standards by Serv-IT UK, in Norton, Worcester.

"These documents are very clever, with plenty of reference numbers on and bar codes," said Rob King from Serv-IT UK.

"We received them in the post and it looks like they are trying to trick people into registering domain names."

In Britain, all .co.uk domain names are registered with Nominet and anyone can check any domain name.

A spokesman for Nominet urged recipients of the "invoice" to be aware.

"Never be bounced into registering a domain name by the pressure selling tactics of an unknown third party".