My staffer put the call on hold and told me about it, so I took it myself. The caller, who spoke with an Indian accent, asked to "verify information about your domain."

I asked him where he was from, and he replied that he was with "Domain Name Registry," and then asked me to verify my address.

Thinking perhaps he had dialed a wrong number, I asked what domain he was asking about. When he replied BusinessKnowHow.com (which is our main site) I hung up. That domain and is automatically renewed each year - there's no reason for anyone from the domain name registrar we use to ever call us to verify our address. They have it on file.

I've never heard of a domain registrar calling their customers to verify addresses for existing domains. So, I can't help thinking that phone call was an attempt to "slam" (much like phone slamming attempts a few years back) the domain over to a different registrar than the one we have it with now. Or perhaps assign it to a different person.

All of the domains we own are locked, so hopefully, that should prevent unauthorized moves.

But a word to the wise: Don't verify or confirm any information about your business or domains (or credit cards or anything else for that matter) over the telephone. Hang up instead. Be sure to warn everyone in your company who answers your phones to forward all requests to "verify" or "confirm" information to you or someone else who can determine whether the request is legitimate.

Keep in mind that domain name registrars, banks, credit card companies and the like don't call or send email requesting personal or private information. They already have it. (And don't believe any telephone callers who tell you that there was a computer outage and all data was lost.)

If you aren't comfortable ignorning such calls completely, call the customer service phone number on your invoices, credit card, bank statement, etc. Ask customer service if they called you or authorized anyone else to do so on your behalf.