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Living in a small village in the countryside certainly does have its advantages - it's quiet, peaceful and we get the most fabulous sunsets and sunrises. And having a local pub is handy, too. It's within walking distance, or even crawling if you get a little overindulgent. And it's nice to be known, and for there to be a cheery smile whenever you wander in.

However, it does mean you know what everyone does, and they know what you do, too. So imagine my reaction recently to ambling in through the pub front door, only to be regaled by a cheery shout of: "Ask Jon, he'll know." And I hadn't even got my first pint of local brewery Nethergate in hand yet.

The landlady introduced me to a lady stood at the bar by saying: "Jon understands these domain name things." My heart fell lower still. And positively crashed to the floor when she recounted her sorry tale.

She runs a small business, employing a few people, in a village nearby. She has a website and email hosting provided by a well-known vendor, and is happy with the service. She cheerfully admits the internet is a bit of a black hole to her, but she muddles along quite adequately for her needs.

However, that afternoon she'd received a cold call on the phone. Turns out it was a domain name vendor calling up with a special deal. He claimed he'd been contacted by a customer wanting to buy the domain names that, curiously enough, were similar to hers... and decided, out of the goodness of his heart, to call her

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first to see if she wanted to buy them out before this other person did.

She did exactly what you'd expect - she panicked. And took out her credit card and handed over the numbers to the domain name vendor to reserve the .biz, .eu and a whole pile of other irrelevant nonsense TLDs.

I asked how much it had cost - the bill ran to over £300, which she assured me was a lot of money to her (as it is to most small businesses). I really had no choice but to sit her down and tell her that there was no other customer chasing her domain names, and that she'd been stung by an unscrupulous vendor wanting to meet end-of-month targets. He'd concocted a scam, and she'd fallen for it.

Suggestions that she contact her credit card vendor to cancel the transaction were met by a determination to do nothing of the sort - she was worried her main domain would get cancelled, too, and that would screw up her email. I tried to explain it would be okay, but she was adamant. And clearly scared that she'd dipped her toe into something she actually didn't understand and had been taken for a ride.

I was, and still am, appalled by this. I could name and shame the vendor, but I didn't listen to the original phone conversation. I have only heard her version. But the antics of the domain-registration industry are verging on the fraudulent, and it's time its nonsense was brought to account. Not by regulation, but by education.

I regularly receive letters from well-known domain name-handling companies telling me a domain name of mine is about to come up for renewal. It tells me it's registered through Merula, my ISP, and that here is a handy phone number by which I can pay for the renewal. This is nothing short of highway robbery, and at least Dick Turpin had the good grace to wear a mask.

The reality is you need one domain name. You can try to "collect the set", and this used to be the recommended practice. So if you had a .co.uk, you'd get the .org and the .net, and anything else in case someone decided to cybersquat on a domain name similar to yours.