I receive several phone calls and emails each month from clients who get letters, emails and phone calls regarding the renewal of their domains.  It makes them nervous because they may not have been the one who originally set their domain up and may not even know who the registrar is or when it will expire. First, do not renew your domain with anyone who is not your original registrar unless you are personally transfering it to a new registrar. 

Domains should not be more than $10.00 per year if you are renewing.  If you are purchasing a domain do it yourself through the many legit domain registrars.  I use Go Daddy but there is also registrar.com etc.  DO NOT DO IT THROUGH A THIRD PARTY!!!

I got one of those third party renewal letters in my home mail just the other day telling me it is time to renew one of my hundreds of domains. (see below for a link to the letter)  I have all my domains with Go Daddy so I knew it was a "scam" for lack of a better word.  Yes they are legit and can renew your domain for you but they are going to charge you more than 3X what it would cost you to do it yourself.  It may help eleviate getting these notifications if you purchase the privacy upgrade for your domains but you can't really avoid getting these emails and letters because even if you upgrade your domain to private they can still find you if you have a website or email using that domain.  I have even received letters on domains that were not set to expire for 2 years!!  (How thoughtful of them to want to help me stay on top of my expirations.)

They can get away with this because a lot of people are not educated on how domains are purchased and don't even know who their registrar is.  The techy world, for some reason, decided that they didn't think we needed to know this or were too impatient with people to explain it...well, it is very, very important that you understand as much as possible about your domains and you have total control and access to them.  If you don't know who your registrar is.  You can start by going to http://www.easywhois.com/ and type in your domain and it will give you the details of your domain.  If your contact information is not displayed then it was purchased with a privacy upgrade and you should call the registrar that is listed.

Here is the letter I received so you will know what to look for and how much they wanted to charge me for renewing my domains  http://share.salesaspects.com/files/Domain%20scam.pdf

A good article to read to help you understand how important it is that you know if you own your domain.
Do You Own Your Domain?  Are You Sure?

Example of what you want to  see when you go to http://www.easywhois.com/ . This is one of my domains.  I am the contact person when it is ready to expire and I have total control and login and password for this domain.

Registrant:
Robyn Hardy

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ROBYNHARDY.NET

Domain servers in listed order:
NS31.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS32.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

Example or what you might not want to see.  Notice that the contact Amanda Roush is an employee ( I know this because I know the company) and this person may not be with the company when it comes time to renew so this company owner will have to pay close attention to the expiration or be sure to get their personal contact information on the account.

Registrant:
Prudential Arizona Properties
Amanda Roush
3165 S. Price Rd
Chandler, AZ 85248

Here is another example of an agent who may or may not own her own domain.  Who is David Smith?  And her domain is her name so she really wants to be sure she has control and is the contact person when this is ready to be renewed or changes web providers.

Registrant:
David Smith

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BARBARALASKY.COM

Domain servers in listed order:
NS41.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS42.DOMAINCONTROL.COM 

Hope this helps.  It is very hard for some people to understand the relationship of their domain, email, web provider and hosting company.