Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig vap-ripoff.org. NS
Answer
vap-ripoff.org. 4 NS ns-1748.awsdns-26.co.uk.
vap-ripoff.org. 4 NS ns-1667.awsdns-16.co.uk.
vap-ripoff.org. 4 NS ns-969.awsdns-57.net.
vap-ripoff.org. 4 NS ns-1696.awsdns-20.co.uk.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0