Jul 9, 2008
I have been around long enough to have seen a few pretty clever domain name scams. One of my favourites was the Domain registry of America (or a name similar to that) who sent domain name owners advertising in the mail that looked just like an invoice. Concerned website owners would eagerly fill out the form and post their cheque to make sure they didn't lose their domain name - of course the domain registrations cost 10x what they would normally through a reputable company.We have a new winner
So yesterday I randomly stumbled upon Domains of course - they are able to sell you a .com domain name for the perfectly reasonable price of USD$100,000.00 per year. I had to refresh my browser to make sure that there wasn't a Javascript error, but no, that's what it says.For those needing DNS services, you can also buy DNS hosting for "ONLY USD$1000 per year". Wow.
Just in case anyone doesn't see anything wrong with the above statement, Godaddy can do a .com domain name for less than 10 bucks, and DNS services are often bundled in for free with hosting accounts.
And then...
Today an email arrives concerning ragepank.comWe are CNBC Information Technology Co.,Ltd, which is the domain name registration organization in China, which mainly deal with international company's in china. We have something important need to confirm with your company.
On the July 09, 2008, we received an application formally. One company named " daxin Investment (China) Co., Ltd" applied for the Internet brand keywords "ragepank" and the Domain names "ragepank.cn" "ragepank.asia" etc. . which involve internet intellectual property right of your company.
These days we are dealing with it. In order to deal with this issue better, Please contact me by telephone or email as soon as possible.
Best Regards,
tony
Initially I'm wondering if this is serious, and if they are looking to assume control of ragepank.com (which would definitely spoil my afternoon). But then common sense prevailed, and I decided this was spam. So I googled for some exact text in the email, and sure enough, plenty of others have been getting a similar email.
Protect!
So, the intention of this email is to scare me into thinking that daxin Investment (China) Co., Ltd are about to buy some ragepank.xx domains, and that I should hurry and register them first to protect my brand - through them of course.That's actually kinda clever - there are plenty of cases where people are too slack to register localized versions of their names - ragepank.co.nz sat around available for anyone to grab until I decided the name was worth more than $35 and I should probably own it myself. I guess this type of scam hits domain owners in a weak spot, and that's what makes it so clever.
Domain name scams
They are everywhere. It's best to find a good provider (I use Godaddy and Webdrive), and stick with them. And always apply common sense when reading mail from people you don't know.
9 Comments
This exact same thing happened with a client of mine. He got a similarly worded email and called me up ecstatic that these domains were going to be taken from him.
The registrar wanted 3000 euros per domain, and this guy was almost ready to hand the money over before I explained that it was a complete scam and that it didn't matter because he didn't do business in china anyway. The email had been worded in such a way that it made it look like by not buying these domain names he would be forfeiting his trademarks if he were to ever do business with china in the future.
The email came from "jack.wang@ujanegroup.cn", FYI.
I received exactly the same letter you did from Tony about my domain and Daxin Investment Co Ltd. I asked a lot of questions because I didn't understand what was being "offered"! When I asked what service was and how much... I got $100 price quote for the brand ID name. Since the English was so poor in the email and he never answered my questions, I got suspect and did research on CNBC Information Technology. Ahem! I told him I thought it was a scam! And the notes stopped. Thanks for your post. My notes from Tony were in the middle of June, 2008.
Hi Harvey.
I too have had about 30 such emails recently not all from Tony, you have to wonder though huh. Like i care is someone in china wants to buy canzdesign I mean....
About buying domain names for clients, we don't as a rule do it, and would rather spend an hour walking someone through the process than be responsible for some clients domain name.
The $10 you said you add on Harvey wouldn't even partly pay for the time involved, of reminding them it's coming due 3 times a month apart, then in the last day ringing them up saying, hey look, you have to do this. But I'm sure you have much more responsible clients than the 3 or 4 we had for a couple of years, and then transfered it over to them.
One client recently actualy did lose his domain name, and I see it's up for auction now, the domain is about 5 years old, so I can't imagine it'll sell for $20 or anything.
These posts are interesting - we have always viewed it from the other perspective: your clients will want you to help them with (fill in the blank) regardless of whether or not you have any control over it. Most don't know the difference between domain reg and hosting, etc.
We resell through eNom and set all domains never to expire, and find that most folks are more than happy to pay $20/year to know the domain is secure + all their services are under one roof. They would probably pay triple that if they knew what a corrupt industry it was.
Harvey - thanks for the insightful articles!
Here is another one trying to get your money
www.euwin.com.cn
Not only did I receive this China domain name encroachment, one of the associations whose board I am on also received a similar email. So I forwarded it to my intellectual property attorneys who uncovered these posts. As a courtesy, I sent my attorney's findings to the helpful Mr. Peter so that I too could be equally helpful to him!!!
Thank you so much for posting this!!!!! I just got this email and was about to loose my mind!!!!!!
I searched the companies name and you where the second one down on google.
And yes it was the same email that you all got.
Thanks again.
Keith
This was certainly a well thought out attack though. As a web developer I refuse to register domains on behalf of my customers. I would rather walk them through the one million step godaddy checkout than buy it for them. It is just begging for trouble.