Domain registration scams continue, both offline and online.
In the online version, a dentist receives an email, wanting to “clear up” ownership for their dental practice domain that someone else is allegedly attempting to register in China.
The emails usually look something like this –
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration and dispute internationally in China and Asia.
On September 26th 2011, We received Tianhua Ltd’s application that they are registering the name ” yourdomainname ” as their Internet Keyword and ” yourdomainname .cn “、” yourdomainname.com.cn ” 、” yourdomainname .asia ” domain names etc.., It is China and ASIA domain names. But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check.
According to the principle in China, your company is the owner of the trademark, In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!
Best Regards,
John
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 136615 29704
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web:
This is an updated email version of an old fax scam –
According to the FTC, consumers – many of them operating small businesses on the ‘Net – have received unsolicited solicitations stating, “URGENT NOTICE OF IDENTICAL DOMAIN NAME APPLICATION BY A THIRD PARTY.” The letterhead identifies the sender as either Electronic Domain Name Monitoring or Corporate Domain Name Monitoring.
The solicitation warns that an application for a domain name almost identical to the recipient’s has been “submitted to the National Domain Name Registry (NDNR) for registration,” by an unidentified third party. For example, the owner of a site “www.sobi-sky.org” was told that an application had been submitted to obtain the domain name “www.sobi-sky.net”
The solicitation says, ” Consequently, it is our opinion that this application may have been submitted in bad faith. . ..” The solicitation lists four reasons someone might want a copy-cat domain name, including “disrupting the business of a competitor,” or intentionally attempting to lure someone else’s customers by creating a confusingly similar Web address.
The fax solicitation offers to block the application by obtaining the copy-cat domain name for the fax recipient for a fee of $70. It warns that, if the consumer fails to act, “NDNR WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR THE LOSS OF DOMAIN NAME LICENSE, IDENTICAL OR CONFUSINGLY SIMILAR USE OF YOUR COMPANY’S NAME; OR INTERRUPTION OF BUSINESS ACTIVITY OR BUSINESS LOSSES.”
Often online scams come from successful offline scams that just get updated for online use, much like viral email hoaxes do. Remember the old paper chain letters?
Whenever you receive a suspect email, some great sites to check their validity are –
Google can be a great hoax research tool if you search the company name or website address offering to “help” you with your domain name registration.
By searching the website address on Google I see others have posted about this domain registration scam –
Also, when I attempted to visit www.ygnetworkltd.com I got the following warning about the website –
When in doubt always check with your domain name registration company. Never be in a hurry to answer an unsolicited email asking you for money from a company you don’t know.
To read more about this type of domain registration scam see: FTC Halts Domain Name Scam Thousands of Consumers Pay Up To Fend Off Fictional Poachers
