Chinese Domain Name Scam with Nora McDougall-Collins: Missoula, Montana

How Would you Know an Email about your Domain Name is a Scam?

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Scam Email #1

A client emailed me the following:

" below are a couple emails I received this morning...I get these quite often...I never reply to them...should I be replying or can I keep ignoring them? ..."

Dear Manager,

We did not receive your reply until now. I have been helping you in the whole course, but we need your cooperation, We don't hope the domain names and internet trademark name be registered under your unknown. So we sent email to inform your company to protect your interest.

Do you mean that you want to give up the registration? If so, we will sign the registration agreement with the third party . So please confirm whether you need to reserve your rights.

Waiting for your further reply as soon as possible. If any question, do not hesitate to contact me.

Best Regards,
Selina

HK Net Ltd
Office Manager.
| Foreign Department |
Tel: 00852-3071 7712 | Fax: 00852 - 3072 3949 Selina@hknetos.com | Web: p://www.hknet.com

Scam Email #2

From: cary <cary@cnsknet.cn>
Reply-To: <Cary@dnrcenter.hk>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:26:22 +0800
To: [ 4 email addresses to my client]
Cc: [3 more email addresses to my client]
Subject: Internet Copyright of [client](To Principal)

Dear President/CEO,

Hello!Sorry to trouble you!
We are a domain name registration service company in HongKong, which mainly deal with international company's domain name registration and disputing in Asia.On the Jan 25, 2010, we received an application formally from Jinshen Investment Co., Ltd,who applied for the Internet trademark: "[client]" and some domain names relevant to this trademark from our organization.

According to our procedures and in order to protect your intellectual property rights, we need to send this email to the original company for confirming the actual relationship with this company.If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other motivation to register these domain names and probably want to do some cybersquatting. Now we have postponed this issue and have not proceeded their registration,In order not to confuse registering these domain names,Please contact us Asap.

PS:If you are not in charge of this matter,please transfer this email to appropriate dept.
Best Regards,

Cary.feng

Web: www.asiadm.org <p://www.asiadm.org> <p://www.asiadm.org>
Tel: 00852-95660496
Fax: 00852-30197872
mail:cary@cnsknet.cn
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

Scam Email #3

A client emailed me the following:

" Can you tell me what this is? ... Why would we want to transfer. Could this be a scam?."

Attention: [Name of my client],
Re: Transfer of [domain name of my client

BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES INC. dba Namejuice.com has received a request from Domain Registry of America on 4/30/2010 1:37:15 PM for us to become the new registrar of record.

You have received this message because you are listed as the Registered Name Holder or Administrative contact for this domain name in the WHOIS database.

Please read the following important information about transferring your domain name:

1) You must agree to enter into a new Registration Agreement with us. You can review the full terms and conditions of the Agreement at http://namejuice.com/regagree.asp

2) Once you have entered into the Agreement, the transfer will take place within five (5) calendar days unless the current registrar of record denies the request.

3) Once a transfer takes place, you will not be able to transfer to another registrar for 60 days, apart from a transfer back to the original registrar,in cases where both registrars so agree or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs.

If you WISH TO PROCEED with the transfer, you must respond to this message via one of the following methods (note if you do not respond by Monday, May 10, 2010, [my client's domain name] will not be transferred to us.).

Option 1
Please go to our website, [scammer website address] to confirm.

Option 2
Please email us with the following message:

'I confirm that I have read the Domain Name Transfer - Request for Confirmation Message.

I confirm that I wish to proceed with the transfer of [my client's domain name] from GODADDY.COM, INC. to BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES INC. dba Namejuice.com .'

Option 3 >
Please print out a copy of this message and send a signed copy to :

(fax to)+1-905-415-2682
(mail to):7100 Warden Avenue, Suite 8, Markham, Ontario, Canada, L3R8B5

If you DO NOT WANT the transfer to proceed, then don't respond to this message.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact us at following information.
[their email address]

or please contact your reseller Domain Registry of America
support@droa.com

How Would you Know an Email about your Domain Name is a Scam?

There are a lot of domain name scams out there. This is just one is just trying to scare you into buying domain names from them to "protect" your name. That might be a good idea, but I wouldn't do it from people who send spam!
If you are not sitting on a domain name that is someone else's trademark, all of this is irrelevant.
If you are sitting on a domain name that is someone else's trademark, but it also applies to your business, it's yours.
If you are sitting on a domain name that is someone else's trademark, and there is no connection to your business, they have to buy it from you.
If "they" were going to take legal action of any kind, you would get a Cease and Desist Notice. Ignore vague threats.
Look at the grammar and punctuation. If they are really professional business companies, they will get their English right. This is the first sign of a spam. So, if you don't want to be viewed as a spammer, get your grammar and punctuation right!

Other Sources about the Chinese Scam