Chinese Domain Name Scams
Too Long; Didn’t Read?
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- It’s a scam
- Delete it
- There’s no need to register these domain names through your usual registrar
- If you ask your usual registrar they will probably use FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) to encourage you to spend money with them as most registrars are not much better than these scammers
The Long Version…
Here’s an email I received before Christmas from info@ygnetworksit.com:
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 in China. We received an application from BaoYuan Ltd on December 17, 2012. They want to register ” squelchdesign ” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?
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 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: www.ygnetworkit.com
An odd email; Lots of broken English and things that don’t entirely make sense if you know anything about my company, but then it could be from a legitimate source that simply hasn’t taken the time to find out more about the company. I figured it had to be suspect, but gave them the benefit of the doubt to see where this was heading:
Hello John,
I’m not 100% sure I am understanding your question fully. BaoYuan are in no way associated with Squelch Design, today is the first time I heard the name.
Yes there would be a conflict if they go ahead and register squelchdesign.cn; Squelch Design does not actively operate in China, but is happy to accept custom from all over the world. I believe registering a company in China with the same name would cause brand confusion and erosion and, given that I went to great lengths to find a name that was not already in use, and having invested a great deal of time and money into Search Engine Optimisation, registering a similarly named website would be very poor etiquette. As far as I can tell BaoYuan are in the chemical/packing materials industry, so it strikes me as odd that they would want to register “squelchdesign” as a domain.
Many thanks,
Matt Lowe
Three days later I got a response. Not from John, but from Lin JianFa – supposedly an employee of BaoYuan – yet using the address jianfa.lin@yahoo.cn:
Dear Sirs,
Our company has submitted the “squelchdesign ” as CN/Asia domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. John’s approval. We think this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian market. Even though Mr. John advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Lin JianFa
Immediately I smelt a rat, the style of the speech was absolutely identical to John’s, as was the formatting and with similar incorrect usage of punctuation. I’ve seen this before when I baited a Nigerian 419 scammer a few years back. The fact that this employee of the company was using a Yahoo address was just plain wrong. So far they’d set the scene: They’d heavily implied someone was going to take my company name and start using it, creating brand confusion, but they’d not yet presented a way to get money out of me. So, I carried on playing along:
Lin,
I believe that if you persist in using the name squelchdesign.cn you will only confuse my customers and yours, making it more difficult for my customers to find my website. May I ask what services/business your company would be doing with the name?
Many thanks,
Matt Lowe
That was the last I heard from Lin. John, however, did send me more emails:
Dear Matt ,
Based on your company having no relationship with them, we have suggested they should choose another name to avoid this conflict but they insist on this name as CN/Asia domain names (.asia and .cn and .com.cn and .net.cn and .org.cn) and internet keyword on the internet. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company and register it to promote his company.
According to the domain name registration principle: The domain names and internet keyword which applied based on the international principle are opened to companies as well as individuals. Any companies or individuals have rights to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Because your company haven’t registered this name as CN/ASIA domains and internet keyword on the internet, anyone can obtain them by registration. However, in order to avoid this conflict, the trademark or original name owner has priority to make this registration in our audit period. If your company is the original owner of this name and want to register these CN/ASIA domain names (.asia and .cn and .com.cn and .net.cn and .org.cn) and internet keyword to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send an application form and the price list to you and help you register these within dispute period.Kind 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 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: www.ygnetworkit.com
Note the good cop/bad cop thing that he has going on with Lin; He’s doing me a favour by telling me they want to encroach on my company’s name.
The guys over at TechRepublic received an incredibly similar email back in 2009. Over at HoaxSlayer other people have reported, pretty much word for word, the exact same emails I have shown here. Even Wikipedia has an article on this scam. But I carried on playing along, curious to see how much he wanted to fleece me for:
Hi John,
How long is the dispute period?
Many thanks,
Matt Lowe
Dear Matt ,
The checking time will be over soon, we have not received your reply about the domain name and internet keyword since our last communication. You must know domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So the company has right to register them. As a domain name registrar, we have no right to refuse their application. We aslo suggest this company should change another name but they stick to this name so if your company want to prevent anybody from using these domains, the only way is to register these CN/ASIA domains and internet keyword. In our checking time, your company has first priority to register them. Could you tell us whether your company want to make this application to prevent anybody from using them or not?
Best Regards
John
Hi John,
Thanks for the reply. How much would it cost?
Many thanks,
Matt Lowe
And now, the moment of truth:
Dear Matt:
Thanks for your reply. If you would like to protect by yourself and according to our checking progress,
we will send an application blank to you. After you fill in it, you need to send it back to us. When we
received you information we will overrule their application and register for you in one day. And the
registration fee for CN domain is 38.8 USD year, ASIA domain is 36.6 USD per year, internet keyword
is 148 USD per year. If you want to protect yourself, I am very glad to help you. Right now, the checking
is going to the end, please reply in two working days.Have a nice day .
Best Regards
John
So back in his first email he suggested BaoYuan wanted to register squelchdesign.asia, squelchdesign.cn, squelchdesign.com.cn, squelchdesign.net.cn, squelchdesign.org.cn, and the internet keyword “squelchdesign”. That’s one .asia, four .cn domains, and one Internet keyword. That comes to a total of $339.80 USD or approximately £214. Update 2017: See below, it gets worse!
The moral of the story is if you get an email from China (or anywhere else for that matter) warning you that someone is trying to muscle in on your business’s name, be very careful. Very very careful indeed. Here’s the registration details for this particular scammer’s company:
pan xiaohong
lichenfang@zjedu.org
tel: 13661529704
fax: 02162961557
shanghaixingqunandanlu
shanghai,shanghai,CN
200010
I’m 99% sure that “John” is a fictitious character and that Pan Xiaohong is in fact the perpetrator. So maybe if you get an email from this John character, maybe try replying with “Hi Mr. Pan”, and see what happens? ;) Take care of your businesses guys. But keep in mind there are probably many “companies” running this scam in China.
Update 28/08/2013
The comments section below is getting pretty long as more and more people find this blog and send in the emails they received. As such I’m going to try and summarise the information in the comments below.
You might get emails from any of the following companies: YIGUAN, YIGUDNS, YIGUTEK, YGITECH or the domain names www.ygnetworkit.com, www.yiguannetwork.com, www.yigudns.com, www.yigutek.com, www.ygitech.com, www.cnygregistry.net, www.ygregistryltd.net, www.ygasia.org, www.ygcompany.org, pxisp.net or des-registry.org.
They might use one of the following names: John, Jim, Terry Tang, Peter Cheng, James Zhang, Simon Cheng, Gary Zhang, Mika Cao, Lan Du, Lex Ren, Jim Ying, Bill Cheng, Mark Wong or Abby Wang.
They might claim that the company attempting to register the domain is: BaoYuan Ltd, Weisheng company, Weisheng Holdings Ltd, Taisheng Limited, PengCheng Trading Co. Ltd, Huasheng Ltd, Huafeng Ltd or Kenpoco Ltd. Note that some, perhaps even all, of these companies are legitimate Asian companies and the scammers are simply using their names to try and give credibility to their claims.
You might be contacted by someone claiming to be from one of the companies above, usually using a Yahoo or Hotmail email address rather than a legitimate business address: Lin JianFa, Warren Chiou, Darren Chiou or Jiang Zhifa.
If you received an email with slightly different wording or from a different company then please feel free to post it in the comments section below so I can update the blog and we can all stay one step ahead of the scam.
Update 06/10/2017
After I posted this blog I never received any more of these scam emails, probably because my website was coming up in first place in Google for any searches related to “Chinese domain name scams”. I even tried replying on behalf of a few customers who’d received scam emails to see if I could further mess with the scammers, but I guess they did their homework because none of them would reply to me. Until the 19th of September that is, when “Charles Xu” contacted me.
(It’s very urgent, please transfer this email to your CEO. Thanks)
We are the domain registration and solution center in China. On Sep 18, 2017, we received an application from Jiatai Ltd requested “squelchdesign” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (squelchdesign.cn, squelchdesign.com.cn, squelchdesign.net.cn, squelchdesign.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?
How could I resist playing their game? It’s been 4 years since I was last contacted and asked to pay the ridiculous sum of £214 for domains I neither wanted nor needed. What would this scam look like in 2017?
Hi Charles,
We have no business dealings with Jiatai Ltd and any registration of a name featuring “squelchdesign” would be an infringement of our trading name.
Charles Good-Cop Xu had set the scene and had a bite. Now it was time for Gareth Bad-Cop Ren to do his part:
To whom it concerns,
We will register the China domain names “squelchdesign.cn” “squelchdesign.com.cn” “squelchdesign.net.cn” “squelchdesign.org.cn” and internet keyword “squelchdesign” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Charles Xu’s approval and think these CN domains and internet keyword are very important for our business. Even though Mr. Charles Xu advised us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Kind regards
Gareth Ren
Oh dear, that sounds terrible. I’d better play the worried webmaster part then:
Hello Gareth,
Registration of any domain name or Internet keywords containing “squelchdesign” would clearly water down our brand and would only cause confusion in the marketplace. We ask that you not make any such registration and instead create your own unique name.
Time once again for the good cop routine. Thank goodness Charles Xu was there to save the day.
Dear Matt Lowe,
We have already advised them to choose another name according to your company that have no relationship with them, but they insist on this name as China domain names (squelchdesign.cn, squelchdesign.com.cn, squelchdesign.net.cn, squelchdesign.org.cn) and internet keyword. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company then register it to promote his company.
As is known to all, domain name registration based on the international principle is opened to company and individual. Any company or individual have the right to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Your company haven’t registered this name as China domains and internet keyword, so anyone is able to obtain them by registration. But in order to avoid this conflict, the trademark or original name owner have priority to register China domain name and internet keyword during our dispute period. If your company is the original owner of this name and want to register these China domain names (squelchdesign.cn, squelchdesign.com.cn, squelchdesign.net.cn, squelchdesign.org.cn) and internet keyword to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send you an application form with price list to help your company register these China domains and internet keyword during our dispute period.
And now I just need to play my final part to get to the end-game, finding out their exorbitant prices:
Hi Charles,
We are indeed the original name owner and cannot have anyone infringing on our name. Please send over the application form.
And what a nice chap, he sent me his price list.
So to register all of the names and keywords that “Charles” suggests would set us back USD $1,476 which is roughly equivalent to £1,124 for registrations that we in no way need. This scam is getting more vicious, the total amount they want to rip people off by has grown from £214 to £1,124 – nearly a thousand pounds in 4 short years…
Don’t fall prey to these scammers! Delete and forget their emails, don’t pay them a penny.
Update 13/10/2017
They’re busy at the moment, I’ve had another one! This time from “TOI IT Service Center”, China Registry (Head Office) || No. 8-8018, Peace Building, Jinghu District, Wuhu City, China. Tel: 0086 5538 366231 || Fax: 0086 5538 366231.
Dear Sir/Madam
About the “squelchdesign”, we have some thing to comfirm with you! We are an agency engaging in registering brand name and domain names, on October 11, 2017, we received an application named “Derlery Company” and they apply to register squelchdesign as their brand name and some top-level asian domain names. But we found the main body of domain names is same as yours. We are not sure about the relationship between you and them.
As the registrar, so we need to check with you whether your company has authorized that company to register these names. If you authorized this, we would finish the registration at once. If you did not authorize, please let us know within 7 workdays. After the deadline we will unconditionally finish the registration for “Derlery Company” Looking forward to your prompt reply.
(Please kindly foward this email to your CEO or appropriate person. Thanks a lot.)
Best Regards,
Owen Chen
Senior Adviser Manager
Hello Owen,
We have no dealings with Derlery Company and any attempt to register our trading name in China would have a considerable negative impact on our brand.
Dear Matt Lowe,
Thanks for your confirmation. As soon as receiving the application of “Derlery Company”, we checked and found “squelchdesign” is your company’s using name and brand. We are concerned that your brand name might be affected negatively by their applications, this is why we informed you. Following Network Brand and domain names are applied by “Derlery Company”:
Net Brand: squelchdesign
Domain Names:
“squelchdesign.cn
squelchdesign.com.cn
squelchdesign.net.cn
squelchdesign.org.cn
squelchdesign.cn.com
squelchdesign.asia
squelchdesign.in
squelchdesign.co.in
squelchdesign.hk
squelchdesign.com.hk
squelchdesign.tw
squelchdesign.com.tw
squelchdesign.中国
”
You know that the domain names registration is open in the world, “Derlery Company” also has the right to apply for the available domain names, but you have the preferential rights to register them. We also are not very clear about why the company wants to register these domain names, but according to our work experience, if they finish the registration, in internet, your customers must be confused and this registration will bring lots of competition to your company to impact your business soon.At present, we haven’t passed their application, we need your opinion. If your company consider these names of importance to your company’s business and interest, I suggest your company to register these names first so as to avoid confusion or speculation. Of course, If you don’t want to protect your intellectual property rights, then you can give up these names so that we can finish registering for them as per our duty. Please give me your company’s decision as soon as possible in order to handle this issue better.
Have a nice day.
Best Regards,Owen Chen
Senior Adviser Manager
Hi Owen,
Thanks for informing me, I wouldn’t want my customers being confused by this registration. How do I go about registering these domain names?
Dear Matt Lowe,
Thanks for your confirmation, Of course, I can assure you that the best way for you to protect your business is to register these domains under your name, because after you finish the registration, you will become the exclusive owner of them! We, as the China local registrar, if you need to register those domains, we can help you.
Following is the procedure, you can do follow these:
1.You fill in the Registration Contract it via email(scanned) or fax.
2.We will send the Invoice signed & stamped to you, In the meantime We will formally submit the application to register for you and put on records according to you signed Registration Contract.
3.You transfer the payment to us according to the Bank information on the Invoice within 5 workdays and fax the payment proof to us.
4.You will be awarded the certificates of Domains after 10 workdays.Attached the Registration Contract, pls check. About the detailed price, pls refer to the contract.
If no question, please fill the contract and return to us ASAP, we will help you register these domain names as per the information which you will fill in the contract,thanks for your cooperation.Have a nice day.
Best Regards,Owen Chen
Senior Adviser Manager
And the moment of truth:
That works out at a minimum cost of €3,315 … or about £2,980.
Jan 2013: £214 requested
Sept 2017: £1,124 requested
Oct 2017: £2,980 requested
Ignore, delete, and keep your money in your bank where it belongs.
To whom it concerns,
We will register the China domain names “rwathiaagrofarm.cn” “rwathiaagrofarm.com.cn” “rwathiaagrofarm.net.cn” “rwathiaagrofarm.org.cn” and internet keyword “rwathiaagrofarm” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Peter Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Peter Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Kind regards
Zhihai Ning
I received one today from Adrian Liu
Our company does have customers in China, hence why I did google the company mentioned – Hongyuan Ltd – and came across this scam, Thank you.
This Liu family are very busy as I can see from comments above that Paul, Eric, Simon and Jeff Liu all sent these email scams in recent weeks and Hongyuan Ltd was used in a few recent ones.
Received on 8 Sep 2023
Sender: peter@cnnetworks.org
(If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
Dear CEO,
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongyuan Ltd on September 8, 2023. They want to apply for “**” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (**.cn, **.com.cn, **.net.cn, **.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?
Best Regards
Peter Liu | Service & Operations Manager
China Registry (Head Office)
Tel: +86-2161918696
Fax: +86-2161918697
Mob: +86-13816428671
No. 1780 Wuzhong Road, Shanghai 201103, China
Same process here – I’ve had emails from Robert and from a different company to the one he initially mentioned all basically trying to pressurise me into buying multiple domains which, like you, we don’t need or care about.
I see that they never actually registered any of the domains they said they were going to.
Got one today from one supposedly named “Webb Shu” from Mong-ai.org.cn.
Received this on 09 Nov 2023
(Please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
Dear CEO,
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongyuan Ltd on November 8, 2023. They want to apply for “kuko-ev” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (kuko-ev.cn, kuko-ev.com.cn, kuko-ev.net.cn, kuko-ev.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?
Best Regards
Frank Liu | Service & Operations Manager
China Registry (Head Office)
http://www.chinaregistry.org.cn
Tel: +86-2161918696
Fax: +86-2161918697
Mob: +86-13816428671
No. 1780 Wuzhong Road, Shanghai 201103, China
Thank you for your help here
Received email: November 17, 2023 (Friday) 20:20
exactly the same !!!
(It’s very urgent, therefore we kindly ask you to forward this email to your CEO. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
Dear CEO,
We are the domain registration and solution center in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongyuan Ltd on November 17, 2023. They want to apply for “blueeyes-bio” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (blueeyes-bio.cn, blueeyes-bio.com.cn, blueeyes-bio.net.cn, blueeyes-bio.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor in China?
Best Regards
Robert Liu | Service & Operations Manager
China Registry (Head Office)
Tel: +86-2161918696
Fax: +86-2161918697
Mob: +86-13816428671
No. 1780 Wuzhong Road, Shanghai 201103, China
I received their reply a few days later (November 20, 2023 (Monday) 15:08):To whom it concerns,
We will register the China domain names “blueeyes-bio.cn” “blueeyes-bio.com.cn” “blueeyes-bio.net.cn” “blueeyes-bio.org.cn” and internet keyword “blueeyes-bio” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Robert Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Robert Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Kind regards
Zhihai Ning
(If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
Dear CEO,
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongyuan Ltd on December 19, 2023. They want to register “kling” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (kling.cn, kling.com.cn, kling.net.cn, kling.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?
Best Regards
Robert Liu | Service & Operations Manager
China Registry (Head Office)
Tel: +86-2161918696
Fax: +86-2161918697
Mob: +86-13816428671
No. 1780 Wuzhong Road, Shanghai 201103, China
*****************************************
This email contains privileged and confidential information intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy this email and inform the sender immediately. We appreciate you respecting the confidentiality of this information by not disclosing or using the information in this email.
JAN 2024- Scam still active
Mr.Gavin Tang | Services & Operating Manager
Asia Network | Headquarters | www dot asianetwork dot org dot cn
T: 0086 1 34 82 819 14 7 | Tel: 0086 21 61 91 86 96 | Fax: 0086 21 61 91 86 97
They have a high turnover in this position, lol.
Another chinese scam hefeiynt.com