Chinese Domain Name Scams
Too Long; Didn’t Read?
-
- 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.
Thank you for this blog. I also got such a scamming mail and thougt that this might be relevant for me.. I normally ignore mails from China. In this case, I answered and got the typical mails. Instantly, I knew that it is the good cop / bad cop game. I asked google for “Hualong Ltd.” and google proposed instead “Huahong Ltd.”. There was no company with such a name doing business like I do. Bingo. I asked google again and fed it with the first sentence form the first mail. Ok, everybody here knows which results I got.
So, the most important thing to do when you such mails and don’t know if you should answer or not … is … to ask google for the text of the e-mail you got. 10 seconds stolen of your life, but now knowing that this is a hoax, scam …
This mail address lichenfang@zjedu.org doesn’t exist any longer.
Most of the email addresses they use will be temporary.
There you go, even I received a mail today from this person. Glad I found this website. What should/can I do now?
Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hualong Ltd on September 5, 2016. They want to register ” shivarolls ” as their Internet Keyword and ” shivarolls .cn “、” shivarolls .com.cn ” 、” shivarolls .net.cn “、” shivarolls .org.cn ” 、” shivarolls .asia ” domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” shivarolls ” 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,
Jim | Service & Operations Manager
CN Web Registry (Head Office) | 8006, Xinlong Building, No. 415 WuBao Road, Shanghai 201105, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1870199 4951
Web: www . cnregistry . org . cn
WELL THEY ARE PERSISTENT!!!!!
I EMAILED THE “BUSINESS OWNER” WANTING MY DOMAIN AND ASKED WHAT HE WOULD BE WILLING TO PAY ME TO USE MY DOMAIN NAME.
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 (4peonies.cn, 4peonies.com.cn, 4peonies.net.cn, 4peonies.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 review period. If your company is the original owner of this name and want to register these China domain names (4peonies.cn, 4peonies.com.cn, 4peonies.net.cn, 4peonies.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 review period.
Best Regards,
Bob Xu | Service & Operations Manager
China Registry (Head Office) | 6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671
Email: bob@chinaregistry.cn
Web: www . chinaregistry . cn
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.
Thanks for the thread, we got one today as well, some different details but the same phone numbers as others have got! emailed from Sean Ai on email address ai@ittltd.com.cn
Dear Sir or Madam,
We are a registrar for domain names authorized by Chinese government. Today, we received an application from KAYFPI Holdings Ltd applying to register “snowshepherd” as their brand name and some top-level domain names(.CN .HK etc). After our initail checking, We found the main body of domain names is same as yours.
We are handling the application and we need to confirm whether or not you authorize them to register them? Let me know your positon ASAP so as to solve it promptly. Looking forward to your reply.
Best Regards
Sean Ai
President
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Address:Tuogui Building, No.777, Ningguo South Road, Hefei, China
Simon Zhang schreef op 2016-08-08 13:23:
(It’s very urgent, please transfer this email to your CEO. Thanks)
We are the domain registration and solution center in China. On Aug 8,
2016, we received an application from Kekai Holdings Ltd requested
“4kids-4crea” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names
(4kids-4crea.cn, 4kids-4crea.com.cn, 4kids-4crea.net.cn,
4kids-4crea.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,
SIMON ZHANG | Service & Operations Manager
CHINA REGISTRY (HEAD OFFICE) | 6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan
Road, Shanghai 201103, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671
Email: simon@chinaregistry.com.cn
Web: www . chinaregistry . com . cn
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.
Dear Nico Franse,
We have not heard from you since our last comunication. Since your company haven’t registered this name as CN/ASIA domains (.asia/ cn/ com.cn/ net.cn/ org.cn) and internet keyword on the internet, anyone can obtain them by registration. You must know the domain names and internet keyword which applied based on the international principle are opened to companies as well as individuals. Also, we have suggested they should choose another name but they are persistent in this name. As a domain name registrar, we have no rights to refuse their application if they insist. In this situation, we have told you your company have the priorty in registering CN/ASIA domains and internet keyword in our audit period. Could you tell us whether or not your company want to register these CN/ASIA domain names and internet keyword to prevent anyone from using them? If your company need to register these names in china, we can send an application form and the price list to you and help you register these within dispute period.
Best Regards
Jim
Another one for the record:
From: Wilson Wang
Dear Manager,
This is a confirmation letter regarding registration of your company name optimisefitness, please read it carefully.
We are an agency engaging in registering brand name and domain names. Today, Our center received an application from Ngbesso International Company and they apply to register optimisefitness as their brand name and some top-level domain names(.CN .HK etc). We found the main body of domain names is same as your company name. I am not sure about the relationship between you and them. Please tell me whether or not your company authorizes them to register names.
We are dealing with the application and we need to confirm whether you have authorized them? If you don’t authorize them, please reply me an e-mail. Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards,
Wilson Wang
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Address:Huajin Building, No.121, Huaihe Road, Hefei, Anhui
The From: address (stripped, of course, from my post) was
wang AT dciint DOT com DOT cn
The one I received has the same contact information as yours:
Dear Mr./Ms.,
We are a service agency for registering domain names. Our center received an application from Genevieve Cheung International today. They applied for the registration of (my company’s name) as their Brand Name and some top-level 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, we have the duty to inform you the case.
Now, we are processing this application. Our center needs to confirm whether this company is authorized by your company. If so, we will continue the next step of registration. If not, please let me know as soon as possible in order that our center can deal with this problem timely. We await your prompt reply.
Best Regards
Jacob Tang
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Huajin Building, No.121, Huaihe Road, Hefei, Anhui
from: jt@dci-link.cn
Here’s the one I received:
Dear Sir/Madam
About the “cordyandikes”. We are the department of Asian Domain Registration Service in China. Here I have something to confirm with you. We formally received an application on August 18th, 2016 that a company claimed “Caribing Company” were applying to register “cordyandikes” as their Net Brand and some “cordyandikes” Asian countries top-level domain names through our firm.
Now we are handling this registration, and after our initial checking, we found the name were similar to your company’s, so we need to check with you whether your company has authorized that company to register these names. Since now the cyber-squatting events and domain name abuse are very serious, in order to avoid such incidents cause unnecessary loss of benefits to your company. 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, so that we could handle this issue better. After the deadline we will unconditionally finish the registration for “Caribing Company” Looking forward to your prompt reply.
(It’s very urgent, so please transfer this email to your CEO or appropriate person. Thanks a lot.)
Best Regards,
Matt Feng
Senior Adviser Manager
From address: matt AT ipconsult DOT net DOT cn
And another one…
Dear Sir or Madam,
This is a letter to confirm the registration of your company name “paintworkscanterbury”,please read it thoroughly. Today, Our center received an application from MSFMN International Ltd and they apply to register “paintworkscanterbury” as their brand name and some top-level domain names(.CN .HK etc). We found the main body of domain names is same as your company name. I am not sure about the relationship between you and them. Please tell me whether or not your company authorizes them to register names.
We are dealing with the application and we need to confirm whether you have authorized them? If you don’t authorize them, please reply me an e-mail. Looking forward to your reply.
Best Regards
August Yan
President
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Address:Tuogui Building, No.777, Ningguo South Road, Hefei, China
Best Regards,
Jim | Service & Operations Manager
CN Web Registry (Head Office) | 8006, Xinlong Building, No. 415 WuBao Road, Shanghai 201105, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1870199 4951
Web: www . cnregistry . org . cn
Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hualong Ltd on August 8, 2016. They want to register ” aremfashions ” as their Internet Keyword and ” aremfashions.cn “、” aremfashions.com.cn ” 、” aremfashions.net.cn “、” aremfashions.org.cn ” 、” aremfashions.asia ” domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” aremfashions ” 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?
count me in … ;)
I got one today:
From: Jim Wang [mailto:jim.wang@cnweb.org.cn]
Sent: 20 Agustus 2016 13:46
To: info@andaltek.co.id
Subject: Notice for “andaltek”
Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hualong Ltd on August 8, 2016. They want to register ” andaltek ” as their Internet Keyword and ” andaltek .cn “、” andaltek .com.cn ” 、” andaltek .net.cn “、” andaltek .org.cn ” 、” andaltek .asia ” domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” andaltek ” 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,
Jim | Service & Operations Manager
CN Web Registry (Head Office) | 8006, Xinlong Building, No. 415 WuBao Road, Shanghai 201105, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1870199 4951
Web: www . cnregistry . org . cn
I received this exact same email today. It seemed legitimate at the time. So glad I managed to find this site before it completely wasted my time.
These scams are getting more sophisticated each day.
And another lol
Dear Manager,
This is a confirmation letter regarding registration of your company name ……………….., please read it carefully.
We are an agency engaging in registering brand name and domain names. Today, Our center received an application from Parad Int’l Co.,Ltd and they apply to register ………….. as their brand name and some top-level domain names(.CN .HK etc). We found the main body of domain names is same as your company name. I am not sure about the relationship between you and them. Please tell me whether or not your company authorizes them to register names.
We are dealing with the application and we need to confirm whether you have authorized them? If you don’t authorize them, please reply me an e-mail. Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards,
Wally Wu
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Address:Tuogui Building, No.777, Ningguo South Road, Hefei, China
Got the exact same email today myself. So glad I found this page so I can dismiss this nonsense from my mind immediately.
And another…
Dear Mr./Ms.,
We are a service agency for registering domain names. Our center received an application from Michele Han International today. They applied for the registration of carbon3it as their Brand Name and some top-level 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, we have the duty to inform you the case.
Now, we are processing this application. Our center needs to confirm whether this company is authorized by your company. If so, we will continue the next step of registration. If not, please let me know as soon as possible in order that our center can deal with this problem timely. We await your prompt reply.
Best Regards
Jacob Tang
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Tuogui Building, No.777, Ningguo South Road, Hefei, China
This is the same exact message I received (with different company name, obviously). It’s even the same name: Jacob Tang. It just had a different street address. But the street address in the email I received is the same as another address someone else posted further up this thread.
I got one of these scam emails a few minutes ago. When I looked it up I quickly landed on this page. Thanks!
From its tone, the message sounded superficially legit, as it seemed hand-crafted, but I nevertheless had grave doubts, as the keyword which was allegedly being registered in China wasn’t a domain name of mine, but a 35 year old engineering code in Fortran with which I was once involved with a couple of decades ago.
There is NO WAY that I would ever register this name as a domain, but my e-mail sometimes shows up when you google the program’s name.
I think this is a clue as to how these people operate.
Thanks for the post. I got this email as well. Really, how many italian owned companies that plow snow in china want to compete with me in the USA.
(Letter to CEO or General Manager),
This is a letter to confirm the registration of your company name ippolitosnowservices, please read it carefully. We are an agency engaging in registering brand name and domain names. Today, our center received an application from CHAST International Ltd applying to register ippolitosnowservices as their brand name and some top-level domain names(.CN .HK etc). After our careful investigation, We found the main body of domain names is same as yours. As a professional registrar, We are obligated to inform you of this situation.
We are handling the application and we need to confirm whether or not you authorize them to register them? Let me know your answer ASAP so as to solve this promptly. Thanks for your cooperation.
Best Regards,
Joe Lee
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Tuogui Building, No.777, Ningguo South Road, Hefei, China
We received this identical email yesterday evening at 8 pm regarding our company domain name. Thank you for this helpful site.
They’re still at it. I got this today and nearly fell for it but, thanks to an internet check which brought me to you, I now know what’s goping on:
Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hualong Ltd on August 29, 2016. They want to register ” kilmainhamtales ” as their Internet Keyword and ” kilmainhamtales.cn “、” kilmainhamtales.com.cn ” 、” kilmainhamtales.net.cn “、” kilmainhamtales.org.cn ” 、” kilmainhamtales.asia ” domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” kilmainhamtales ” 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,
Jim | Service & Operations Manager
CN Web Registry (Head Office) | 8006, Xinlong Building, No. 415 WuBao Road, Shanghai 201105, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1870199 4951
Web: www . cn-registry . net
Thanks for this article. I got this email today and it scared me at first because I was being trolled by an iOS developer about a month ago who was trying to use my domain name for some game company he wanted to make. I told him no, so when this showed up I thought he went through with it.
Dear Manager,
This is a confirmation letter regarding registration of your company name manabyte, please read it carefully.
We are an agency engaging in registering brand name and domain names. Today, Our center received an application from Parad Int’l Co.,Ltd and they apply to register manabyte as their brand name and some top-level domain names(.CN .HK etc). We found the main body of domain names is same as your company name. I am not sure about the relationship between you and them. Please tell me whether or not your company authorizes them to register names.
We are dealing with the application and we need to confirm whether you have authorized them? If you don’t authorize them, please reply me an e-mail. Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards,
Wally Wu
Tel:0086-551 634 911 91
Fax:0086-551 634 911 92
Address:Tuogui Building, No.777, Ningguo South Road, Hefei, China
LOL. Just LOL.
A client I am redesigning their website for received the same email (from “Jim” (I’ll bet he and John are “besties” )). My client asked if it was a matter he needed to address. I responded:
“This is nothing you need to worry about and can be safely disregarded. This appears to me as a “phishing” email, whereby someone (let’s call him “Jim”) is attempting to ascertain information in attempt to hijack your domain, if not just to collect your email address for a spam campaign. If this was on the up-and-up, the message would have come from your registrar, not “Jim.” Another tell-tale sign is that there’s no such thing as “registering an Internet Keyword.” Again, what the person is really after is hijacking your domain name; they are welcomed to using “” with any other top level domain (.org, .net, .cn, .asia, etc.), but your domain name does not conflict with nor has anything to do with Hualong Ltd, doing business under a subsidiary name of Global Sources, “a key leading enterprise of provincial agricultural industrialization,” which looks like a “front” (their website appears suspiciously fake, and absolutely nothing to do with “”)).
Then I found your website. After reading through the salvo of emails I see they really aren’t after the domain name, but your wallet!
Thanks. :-)
Also there is such a thing as registering an “Internet Keyword”, but it’s only applicable in China and you have to have a plugin installed in your browser for it to work. It’s similar to the old RealNames system which died a death because of the need for a browser plugin in order to use it.
The idea’s simple really: Domain names map a reasonably easy to remember name (e.g. squelchdesign.com) to a difficult to remember numerical IP address (e.g. 5.158.166.95) … and Internet Keywords map a very easy to remember keyword (e.g. web design) to a less easy to remember domain name (e.g. squelchdesign.com). So if I had registered “web design” as an Internet Keyword, and had the browser plugin installed, then I could simply type “web design” into my browser and I would be redirected straight to https://squelchdesign.com/
The Internet Keyword idea comes from CNNIC, China’s equivalent to Nominet or Verisign: They are the registry that oversees all registrations of Chinese domain names and Internet Keywords. Interestingly I can’t find any information about their “Internet Keywords” system on their website any more, so I suspect they’re realising it’s a poor system that is going to die a death. I found an old ICANN presentation that makes mention of it though. Since all of it is really just a rip-off of the RealNames idea, which ultimately died horribly, I would expect it to do the same thing, and I expect that process is already beginning.
Thanks for your information, it has put my mind at rest.
Cheers
Earl
Here is one I received earlier
Notice: Hi, I am Mark Chan. We had discussed the case about disputing your company’s domain names and Brand Name. You have never registered these domain names and Brand Name, and I had told you that the domain name registration is open. The dispute period will expire soon. If your company does not register these domain names and Brand Name, we will finish aforesaid company registration within 2 workdays. that company will become the legal owner of these domain names in the world. We had notified you, so we are not responsible for any dispute question about your intellectual property right and trademark after they succeed in registration. If you have any questions, pls contact us within 2 workdays.
Best Regards,
Mark Chan
Glad we found this blog. We got this below.
Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hualong Ltd on August 29, 2016. They want to register ” vicemenu ” as their Internet Keyword and ” vicemenu .cn “、” vicemenu .com.cn ” 、” vicemenu .net.cn “、” vicemenu .org.cn ” 、” vicemenu .asia ” domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” vicemenu ” 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,
Jim | Service & Operations Manager
Asia YG Network (Head Office) | 8006, Xinlong Building, No. 415 WuBao Road, Shanghai 201105, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1870199 4951
Web: www . asiaygnetworks . org
Great service, thanks..
Volunteer group with an Australian web site just received a “Michele Han International ” scamail.
We received a very similar thread of emails from a “Jim Bing” – jim.bing@cnregistry.org
Company applying for domain was Hualong Ltd – Lin jianhai – lin_jianhai@vip.163.com
I responded with this (hope I get a response!):
“Dear Lin Jianhai,
Please provide proof of your registered company, trading under the name “****”. Failing this, we will assume this is a plot to sell us asian domains, which would be of no use to us. I have CC’d in Mr. Jim Bing as reference. Your responses will be forwarded to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to investigate.
We get so many of these emails, but as cheap fake replica’s of our Colombian waist trainers are now so widely manufactured in China, we thought it was legit. Great to come across this post.
Here is the latest email From: “Martin Zhou”
This matter is about the brand name cokebottlecarteluk another company applies to register,please forward it to your company’s leader. Thanks!
Dear President&CEO,
We are the organization specializing in network consulting and registration in China.On September 2. 2016,a applicant named Mr. Hebert Tang from HUA Enterprise Co., Ltd wants to record and register the brand name cokebottlecarteluk and some domains by our office.
After our preliminary review and verification,we find HUA Enterprise Co., Ltd has nothing to do with your company. But If you have permitted this company to apply these names, or you think the application will not damage the interests of your company,please allow us to fulfill all the registration for HUA Enterprise Co., Ltd. If you against the company’s application,please let me know by email ASAP.
· · ·
Best Regards,
Martin Zhou
Manager of Registration department
Address:98 Shanghai Ave,Hefei 230001,China
Tel: (+86) 0739-5266069
Fax:(+86) 0739-5266069
I got this email, too. Good information. Thank you for sharing with us.
Dear CEO,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hualong Ltd on September 11, 2016. They want to register ” comkitonline ” as their Internet Keyword and ” comkitonline.cn “、” comkitonline.com.cn ” 、” comkitonline.net.cn “、” comkitonline.org.cn ” 、” comkitonline.asia ” domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find ” comkitonline ” 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,
Jim | Service Manager
CN Web Registry (Head Office)
8006, Xinlong Building, No. 415 WuBao Road, Shanghai 201105, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1870199 4951
Web: www . webregistry . cn