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Dirty Tricks – domain name scams to ignore

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Published on August 04, 2011 Dirty Tricks – domain name scams to ignore

Posted at 1:13 am in Ecommerce by

Last updated on October 30, 2018

Domain scams are rife and it’s important that whoever your shopping cart is with that you take steps to be careful. This is because we’ve seen an increase in the number of customer reports of spammers approaching them offering them domain names, or requesting that they register their own domain name in a foreign extension to stop someone else from getting it.

These scams are not new to the Internet – they have been around for a number of years – but they seem to go in waves and right now, the spammers seem to be very active in sending out these domain spams to customers. We strongly recommend that people send spams like these to where they deserve to be: your junk mail bin.

The two most common domain spams that we’ve received reports about include:

1. Someone else is registering your Internet Trademark

The email that gets sent out is along these lines:

Dear Manager:

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Anhui, China. On <date>, We received HUNDI Company’s application that they are registering the name “oscworks” as their Internet Trademark and “oscworks.cn”,”oscworks.com.cn” ,”oscworks.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!”

The company sending this email is not the official Registrar of Chinese domain names and is trying to get you to register domain names with them. If you wish to register a .cn (China) domain you can do this through your domain registrar in Australia, Canada, or anywhere else and don’t need to do it through a Chinese company at all. Mark these emails as junk and delete them. They’re spam.

2. I’ve got your domain name with a different extension but don’t want it any more

There are plenty of variations on this type of spam scam. Basically what happens is that the scammers buy up a whole lot of domains that are similar to their target domains but with different extensions. They then attempt to sell them to their targets at a premium. Their emails will suggest that they have held the domain for a long time and are now willing to let it go, and since you have a similar domain name they are doing you a favour by offering it to you first. Our advice: unless you really want that domain ignore it. You’ll end up well overpaying for the privilege.

General tips for avoiding scams like these

  • Do your research – check the owner of the domain and when it was registered by looking up the domain name using a “whois” tool – if its only recently been registered, be suspicious
  • Check to see whether there’s actually a site on this domain name, and how professional it is. Does it look like a real site or just a placeholder site?
  • Register alternatives to your domain name when you register your domain name initially. Register them in the countries you plan to do business. If you don’t want a local Chinese presence then don’t register a .cn domain, and don’t get tempted into having one. Buying a domain is like getting a rental property for your business – think carefully about whether it fits your business strategy to have that domain name or not
  • Ask your hosting provider/shopping cart provider for help if you are unsure. They will hate the scams as much as you and will most likely have received the same scam emails as you have at some point. Their opinion could be invaluable.
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