The Asian domain-name extortion scam

[jasonkester]

You'll get these for every domain you register, and they can be safely ignored.

Getting your .com.cn domain wasn't a priority yesterday, so why would you waste even a second considering it today? You registered the .com, and the .net/.org if they were available because that's good practice. Maybe a few popular misspellings too if they're available.

But there are 500 other TLDs out there that you didn't register. For good reason. Because they're worthless.

Some random email out of the blue doesn't change that fact.

[zachinglis]

Agreed.

I was actually shocked to see people falling for this. I deleted mine straight away knowing it was spam. Maybe I'm just a cynic :)

[snowmaker]

At Scribd we get about one of these per day now. Almost everyone has fallen for it once. As scam emails go, it is very clever, and routinely fools tech-savvy people who would never go for a 419 scam. Good of Marco to point it out.

[kschua]

I got this a few years back. I replied and got the email telling me to register for it. I just ignored their reply and guess what. The company registered my domain with the .cn. After reading this post, I checked the .cn domain again and it expired last Dec.

Base on my experience these guys might just register and hold your .cn domain for a few years.

[sahillavingia]

I get one of these for every _single_ website or app I launch. It's a benchmark: if I get one, I've made it decently popular enough for it to get around to them. There's always a bright side. :)

[jon914]

I got one of these pretty recently. Like all cold calls that feel out of the blue, I googled up an extract of it and tossed in the trash after realizing that it was a (fairly well-worded) scam.

[callmeed]

Ditto.

They were actually pretty persistent too.

[jrockway]

Is this a scam or do you actually get the domain names? If you get what they are selling you, then it's just unsolicited advertising, which is not really a scam.

[michaelfairley]

The fact that they are claiming that a fictitious someone else is trying to buy the names in order to convince you to act quickly is what makes it a scam.

[tc23emp]

Well, they are charging up to 10 times the regular price for worthless domains. The guy could have registered the domain names himself and would probably want to go through his existing registrar and would definitely get a better deal if he added domains to the DNS hosting service he is already using.

Also, you apply for a trademark through the government in the countries you operate. Although, I think they are supposedly selling a service akin to AOL keywords. I doubt it exists, but every person to be redirected by keyword would need a specially configured browser or custom DNS lookup servers provided by their ISP.

If you sign up for their service, you've already been scammed, and once you are involved with them, they probably have other ways to extort money out of you. I doubt you will ever have secure ownership and control of the domains.

[seldo]

My co-founder got one of these emails about 12 months ago. Even the opening email sounds pretty scammy, and quick googling shows they send out loads of these, so I shot it down. It must be worth their time if they're still doing it years later.

[gallerytungsten]

These scams are very, very common, and have been around for years. On a regular basis, I get letters from a company called "Domain Registry of America" (or something like that) who kindly offer to register .biz variations (and whatnot) for my domain names.

[prawn]

I have had 100+ paper letters from Domain Registry of America (or similar) trying to snipe domain renewals over the years. Waste of paper.

[mkramlich]

These scams are partly enabled by the fact that the domain system has so many suffixes. It was predictable. One solution is to remove the suffixes. Yes there'd be pain migrating/collapsing to that but there is clearly pain now when we don't.

[DotSauce]

We are moving towards the opposite. You will begin to see a lot more domain extensions as ICANN allows anyone with deep enough pockets to launch their own top-level domain.

[prawn]

I get these on behalf of my clients all the time. Don't know of anyone who's fallen for it - if clients get it, they tend to ask me first before dealing with it.

It's the internet. It's always a scam. (TM)

[paraschopra]

I get two such mails every month; it is a brilliantly executed scam though. I almost fell for it the first time I saw it.

[rwhitman]

Yup, I got the same email from that same company for 2 different sites.

Glad to confirm that its a scam for sure. I figured it was an easy one to pull - play it off like there's trademark infringement and then sell the 12 'hijacked' domains at once.

[stackthat]

We keep getting this I think every other 2-3 months, I'm not quite sure why such a smart guy fell for the first one :) We keep ignoring those guys.

[ohashi]

All the time. Also renewal scams. Appraisal Scams.

[wazoox]

Got this too last week, I simply ignored it. However I have to admit I considered answering it for a while.

[eli]

I've been getting these for at least a year. I wrote back the first time too. I bet it's really effective.

[DotSauce]

Has nobody followed up to see which registrars are to blame? Could be a simple fix if reported to ICANN.

[bombs]

ICANN don't maintain the .cn TLD. If China's attitude to copyright, trademark and other IP infringement is anything to go by, I don't think CNNIC is going to do much.

[istvanp]

If it was a courtesy email it would of been written in Engrish.

[bruceboughton]

would have been written in English