Was this an internet domain name renewal scam? I shared my expertise and you examined it yourself.
I just received this email titled ‘Internet Trademark Protect’ claiming that one of my domain names was going to be trademarked by a company call DERUI Investment and I was asked if I objected to the third party application claim. I started to get worried and troubled if my domain name would be revoked.
Then I read the email again and I began to doubt because I spotted simple grammar and syntax errors like ‘asia’ is spelt ‘ASIA’ and the date is typed ‘February,2nd,2010′. The ending signature was really done unprofessionally. If a big company was big enough to buy up all the variant domain names and trademarked it, then they would get a decent representative to handle such matter and the representative would unlikely sign off so mildly.
The 2 giveaways were the contact ‘Tel:+86(0)21 6296 2950′ and the website link ‘web:www.ygnetwork.cn’. If it was a China based company, unlikely they would put the plus sign (+) and the bracketed zero. A typical Chinese company would put the contact in this format, (021) 1234 5678. Obviously, the sender was targeting non China resident to call into China. The website was not hyperlinked and used the word ‘web:’ which was not what a typical Chinese company would do. Not hyperlinked mean it was deliberately unlink, then why still typed in the web address.
I did a whois on the domain name ygnetwork.cn and ygnetwork.org.cn and traced it. The whois information were messy. Then I quickly checked the email header and the email address Angela@ygnetwork.org.cn could not be validated. It was interesting to note that the A in the Angela@ was capitalised.
Finally I went over to view the website. First thing, I scrolled all the way down to the footer to look for the ICP licence. The ICP licence was not displayed. No ICP licence number on the website means it was not registered with the local authority that the company was registered and this was violating China internet regulations. In simple English, it was illegal and law breaking. How could a company that claimed to be a domain name registration and bearing the .cn without displaying ICP licence. This was the greatest giveaway that it was a scam.
There were many things I could still checked and exposed if it was a domain name renewal scam like, the phone numbers used on the website was it a mobile number that faked a land line number. I could also check the directory to validate the occupant of the address and so forth but I need not anymore because the ICP number missing from the website was sufficient for me to pass the judgement.
If you went to the contact page, you could find the Beijing and Hongkong share a similar address. If you were familiar with Hangzhou, you would easily spot that the address was wrong. Lastly, how could a .cn website not available in Chinese language.
The whole setup had a lot scam elements. An invalid email address that you cannot reply but to make a call to one of their numbers. A scammer always preferred a phone call than email conversation because it was not traceable. A lot of cannot-make-sense credentials to valid the website legitimacy. Contact numbers displayed in a uniformed format that made it easy for it potential targets to make the initial call.
A domain name renewal scam or a real legitimate business, you decided?
Below was the content I received in my email.
Dear Manager:
We are a Domain Name registration service company, which is a professional Internet Domain Name Registration and dispute resolution organization in China.On February,2nd,2010, We received DERUI Investment company’s application that they are registering the name “mydomain” as their Internet Trademark and “mydomain.cn”,”mydomain.com.cn” ,”mydomain.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! Looking forward to your reply. Kind regards
Angela
———————————–
Oversea marketing manager
Tel:+86(0)21 6296 2950
Fax:+86(0)21 6296 1557
web:www.ygnetwork.cn
I got one mail two weeks ago and two more today.
Added to spam now, thanks for the article, Hosea!
Karma, you are welcome!
had one yesterday from “John” – nearly fell for it until I asked our office computer guy. I even put the poor grammer down to english not being “Johns” first language. Content was quite convincing and I replied that it had been passed on to the IT dept. Had another email this morning from the company that John was saying was going to take our company domain name. They were quite abrupt. John has now sent me a reply saying he would send me a price list if we want him to help us stave off the rogue domain names!
Give them my website and say you buy cheaper here! Ha ha ha!
Just got the email this morning in the UK. I responded at first – but will certainly not be buying these domain names, thanks to the information on this website. Thank you!
Have a good laugh at their English and move on!
I received this email today from Harvey. I am based in Australia.
Had me worried initially.
Below is the email:
(If you are not in charge of this please transfer this urgent email to your President & CEO, thanks.)
Dear Manager,
We are the registration and solution center in China. We have an important issue to confirm with you. On Jul 20th, 2012, we formally received an application, one company which called “JBQ Invest Ltd” is applying to register ”………” as Web brand and Domain names:
………..cn / .com.cn / .net.cn / .org.cn / .hk / .com.hk / .in / .tw / .com.tw / .asia
After our preliminary investigation, we found the brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we wonder whether your company consigned JBQ Invest Ltd to register these domain names with us?
If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 10 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by “JBQ Invest Ltd” unconditionally.Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any question.
Best Regards,
Harvey Wu
Senior Consultant
Room 601 | No.1 | Lane 1118 Xizha Road| Fengxian District | Shanghai | China
Office: +86 (21) 6715 0445 | Fax: +86 (21) 6715 0445
Ha ha ha! Now they have a Senior Consultant!
got one today saying that some company called Hansen Ltd wanted to register my domain name… bad English – replied – suspect theyll bugger off now
Ha ha ha! Have a good laugh!
Thank you for your help and reassurance that this is a scam. I received a first email from a ‘John Wang’ and a second (more aggressive) today, below:
Dear Sirs,
We are Hansen Ltd based in Chinese office, our company has submitted the “readonpublications ” as CN/Asia domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. John’s approval. We hope your company will not object our application, because this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian market. We don’t want your company to use this name in China and Asia, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China and Asia. Even though Mr. John advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.
Best regards
Lin Dong
I received that email as well. At first I thought it was a legitimate enquiry as I had it on my Blackberry and replied to tell them that Hansen Ltd were in no way affiliated with my company. I then got the rather abrupt email from Lin Dong telling me that they would take my domain name, that’s when I decided to check up on it. Didn’t realise either that Lin Dong could only send from a yahoo email “hansonltd@yahoo.cn”. I think this will just get filtered as spam now.
Good to know you are not cheated!
got one today … still John….still a scam…..thanks for posting this info – also saved me some worry!
Worry not! Have a good laugh!
One of the problems I see is that these scammers seem to read your blog and are correcting the clues which help us determine that it is a scam. Even though it is not a link the ygnetwork… does take you to a pretty web site in Chinese and English. Though not great the English is not too bad for a non (english) native writer. Thanks Hosea for your help on this!
Previous is Angelia and now the manager is John. Ha ha ha!
Knew it was a scam so I set up a new email for our domain as:
sookmi.koch@….com – suck my c*ck
I replied and feigned interest, said I would pay top dollar to ensure they keep my keyword and domain name for me. They senr me a form with prices etc, I assume they are after bank details. I just string em along, they think they have found a sucker…lol
Fill in some latin M****F*** names and give them a fake credit card number! Ha ha ha!
I’ve got this one this evening:
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 Hansen Ltd on July 30, 2012. They want to register ” anvweb ” 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?…
Just ignore it! Laugh and move on!
We have received one from John but he has not asked us to buy the domains before the other company does.
We were then contact by Hansen Ltd who wrote this –
Dear Sirs,
We are Hansen Ltd based in Chinese office, our company has submitted the “tamvo ” as CN/Asia domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. John’s approval. We hope your company will not object our application, because this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian market. We don’t want your company to use this name in China and Asia, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China and Asia. Even though Mr. John advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.
Best regards
Lin Dong
WE ONLY RESPONDED TO JOHN [SAME LETTER AS SHOWN IN EARLY THREADS] AND SAID WE WOULD OBJECT AND WERE ALREADY REGISTERED ETC ETC –
As per Tracey’s question before is there any danger to have replied on email – we have not given them anything?
Kind regards
Tam
Just ignore them! They will be wasting your time!
The same in Argentina!
Thank you all !!!!
Greetings to Argentina!
What a load of rubbish.
Laugh and move on!
More Rubbish.
Ya! Very funny rubbish!
thanks for that..
Really Informative.I also received it and replied it.
Is there any problem with it.
Hi Ravi, Good to hear from you!
Its going around Australia too, we got the same letter from John a week ago.
Thanks for showing these scammers for who they are.
I feel confident to delete and forget these criminals
This John is cool, his business is so global! Ha ha ha!
I have also received John’s E-Mail as well as a number of my Clients. Here is the e-mail:
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 Hansen Ltd on August 23, 2012. They want to register ” n******t ” 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:
***
I knew it was a scam and in actuality, if you check the domain under another registrar such as 123-reg.co.uk you’ll find the domains are probably available. Also the Limited Companies they mention are either none existant, dormant, haven’t file accounts after a year, have been trading less than a year or don’t exist. This bunch of outfits do not control the registrations, simply send out spam mailings in the hope you’ll panic and reply saying STOP THEM. They’ll then register the names and charge you a hefty price. However because we have good spam filters and I do like to feed a troll every now and again. I wasn’t afraid to reply to them and sent this e-mail:
John,
Thank you for your e-mail. After doing some research with Companies House, I have discovered the aforementioned company you refer to are currently NOT trading. There is another candidate that could potentially be the company that you refer to, but they have no accounts filed and have been trading over a year, so I suspect this is a “Dormant” company.
We have no interest in registering a China or Asia Domain Name as we will not be expanding our business outside of the European Union indefinitely.
If the company you mentioned does register these domain names and attempts to trade using our Copyrighted Brand or Business Name, then we will appoint a legal representative officer here in the UK and file legal proceedings against them under Fraud and any other appropriate / applicable classifications. They are a UK Limited (Ltd) company and therefore can be held accountable for such actions under a UK Court of Law.
I hope that provides you with an understanding of our position.
Best Regards,
Dominic
N******t Ltd
Sent from my iPad
Cool! Any reply from John?
I have the same kind of email from John Bing. Thanks for this blog. I didn’t fall for his scam. I told John that I will register with another company. I am curious what he is going to say next. May be he knows about this blog too.
Ha ha ha! I wonder too!
Thanks for this info I nearly bought the names off a legit company just to piss them off would of cost £166
I got an email from the person who company wanted to use the name as well which nearly had me
Cheers J
Hi James, Good to know you are safe!
Thanks for the heads up – was wondering whether it was a scam! Received this recently:
“Dear Ben ,
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/.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.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/.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.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: http://www.ygnetworkltd.com”
—————————————————————————-
However, he went one step further by communicating with me through a different email address, perhaps pretending to be the customer….
“Dear Sirs,
We are Hanson Ltd based in Chinese office, our company has submitted the “entertainmentcocktail ” as CN/Asia domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. John’s approval. We hope your company will not object our application, because this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian market. We don’t want your company to use this name in China and Asia, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China and Asia. Even though Mr. John advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.
Best regards
Lin Dong”
—————————————————————————-
Was quite well coordinated!
Thanks for the heads up!
Ben
Ben, thanks for the update!
In the Netherlands too ! Received 16 sept. the message from John.
Cool! They are so enterprising, going Holland too!
I am so grateful for this information and advice. I run our church website and received a similar email yesterday. I was on the point of replying when I decided to do a little internet search first. Many thank for your help.
Welcome, you are always welcome!