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.
The Asian domain-name extortion scam
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: The Asian domain-name extortion scam
#22Has nobody followed up to see which registrars are to blame? Could be a simple fix if reported to ICANN.
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.
Re: The Asian domain-name extortion scam
#23All the time. Also renewal scams. Appraisal Scams.
Re: The Asian domain-name extortion scam
#24We 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.
Re: The Asian domain-name extortion scam
#25I've been getting these for at least a year. I wrote back the first time too. I bet it's really effective.
Re: The Asian domain-name extortion scam
#26You'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…
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 :)
Re: The Asian domain-name extortion scam
#27Is 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.
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.