China Domain Name Registration- Scam?

[UK Contractor Accountant]

Received the following email yesterday - is this a scam email as never seen before?

This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration and dispute internationally in China. We received an application from Huake Ltd on January 12, 2015. They want to register " ukcontractoraccountant " as their Internet Keyword and " ukcontractoraccountant .cn "、" ukcontractoraccountant .com.cn " 、" ukcontractoraccountant .net.cn "、" ukcontractoraccountant .org.cn " domain names etc.., they are in China domain names. But after checking it, we find "ukcontractoraccountant " 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?

 

[ryedale]

Yes it's a complete scam, seen it hundreds of times

 

[UK Contractor Accountant]

Ok thanks

 

[obscure]

Scam - they are trying to scare you into thinking that someone else is about to buy conflicting domains, so that you will buy them.

 

[mzone]

Yes it`s plain scam, even do not respond for that email.

 

[Robert Wheeler]

Until recently I worked for a domain registrar and we would get similar queries about similar emails on an almost daily basis. And yes, as the others have said, it is a scam to try and frighten you into buying the Chinese domains.

 

[JElder]

Not exactly a scam - but very misleading.

They are hoping you will choose to register the domains rather than the fictional other party, and do it through them.

You have a couple of choices:

1. Register the domains you actually want to register to either use or protect your brand, but do it through your normal domain registrar in the UK. Could be useful if you ever plan to trade in China.
2. If you don't want to use these domains, ignore this. Unless you are a huge multinational, a Chinese registered domain is unlikely to effect your business.

In either case, don't do anything with these muppets. If they are dishonest enough to lie about fa fake registration, they are dishonest enough to steal card details.

 

[MASSEY]

This isn't new, it's years and years old....

They seem to be stepping it up a gear though because we had a call from a bloke in china and he was asking for me by name, he'd obviously looked at the whois info

Cheeky sods.

 

[ryedale]

On a different twist, we've had a run of scam firms contacting clients of ours and offering to secure their domains for 'life'

I got their number from one lady and called them up and played the dumb nephew trying to help his aunt out who was interested in their 'offer'

Apparantly, for just a one off payment of £180+VAT, they'll register her .com domain for ever to her and because it's registered for a long time, Google loves that - stability you see!! and will rank it first page..

Oh that was an entertaining call..

 

[Robert Wheeler]

On a different twist, we've had a run of scam firms contacting clients of ours and offering to secure their domains for 'life'... Apparantly, for just a one off payment of £180+VAT, they'll register her .com domain for ever to her...

How do you think it works, register it for one year and the scam company is gone by renewal time? In theory you could register it for seven years and give themselves a good clean shot to clear the records of the transaction, wind down the company and still make a good profit.

I would like to see the whois on a domain registered with them. Done as reseller it could be quite easy to cover their tracks.

 

[ryedale]

I'd imagine so.. they probably then start again under a different name and repeat the process.