Scam Alert! Asian Domain Name Registration

Don’t be fooled.

While it is recommended that you buy all of the domain extensions for your company to protect your brand (i.e., .net, .info, etc.), There are some companies out there that are taking full advantage of businesses who seek to protect their online presence.

The email consists of the following (or something similar):

To whom it may concern:          2009-5-20

We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,

Last week we received a formal application submited by Justin Lin who wanted to use the keyword “yourdomainname“ to  register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/ .asia/ domain names.

After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren’t sure whether you have any relation with him. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down his registration, but if we do not get your company’s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his company’s application

In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.

With such an email, one would  immediately respond to affirm that they do own the domain name and do not wish to relinquish their rights.  The problem is that there probably is no “Justin Lin”.  It is a ploy to get you to buy international domain names from their company. Remember if this were to happen in reality, you may have recourse through ICANN.

Thank you so much to Saundra Hadley of planning…forever for allowing me to share this!