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Hi, I have a website and .co.uk domain name. I do a little bit of photography and that domain / site is where I publicise my work.
I just got this email:
(Letter to Head of Brand Business or CEO, thanks)
Dear President,We are the auditing department of a professional domain name registration and dispute solution organization in China. We formally received an online application on July 12,2012 that a company claimed "[i]Some company name[/i] Int'l Ltd" were applying to register "[i]my domain name[/i]" as their Net Brand and some "[i]my domain name[/i]" Asian countries top-level domain names. Now we are handling this registration,after our audit department checking,we found this is conflict with your company's domain name and trade name.
According to the registration principle in China,we will audit every application of our customer in order to avoid the conflict of the intellectual property. You are the original trademark owner,so I am sending you this E-mail to check if your company has authorized that company to register these names. If you have authorized this,we will finish the registration at once,otherwise,pls inform me ASAP.
Our time limit for dissent application is 7 workdays. Out of the time limit we will unconditionally finish the registration for that company,so please contact us as soon as possible.
Have a beautiful day.Best Regards,
Not really bothered about anyone else using "my domain name". I only have .co.uk registered - the .com was already taken by someone in the US anyway.
Ignore, reply or is it some kind of scam where they will try it on later down the line?
TIA.
It's bullsh*t. Got one of these a few years back. A google search validated it as spam.
Well Google says Scam and as ever if you have to ask it's a scam.
Scam - but go along with it for giggles!
if you have to ask it's a scam.
This.
It's b******s. Ignore.
As said, it's a load of bull. Ignore and delete. Lots of these doing the rounds. I've had 3 this year.
Scam or not, I'm going to end all my mails with "Have a beautiful day", that's lovely that is.
Scam. We get them for domains we already own.
Have a beautiful day
😆
Seems to be from Bono ...
Seems to be from Bono ...
"have a beautiful day"
"you too"
Seems to be from Bono
Or American Dad
Thanks people. I guess I just asked because I couldn't see HOW they are trying to scam me.
If you bite, they'll tell you you've to pay for their suggested domain registrations to prevent their 'client' from doing so, at a couple of hundred quid wired by Western Union.
Ahh I see. Might be worth a bit of mileage. Anyone care to suggest some responses?
In related news,
I used to get postal(!) spam from something along the lines of "domain registrar of America" when my domains were due for renewal. It's an official-looking renewal notice, and if you were to respond then they actually transfer your domains to themselves and charge you an annual registration fee of about ten times what it should be.
It's particularly dangerous because if they're sent to companies, they can end up in Accounts or otherwise outside of IT and get paid blindly as just another invoice. It looks legit, companies think "ooh, we'd better renew that then." I've blocked a couple from going through at the 11th hour in different companies over the years.
Further reading,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_scams
For the OP, see the section 'fake trademark protection'.