Domain scammer says, have a nice working day!
Our friends at Hkitos are back with yet another domain spam scam. (See my post, “Domain scam pirates strike again.”) The spammer will make sure that bad guys don’t seize our domain names and Internet keywords. And golly gosh, they offer professional IT services too. Who’d have thought it?
I’ve substituted the word BRAND for the domain name in their email. Don’t respond, don’t be fooled, by these types of emails.
Subject: BRAND-About Intellectual property rights (TO Principal)
Dear Principal,
Super day for you!
We get your email address from the Internet . It is glad to write to you with keen hope to open a business relationship with you in the future.
We are professional IT outsourcing service company in HongKong. On the Apr.26, 2009, we received an application formally from our client. its name is Bristol lines Co. Ltd. They want to apply for the registration of the domain name and Internet keyword ” BRAND ” from us
After our initial examination, we found that the brand name and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. We need to know the comment of your company because the domain names and Internet keyword may relate to the copyright of brand name on internet. Now we have not finished the registration of them yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.
If you want to need professional IT outsourcing service, please kindly visit our website: www.hkitos.com
Have a nice working day !
Best regards,
Max.Wong
TEL:00852 – 30723948
FAX:00852 – 30723948
Email:max.wong@hkitos.net
Web:www.hkitos.com
Thank you for a useful posting. I have just received a similar email. It included: “…I wonder whether you consigned Donme Investment Co., Ltd. …”, but a search on Google reveals no such company, so it certainly looks like a scam.
Thank you for a helpful posting. I have just received an almost identical email, including: “…I wonder whether you consigned Donme Investment Co., Ltd… “. A Google search for Donme Investment reveals nothing, so I think it is very likely that this is a scam.
I just received “The” domain scam email and found it suspicious as all our domain names are properly registered abroad. A Google search of Donme Investment Co., Ltd brought me to your blog, confirming my doubts. Thanks for the posting.
Thanks…got the email…googled their name and sure enough, you provided the answer….dodgy!!
thanks for your post
they started again, 28/07/2009
Thanks for your posting.I also received such email.I tried to contact them for details. because there are many cybersquattings in the world. we can not identify .we are a well known company in the world. to prevent such people in bad faith. we accepted their service. finally, everything is ok.they offer us best quality service for internet brand protection. we appreciate it.
be carefully cybersquatting
domain name misusing are growing year and year
whether or not you need to prevent cybersquatting actively.
Yes, it can and does happen everyday. Is it legal? Depending on the situation, site owners may have legal recourse (e.g. trademark infringement lawsuits or arbitration). However, even when a cybersquatter is breaking the law, it can be time-consuming and expensive for a site owner to win a legal judgment, especially if the cybersquatter is located in a different country. In some circumstances, it is possible to reclaim names through domain arbitration, however this can cost thousands and can take many months. Full blown domain related law suits can take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars.
protecting domains or internet intellectual property can be never ignored. with development of internet.many bad guys want to dodgy and do business in bad faith by grabbing well known comany’s domains ,and finally get profit.
we are one of these victims,our company had ever been damaged by these cybersquatting.now we have protected all the domains related.
so let’s together to fight against cybersquatting.
The easiest (and cheapest) way to prevent most cybersquatting is to register a few basic variations of your company name before the damage is done.
Which names should I register?
1. COM/NET/BIZ: Hopefully, you have already registered the .COM version of your company name. To be safe, register the .NET and .BIZ variations. Some companies also register the .ORG and .INFO variations for additional safety.
2. Hyphenation: If your company name has more than one word in it, register it both with and without a dash. (e.g. usair.com and us-air.com)
3. Singular/Plural: If your name lends itself to it, register its singular and plural versions. (e.g. fordtruck.com and fordtrucks.com)
4. Common Misspellings: If your name can be easily misspelled, register common misspellings (e.g. volkswagon.com and volkswagen.com)
5. And finally, the juvenile sounding but damaging ‘sucks’ variation: Many experienced internet users routinely type in the ‘sucks’ variation of a company name on their browser to find complaints about a company. Most savvy companies now make it standard procedure to register this name before a vindictive person does. (e.g. verizonsucks.com)
Isn’t this going to get expensive?
Registering ‘protective’ domain names is now becoming a necessary and expected cost for doing business on the Internet. Luckily the domain registration industry has been recently de-regulated. Domains which have traditionally cost $90 to register can now be registered for about $50. A small price to pay to help protect against the time and expense involved pursuing a cybersquatter.
Have you protected yourself from cybersquatters?
On the World Wide Web your domain name is your own unique identity. No two parties can ever hold the same domain name simultaneously; therefore your Internet identity is totally unique. If you have a business site on the Internet your domain name is your own online brand and in a sense you can use your domain name as your online business card. With your own domain name your web site, and e-mail addresses for example will have that professional look, being unique to your business. Many people often miss the importance of having and then keeping their domain name until they lose it. Once this happens they soon realize that they have lost their whole online identity