Photo by Michael Geiger on Unsplash
The old email scam that warns against someone in China attempting to register domain names that do not belong to them is still active
The scam, which has been around for over a decade, is perpetrated through an email that goes something like this:
“(Please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
Dear CEO,
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongyuan Ltd on January 19, 2024. They want to apply for “namibiafactcheck” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (namibiafactcheck.cn, namibiafactcheck.com.cn, namibiafactcheck.net.cn, namibiafactcheck.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?
Best Regards
Albert Liu | Service & Operations Manager
China Registry (Head Office)“
How does the scam work?
According to online sources the scammers mostly target companies or organisations.
One online source, from June 2021, lays it out as follows:
“The scam usually involves a mail to domain owners from .cn that is from registrars based in China claiming that another company has just attempted to register a domain with them which contains the targeted domain owner’s trademark.
“If gullible users do respond to the email, the scammer will claim to have halted the registration in order to protect the targeted individual’s intellectual property, and if the email recipient doesn’t recognize the entity attempting to register these domain names, that they should respond immediately to protect their trademark. If the targeted individual responds by email or by phone, the scammer will then try to get them to register these domain names involving .cn for several years upfront with the registrar running this scam.
“There have been several blog posts from domain owners regarding this incident, and some of them claim to have received a bill amounting to over 3000 pounds every year. Users are informed that these emails are from fraudsters, and there is no need for any website to register under .cn for any reason. Such emails should be ignored and also blocked to avoid further communication.”
There are many online warnings like the one above about this specific scam, so web users or company officials that have received the scam email are urged to do a browser search using the search terms “china registry scam” or “china domain name scam” to view these warnings.