Hey guys, I thought you might enjoy reading some of my email correspondence with what appears to be the “internet keyword scam”. If you have registered a domain name, you may someday receive a similar offer.
Dear President&CEO,
We are an organization specified at dealing with domain name dispute and registration in asia. We have something important on intellectual property right need to confirm with your company.
On November 3, 2009, we received an application formally, one company named “Tangto Holdings Ltd” applied for the Internet Keyword “rankexploits” and some domain names (such as,rankexploits.asia / rankexploits.cn…etc.) with our organization. After our initial examination, we found that they have no trademark, Intellectual property, nor patent. But the keyword and domain names they applied for registration are the same with your company’s name and trademark.
These days we are dealing with it. If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other purposes to buy these domain names.If they are your business partner or distributor in Asia,we will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. Now we have not finished the registration of Tangto Holdings Ltd yet, in order to deal with this issue better, please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.
Best Regards!
Eric Chen
Manager
Web: http://www.wtl.hk.cn
Tel: ++852-95660496
++852-95660205Fax: ++852-30197872
Mail: eric@dnrcenter.hk
eric@sc-domain.org
Hmmm… sounded weird to me. First, I haven’t registered Rankexploits as a trademark. Plus, what the heck is an “internet keyword” and why would one register “rankexploits”? I mean, I can understand wanting to register something profitable like “cheap iPods”, but rankexploits? Sounds like a pretty stupid commercial move to me. Also, why would one want to register “rankexploits.cn” and various other endings?
But, I thought, “What the heck?!?!. Curious, I sent this reply.
I don’t have any affiliation with that company. I’ve never heard of them.
Lucia
Eric answered thusly:
Hello Lucia,
I am glad you can contact me in time.
The several questions below I should explain to you.
Firstly, if you have no relationship with Tangto Holdings , according to our working experience, there are two possibilities.
a.Tangto Holdings is a domain name investment company, they want to register these names before you and sell them back to you in order to gain profits;
b.It may be a commercial method, Tangto Holdings is consigned by your competitor to register these domain names, they are trying to replicate your idea and let your customers feel confused.
The following is the domain names and internet trademark which Tangto wants to register:
rankexploits.tw
rankexploits.hk
rankexploits.in
rankexploits.cn
rankexploits.asia
and Internet Keyword: RankexploitsSecondly, as a domain registrar, we respect you are the owner of this trademark, but we have no right to refuse any person or company’s application. When we found they are
not the real owner of this trademark, we informed you to protect your interest via email. I would like to confirm if you think these domains are useful to your company. In another word, I would like to know if you think their registration will confuse your clients and harm your honor and profits.In order to deal with this issue better, please make a confirmation with me as soon as possible, so that we can have a have a further discussion. Waiting for you reply.
Best Regards,
Eric Chen
PS:
Below is the detailed explaination of Internet Keyword:
a: Internet Keyword is the extension of trademark and brand in the internet world. It decides the stability and activity of keyword in the world of internet.
b: After registration, any person in any district can type the keyword directly on the IE browser, then they can go to your official website. But If registered by other company, it will affect the rank of this keyword in google search engine. In another word, if you do not protect it, the result won’t in the first page of any search engine ( Google/ Yahoo etc.) even if you pay much money and time for propaganda. Especially in Asia, your clients can’t search your company.
c: After the successful registration, Chinese government will award you an electronic certificate, which will prove your validity of using this trademark in the internet. Every international corporation has protected
its keyword.
2009-11-04
Wow! Someone would not only want rankexploits.cn, they want rankexploits.tw? Also, if I don’t buy “Rankexploits”, I might not rank well for the search term “rankexploits”, especially in Asia? That’s a worry. More troubling, there is a possibility someone one of you guys would get duped into buying a global lukewarming mug from “rankexploits.tw” and then get a poor quality product. Not good. So, I wrote back:
I can confirm that if someone other than me registers these domains, it could confuse my customers.
Thank you.
Lucia
Eric responded with this offer.
Hello Lucia,
If you think it will affect your benefits or confuse your customers, i suggest you to protect those domains which important to you.
As the owner of “rankexploits.com”, you will get the priority to register these domain names and Internet keyword. If you think these domain names are important to you, we can send you a dispute application form and help you register these domains within dispute period, this is the only way to prevent domain name from grabbing. If you think these domain names are not important to you, you can give up, we will finish their registration.
Following is domain names and Internet Keyword price list:
Domain names: Price: Per Year
rankexploits.in 97.00 USD
rankexploits.tw 76.00 USD
rankexploits.hk 76.00 USD
rankexploits.cn 31.00 USD
rankexploits.asia 51.00 USD
Internet Keyword: Price: Per Year
Rankexploits 151.00 USDYou can choose some more important for you to register. After you confirm it,we can send the dispute application form to you and assist you to dispute and register the domain names for you within dispute period. Hope these information would be helpful to your consideration, waiting for your reply.
Best Regards,
Eric Chen
Lets see 97+76+76+31+51+151 = Wow!!! To think I only spend something like $10 a year for rankexploits.com! I googled and easily discovered that no one had actually spend money to register any of the “disputed” domain names. (Why would they. I mean… seriously. Who the heck wants “rankexploits.tw”?
Still, I was curious about the “dispute application”. So, I wrote:
Eric,
Please send me the dispute application.
Lucia
To which Eric replied:
Hello Lucia,
Attached is the dispute application form, please check.
If you intend to register these domain names. Following is the procedures, you can do follow these.
1. We send the dispute application form to you.
2. You fill in the application form and return it via email (scaned) .
3. We will dispute their application and protect these domain names for your company.
4. We’ll send the invoice of payment to you.
5. You transfer the payment to us according to the Bank information on the invoice and fax the payment proof to us.
6. We will point these domain names to your main website after getting the payment proof. And award you the electronic certificates.If you have no question, please fill the form and return it to us as soon as possible. If you have any questions, contact me freely.
Best Regards,
Eric Chen
Well, they had already done 1. The dispute form doesn’t really look like a dispute form though:
Needless to say, I had no intention of registering all these domain names or forking over money to eric. I mean, sure, maybe you guys will get confused and buy a few inauthentic global lukewarming mugs. But, probably not so many. Also, if anyone registers these names and starts confusing you people with offers of knock-off global warming mugs, I’m sure I can do a bit of googling and find out if a dispute process really exists and what steps one takes to dispute someone’s right to register “rankexploits.tw”.
Still, it’s a worry. So, I wrote back:
I only intend to dispute that the names are registered in bad faith. I don’t need you to register the domains. Please explain how to dispute only.
Lucia
So far, no answer. . . But it’s late in China. Maybe Eric went to bed. I’ll let you know if eric responds tonight.
In my last company I used to get these all the time. They do register your domain, but it’s a scam – “some company just tried to register yourcompany.cn with us (no they haven’t) and (because we are so ethical) we checked the register and found yourcompany.com so wanted to give you the opportunity to register the .cn version (pay us some money)….”
Some businesses do want to get the .cn .tw .asia etc so it’s probably quite a lucrative scam. You do get the domain but wouldn’t have bought it if you didn’t get the scam email…
Thanks for the heads up. This appears to be related to:
Chinese Internet Keyword
What is Internet Keyword?
The prices you cite were very cheap! Compare:
<a href="http://www.webnic.cc/ps_chineseinternetkeyword_register.html“>How to Register Internet Keyword?
Note the requirements:
Consider this in the context of the Great Firewall.
Note:
Nigeria’s anti graft police shuts 800 scam websites
PS I wonder if there is any statistical correlation between Nigerian websites and the rise of “internet keywords”?
From the China Internet Network Information:
Bill reports:
Considering typing in Chinese, it may be a handy method.
Steve–
Oh yes. This is a scam. They are trying to get me to pay a premium price for domain names I don’t want to buy. They haven’t even registered them. If I wanted those domains, I could just buy them for much less through dreamhost, godaddy or any number of places!!
David:
Have you ever watched someone generate Chinese text in Microsoft Word? It’s a hoot…
David Jay
Try speed typing on a Chinese Typewriter
If you really want a challenge, check out the strong parallels found in:
The Discovery of Genesis: How the Truths of Genesis Were Found Hidden in the Chinese Language
C.H.Kang & Ethyl Nelson ISBN-13: 978-0570037927
or in
Genesis and the Mystery Confucius Couldn’t Solve # ISBN-13: 978-0570046356
Why does the oldest civilization incorporate mideast concepts into its language?
We got one of these also. About two years after registering our company. I emailed to ask a question and got a similar reply to yours. Everyone decided it was a scam so we told them if anyone registered a name against our trademark (which it isn’t) we would pursue all legal action available to us (which AFAIK there is none). That ended the emails.
what Jeff said
I get them too.
Scam -a- rama
Climateaudit.com costs at least $10000 to register.
MikeN–
Is that because someone already bought it with the intention of profiting on resale? That sometimes happens. But when a domain is not already registered, it’s generally very cheap.
I this scam it doesn’t seem the scammers invested any of their own funds buying domain names no one wants hoping to resell at a profit. It looks like they just want to con me into registering through them at an exhorbitant price.
Since you got my trackback and it’s in Swedish, the content of my post is similar to this. The difference between yours and mine is that I won’t answer the mail. 🙂
It is indeed a shameful scam. These people may have already obtained personal information.
To be safe, you should transfer all your personal banking and credit accounts to a special protective account I have established for just such emergencies. My esteemed cousin is the solicitor for the Minister of Finance and will oversee the transfer. He can be reached at Obayana.OToole@ng.yahoo.com.
Tornevall–
Yes. Most people won’t answer. But I wanted to see what eric would actually say!
George–
Do you have any special form I should fill out when doing the transfer?
I am so happy that you posted this information because I was actually about to start investigating. Good to know that it is just another scam. Thanks for this post. Saved me some ground work.
Lucia,
You probably haven’t considered the potentially great commercial value of your organization. Perhaps you could found a Hockey Team, like Lucia’s Rank Exploits, or The Lukewarmers. You wouldn’t want such potential to be lost, would you? Not to mention the possibilities in home-made hooch brewing kits, etc.
Thanks for your efforts.
Al S.
“Rank Exploits” when taken out of its statistical context would interpreted to mean “Dirty Deeds” or something like that. The image of a sport’s team logo based on that is amusing…
Guess what? Yesterday, I got another reply from Eric. I’m replying so we can discover what various things eric says over time. (Yes. I’m having fun.)
I received a similar email a couple of days ago, so thanks for your commentary on this issue guys.
SAME SCAM !?! Hong Kong Based, China’s Laws(?)
===========================
Dear xxxx Antonis ,
Thanks for your timely reply.
: Following is domain names and network keyword price list:
★Single Registration Fee:
Domain Names:
Unit price:
xxxx.eu
43.33 EUR/year
vilelmine.fr
87.67 EUR/year
xxxx.de
43.33 EUR/year
xxxx.travel
205.85 EUR/year
Network Keyword:
xxxx
108.34 EUR/year
Above price contains all costs, we do not collect other additional costs.
: Following is the detailed procedure, you can do follow these:
1. We send the application form to you.
2. You fill in the form and return it via email (scaned) or fax.
3. We will stop their application and register these domain names for your company.
4. We will send the invoice to you, you transfer the payment to us according to the Bank information on the invoice and email or fax the payment proof to us.
5. We will point these domain names to your official website within 2 workdays after getting the payment.
We will send you the application form after we receiving your confirmation, waiting for your reply.
Best Regards,
Gxxx xxxx
Auditing Director
My reply:
Gxxx,
I only intend to dispute that the names are registered in bad faith.
I don’t need you to register the domains.
Please explain how to dispute only.
Remind the company that “XXXX” and its logo is a registered
trademark under European and International Law.
Furthermore, inform your potential clients about breaking the law in
countries such as France and Germany etc. for registering a company’s
name not belonging to them according to law and courts in Europe and
elsewhere.
Antonis
Yes, Scam, also received one from:
Yancy.Yang
Customer Service Manager
Global Domain Name Registration Centre
Phone: +852-31757930 (8003)
Fax: +852-31757932
Email: yancy.yang@apidnr.hk
Website: http://www.apidnr.hk
________________________________________
They are doing it in Spanish too. Cuidado es una trampa !!
You say it is a scam. Were the above person who received such correspondence cheated? If not, Why should you say it is a scam. Incredibly there are should someone think that the price of all domain names is the same with rankexploits.com. Idiot.
Haha, I told them I knew it was a scam and got this in reply 🙂
Dear Sir,
I can’t understand your reply.
why do you think it’s a scam?
are you disputing our company?
do you think it’s a joke?
If you think so we’ll finish the registeration of ××× company,
so we are not responsible for any dispute question about intellectual property right and trademark after they succeed in registering.
Following on from previous post, I wonder if there’s a form to fill out to dispute their company too 🙂
My guy’s name is Henry. Yang, it is a scam because the usage of internet keywords isn’t supported in most countries, especially the United States.
They try to extort money from you as they are using coercive tactitcs like fear of trademark infringement and loss of corporate brand quality. I too have had fun making Henry answer all sorts of questions about their process and justifications.
Hey I got the same email from the same guy! guess what in the reply which he cut pasted he forgot to change the name to my name. So the letter was addressed to some Matt!
any ways this post was helpful.
Thanks
Hi there
Thanks for the heads up … just got one of these from someone called Selina Tan (selina.tan@apdrc.net) saying exactly the same. I did make an initial response (to say that I would object to the internet keyword registration) but will not now continue the response!
I got scams like this from time to time, and always wonder what happens if I replied (I’ve never done that). It’s interesting to read your conversation with them and see how they work.
I got the message below from a new lot. I wonder what they are up to. Below are our exchange of email so far.
Dear CEO/Manager,
We are a Network management company in Hong Kong, mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On July. 29, 2010 we received a formal application from a local company of your country who is applying to register some domain names with the keyword “mzconsultinglimited †and register it as their keyword. After investigation, we find that you are the original user of the keyword. As this refers to your company name or trade mark, and in order to avoid the confusion and dispute on the internet, we inform you and would like to know your ideas, if you agree about this issue, we will finish the third company’s registration, If you don’t agree the third company to register, please inform me. looking forward to your reply. thanks for your understanding and cooperation.
Kind Regards,
cindy zhang
Customer Service Manager
Tel: +852-31757930-8016
Fax: +852-31757932
Email: cindy.zhang@apdrc.com
cindy.zhang@apidnr.hk
Website: http://www.apidnr.com.hk
My reply is below
Dear Cindy,
The domain name http://www.mzconsultinglimited.com is not available. This domain name belongs to us as our trade make and duly registered on the internet with CWCS, our web hosting partners in the UK.
We will not entertain any negotiations on this issue for any reason.
Thank you for your inquiry.
Cheers,
Their Response from Cindy
Thanks for your reply.. You know that domains and keyword is open to be registered all over the world. Your keyword has not been registered, so the third party has right to register it. If you think they are important to you . The best way for you is to register them by your self. If you agree to register ,I will send you the application form. If you think they are less important,you can don’t register it. After the registration of the keyword, not only you can use it. But also can rise your company’s ranking in every searching engine,and is also help you to propaganda your company. I am looking forward to your reply.
An introduction of Internet Keyword is enclosed for your review.
My response to see what they would do.
Cindy,
Please send us the application forms.
Cheers,
The quick response again from Cindy
Thanks for your prompt reply. An application is attached to start your prior registration, and here are the steps to deal with the Application Form:
1: Fill the Application Form, and then send back to us asap by FAX or E-mail.
2: On receiving this information we would immediately repeal the application from the third-party and get you preferential right of registration.
3: An Invoice will be sent, and we will finish your registration completely after payment, which comes with releasing you the all rights of the domains and the control panel.
Application Form comes with all fees description. Please contact us for any further questions. Thank you.
(They include some kinds of fees,such as register fee,service fee,web maintenance,web upgrade and web forwarding,and etc.)
Regards,
I sent them a detailed listing as below, I am now waiting for their response.
Dear Cindy,
Thank you for email below and the form you sent us.
I will still require some explanation of your registration of keyword.
Now if you check ‘whois.tucows.com, ‘mzconsultinglimited’ is duly registered, for which we pay annually, please see text below:
Whois Server Version 2.0
Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Domain Name: MZCONSULTINGLIMITED.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
Name Server: NS.SUPREMESERVERS.CO.UK
Name Server: NS2.SUPREMESERVERS.CO.UK
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 22-may-2009
Creation Date: 22-may-2009
Expiration Date: 22-may-2011
>>> Last update of whois database: Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:30:39 UTC <<<
My request are as follows.
1. You need to justify to me that we are not registered and why?
2. You need to justify to me why I should choose your company and not CWCS whom I already work with and have a partnership with.
3. You need to justify to me the services I will receive from you for the value I am paying.
4. On the form you offer some services, which we offer ourselves and the others offered by CWCS, please explain why I should pay you’re the same services.
5. You need to explain what a ‘keyword’ is an why it is different from ‘http://www.mzconsultinglimited.com’
6. Since we have already registered the domain name, kindly provide the name and address of the person who would like to use our domain name and keyword.
Kindly assist with answer to the above questions so that I can present them to our management for a quick decision.
Once again thank you for your kind assistance in this regard.
Yours faithfully,
Selina Tan is busy
———————–
—–Original Message—–
From: selina.tan@adrimc.hk [mailto:selina.tan@adrimc.hk]
Sent: Wednesday, 25 August 2010 12:02 PM
——————————————————————————–
Name: selina.tan
Organization:
Email: selina.tan@adrimc.hk
Phone:
Comments: Trademark Solutions for incom Dear CEO/Manager, I am Selina Tan, Customer Manager, from a Network Solutions Organization. On August .24, 2010, we received the application from a local company in your country and they would like to apply for “ xxxxx†as their internet keyword. After investigation, we found that you are the original user of this keyword. As this refers to your company name or trademark and to avoid the confusion and dispute on the internet, we are responsible to inform you and would like to know your ideas. If you agree about this issue, we will finish the third company’s registration. If you don’t agree the third company’s registration, please inform me. I’m looking forward to your reply. Thanks your understanding and cooperation. Kind Regards, Selina Tan Customer Manager Hong Kong Office Tel: +852 3175 7930 (ext8001) Fax: +852 3175 7932 Email: selina.tan@adrimc.hk Website: http://www.apidnr.com.hk
IP Address: 113.105.233.186
——————————————————————————–
Many thanks to all of you who spent time to clarify the issue. I actually received some of those scams (for “insertcasa”), never answered, but was interested to know what was what.
Now, I do know. Thanks again, Jacques.
The exact same thing happened to me and I also took them for a little ride…
http://azucar-y-especias.blogspot.com/2009/11/west-technology-limited-internet.html
Thanks Lucia and others – like some other contributors I was about to take a similar e-mail from “Chris Cheng” seriously. You’ve saved me time and hassle!
Thanks so much to all of you who took the time to confirm how this is simply an Asian domain registration business verging on a scam. I received the letter today, and called them within an hour. Only after wasting money on the phone call did I realize that their offer of “Keyword Registration” was bogus. Ya gotta hand it to them though… they had me going and got me to communicate with them… more than I’ve ever done about the millions of dollars waiting for me in that Nigerian bank account!
I received one of these a couple of days ago, replied and even received a phone call from them. They have a very professional website which convinced me that they were/are a genuine company – which they may well be, but using this coercive tactic to generate business.
Anyway, many thanks for the info everybody – you have saved me some time and money!
They’re still trying:) I am from Bulgaria, Selina Tan offered me Romanian, Russian, Greek, all kinds of similar domains from nearby countries. Oh, and the Internet keyword:))) I got this last week, didn’t reply, so I got another message which required me “to make a quick decision”. You can guess what my decision was and what I told them:)
Thank you, Lucia, for the useful information;)
I’ve been tailing them along and am currently in the middle of telling them I’m coming to China next week and that I’d love to stop in and see them and asked if there are some cute office babes he can set me up with. I’ll keep you posted.
I’ve been tailing them along and am currently in the middle of telling them I’m coming to China next week and that I’d love to stop in and see them and asked if there are some cute office babes he can set me up with. I’ll keep you posted.
They’re still at it in March 2011:
_______________________________________________________
Dear President & CEO,
We are an organization specified at dealing with domain name dispute and registration in Asia. We have something important on intellectual property right need to confirm with your company.
On February 28, 2011, we received an application formally, one company named “Gactpnk Holding Ltd” applied for the Internet keyword “btmtc” and some domain names with our organization.
After checking, we found your company is the original trademark owner. If the company’s action haven’t been authorized by your company, so their behavior will conflict with your interests. In order to deal with the matter better, please contact us ASAP.
(If you are NOT President & CEO, please forward this to your President & CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks.)
Best Regards,
Jocelyn
Manager
________________________________________
Web: http://www.nz-asia.com
Tel:+86 21 54383516
Fax:+86 21 34628491
Mail: jocelyn@na-asia.com
___________________________________________________
I told them they had my permission to sell all these domain names to Gaptnk holdings.
Isn’t the internet great! You get a suspected scam – type “Internet Domain Name & Keyword Scam” into your search engine – and you get someone like Lucia who has done all the groundwork and saving me all the worry.
Brilliant!!! Have a virtual drink on me!
Lucia,
Many thanks you posted this subject! I own a small company in the Netherlands and recieved a simmilar mail you did. I made them a proposal in return. After payment of a lot of money I would allow them to use the domain names and internet keywords they wanted to sell me. With your permission I would comment some in dutch, ontvangt u mails van firma’s die u melden dat anderen uw domeinnaam willen registreren? Wees gewaarschuwd men wil u alleen een duur service pakket verkopen! Ga hier niet op in en antwoord hen dat u de domeinnamen niet wilt registreren maar dat u zich alle rechten voorbehoud.
I used the words posted by Jeff id
Dear Mr.
We will not register the domains and internet keywords you mentioned but if anyone registered a name against our trademark we would pursue all legal action available to us.
Kind regards,
Just got exactly the same string of correspondence and suspected a scam as soon as they tried selling me the domains. Thanks for confirming what I suspected and saving me time in any more responses.
me also, scam!
Thanks Lucia – and others. They’re still at it. I’d figured it was a scam, but it’s good to have confirmation. Your efforts are much appreciated.
Thanks for posting about this, very helpful! I received a message today, beginning:
“Dear CEO & Manager,
We are a domain name registration and dispute organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’ domain name registration and internet intellectual property right protection in Asia. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.”
It was signed off as follows:
“Best regards,
Yilia
Auditing Department
Tel: +00852-37556671 (Direct) Fax: +00852-37556670
Web: http://www.webworlddnr.com Email: yilia@webworlddnr.com ”
They seem to be a genuine company, I guess it’s just a marketing scam.
Yep, just had the same approach, including an email from the ‘applicant comapany’ confirming it was going to register myname.cn etc. Sequence as follows
Dear Manager,
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On April 19, 2011, we received an application from Hanshin company requested “myname” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Michael Zhang
Michael Zhang
Registration Department Manager
3002, Nanhai Building
854.Nandan Road
Xuhui District, Shanghai
Office: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 182219 51605
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Email: michael.zhang@yiguan-shanghai.com
Web: http://www.yiguannetwork.com
and….
Dear Sirs,
We are Hanshin company based in Chinese office. We will register the “myname” as internet keyword and CN internet domain names. We have handed in our application and are waiting for Mr. Michael Zhang’s approval. We think this name is important for our products in Chinese market. Even though Mr. Michael Zhang advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Gareth Lee
etc etc… I asked for pricing and then did a search on ‘internet keyword’ which was the priciest thing to register at US$120/year. This was was probably the biggest hint of a scam and I immediately came upon this thread. Good work!
Thank you so much – This saved me a lot of time
The bot that contacted us was – (not even a last name)
Johnan
Oversea marketing manager
Office: +86(0)21 6191 8696
Mobile: +86 1366152 9704
Fax: +86(0)21 6191 8697
web: http://www.ygnetwork-ltd.com
With the website: http://www.ygnetwork-ltd.com/en.index.htm
We also found this useful: http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2003/11/07/1228.htm this is the real info on the keyword up approach
I just received an email from the same url that contacted EdmontonPM. They said someone is applying to register a domain name in China using part of our company name (i.e., they will take our product name and add “.asia” or “.cn” to it).
I told them that if ANY party (including them) registered a confusingly similar domain name, we would consider it trademark infringement, and take the appropriate legal proceedings in response.
Thank you Lucia for starting this thread. I just recently received a similar exchange as PK above. I was initially contacted stating that a certain company was trying to register our name and trademark. I resplied confirming that the trademark and domain had been registered already since 2000. I then received the email below. Note the exact language, but differing names:
From: LeeGareth
Dear Sirs,
We are Hanxing company based in Chinese office. We will register the “CaravelaDigital” as internet keyword and CN internet domain names. We have handed in our application and are waiting for Mr. Edward Wang’s approval. We think this name is important for our products in Chinese market. Even though Mr. Edward Wang advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Gareth Lee
Thank you to all of the above. I have just received a ‘inquiry’ through my website which I have pasted below. If anyone else is receiving this, do as I do….press delete!
Dear team Our organization received a formal application from a company who is called Maltion Ltd are applying to register your company name as trademark keyword and wireless keyword. The trademark keyword can be typed into IE address bar and go directly to assigned website, it do not need “www.” nor “.com”, “.net”, etc, It will skip google search engine ,can be used all the world’s browsers .It is most important. The wireless keyword is the latest products on the Internet, It can be through SMS or WAP, and 3G fast access to sites, Improve website ranking and traffic. It is more convenient and more important In order to prevent cyber piracy,Please explain: 1: Whether this company is your IT supplier or distributor. 2: Whether you are interested in registering these keywords first to preservation your company’s brand. We are now obligated to inform you this issue ,So we will handle the next step after this audit procedure. Pls understand. Best regards David INSTRACC – Head Office Mail Address: Shangdi Developing Zone Southern Str. Haidian District, Beijing , China. Internet: http://www.instracc.com Email: David@instracc.com
Yeah, just received the same email as a orevious post. What a hoot… Just delete!
On 17/08/2011 6:59 PM, michael@instracc.com wrote:
>
> Dear blanklabels team
>
> Our organization received a formal application from a company who is called Maltion Ltd are applying to register “blanklabels” as trademark keyword and wireless keyword.
>
> The trademark keyword can be typed into IE address bar and go directly to assigned website, it do not need “www.” nor “.com”, “.net”, etc, It will skip google search engine ,can be used all the world’s browsers .It is most important.
>
> The wireless keyword is the latest products on the Internet, It can be through SMS or WAP, and 3G fast access to sites, Improve website ranking and traffic. It is more convenient and more important
>
> In order to prevent cyber piracy,Please explain:
> 1: Whether this company is your IT supplier or distributor.
> 2: Whether you are interested in registering these keywords first to preservation your company’s brand.
>
> We are now obligated to inform you this issue ,So we will handle the next step after this audit procedure. Pls understand.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best regards
>
> Michael
>
> INSTRACC – Head Office
>
> Mail Address:
>
> Shangdi Developing Zone Southern Str. Haidian District, Beijing , China.
>
> Internet: http://www.instracc.com
>
> Email: michael@instracc.com
>
>
>
> Confidentiality Statement:
>
> The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this email by anyone else is unauthorized. If you are not an intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or other action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this message in error please be advised of your obligation to immediately notify sender of the error in transmission, and to destroy all associated documentation.
Just got the same email from “Michael”
Dear … team
Our organization received a formal application from a company who is called Maltion Ltd are applying to register “…” as trademark keyword and wireless keyword.
The trademark keyword can be typed into IE address bar and go directly to assigned website, it do not need “www.” nor “.com”, “.net”, etc, It will skip google search engine ,can be used all the world’s browsers .It is most important.
The wireless keyword is the latest products on the Internet, It can be through SMS or WAP, and 3G fast access to sites, Improve website ranking and traffic. It is more convenient and more important
In order to prevent cyber piracy,Please explain:
1: Whether this company is your IT supplier or distributor.
2: Whether you are interested in registering these keywords first to preservation your company’s brand.
We are now obligated to inform you this issue ,So we will handle the next step after this audit procedure. Pls understand.
Best regards
Michael
INSTRACC – Head Office
Mail Address:
Shangdi Developing Zone Southern Str. Haidian District, Beijing , China.
Internet: http://www.instracc.com
They are still at it – Got this and am now considering playing with them before sending them the same comment as others about the legal action against them.
Thanks to all posters on this forum for comments.
—————————————
—– Original Message —–
From: Robert Zhang
To: sales@borrowman.ca
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 8:48 PM
Subject: Internet Domain Name & Keyword
Dear Manager,
(If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to your President or appropriate person, thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On Sep 27, 2011, we received an application from Hanxing company requested “borrowman” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Robert Zhang
Played with our Mr. Robert Zhang for a week or so and finally sent him this email – Don’t think I will hear from him again.
Thanks to Lucia and everyone on this blog.
————–
Mr. Zhang:
After contacting Mr. Kneupper I have discovered that you have been trying to scam me.
You never did business with Mr. Kneupper and since you can not supply me with any other person or company in North America, it shows that no one else believes you.
I did an internet search on your name and the company that you say you represent.
Your name and company always come up in relationship to SCAM’s.
I would have to suggest that research shows that you are not an honourable businessman, as you are attempting to portray in your communications.
My research suggests that you are a dishonourable person attempting to swindle honest people out of their money.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONTACT ME OR MY COMPANY OR FAMILY AGAIN.
——————-
Hi
I have been getting similar e-mails from a John Bing at ygnetwoksltd.com as follows
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration and dispute internationally in China and Asia.
On October 3rd 2011, We received Tianhua Ltd’s application that they are registering the name ” ……….. ” as their Internet Keyword and ” …………… .cn “〔 ………………com.cn ” 〔 ………….. .asia “domain names etc.., It is China and ASIA domain names. But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check. According to the principle in China, your company is the owner of the trademark, In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!
Best Regards,
John
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 136615 29704
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.ygnetworkltd.com
Hi Lucia
I just got this email recently. I actually went to the effort of doing some investigations and found a company in the US called Snapwords.com who provide this service BUT through their own website, not a generic search like the Chinese Internet Keyword option.
Some (unscrupulous but) enterprising person’s preying into the fear of legitimate businesses by creating a ‘buffer’ against this scam for as little as $29… Sad, really.
We first got one from Edward Wang , quickly followed up by some Lee Gareth pretending to be the businessman to register and then a second one from Lee again:
Mail 1 from Edward Wang:
—
Dear CEO,
(If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to your President or appropriate person, thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On Feb 9, 2011, we received an application from Hantong company requested “tropired” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Edward Wang (complete footer further down)
***
Mail 2 from Lee Gareth:
—
Dear Sirs,
We are Hantong company based in China. We will register the “tropired” as internet keyword and CN domain names .cn, .com.cn, .net.cn, .org.cn. We have handed in our application and are waiting for Mr. Edward Wang’s approval. We think this name is important for our products in Chinese market. Even though Mr. Edward Wang advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Gareth Lee (No footer in mail)
Mail 3, again from Edward Wang:
Dear Mike,
Based on your company having no relationship with them, we have suggested they should choose another name to avoid this conflict but they insist on this name as CN domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn) and internet keyword on the internet. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company and register it to promote his company.
According to the domain name registration principle: Domain name and internet keyword which applied based on the international principle are opened to companies as well as individuals. Any companies or individuals have rights to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Because your company haven’t registered this name as CN domains and internet keyword on the internet, anyone can obtain them by registration. However, in order to avoid this conflict, the trademark or original name owner has priority to make this registration in our audit period.
If your company is the original owner of this name and want to register these CN domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn) and internet keyword to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send you an application form with price list and help your company register them.
Kind regards
Edward Wang
Office Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86-21-6191-8696
Mobile: +86-182-2195-1605
Fax: +86-21-6191-8697
Web: http://www.yiguannetwork.com
===
It has been reported to the IC3 but I thought it better to post one warning here as well.
//M
Guys. I’ve just had exactly the same email trail. One proffering info from one sumon zhuang who is doing an audit on my .com domain name. Then A hauntong based company wanting t register an aerial company. They proceeded to list the domain names the were going to register including the now infamous ‘Internet keyword’. I have a lot of dealings with google and yahoo re Adwords and domain name pointing. My first reaction was to think ok I’ve missed something. Then the infamous lee Gareth sent me an email. I nearly died laughing! A china man ? He proceeded to tell me the domain names he was gonna register. To advance his products in china. My first thought was how is he going to answer the phone? Aerial services in chinese must b a mouthful?? I replied to find out if I could protect my site and domain name thinking surely they couldn’t do this. I.E Pepsi.com.cn. ?? Simon zhuang kindly replied with a price list for buying the .cn domains kindly to help protect my trademark. The price runs into thousands and being based in the centre of England with a 35 mile radius what use is a .cn domain. My IT friends and Ad word administrators gently told me SCAM SCAM SCAM. Lol. Nicely done thou. How do these guys make money thou?? That bit I don’t get! So if an unlikely sounding chink guy called Simon or Lee or Gareth contacts you. Ask him if he’d like to buy your trademark or domain cos I have nt heard from them since my offer to sell!! Good luck. Avoid the dirty chinese Internet pirates at all costs.
Thanks a lot for this thread.
They are still out there – received their first mail last week 2012/02/28.
Looks like its a family business… Michael, Cindy and Robert, a happy family of scamers.
….
Dear CEO,
(If you are not in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On March 14, 2012, we received an application from Hengtong company requested “ripeintel” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Robert Zhang
Office Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86-21-6191-8696
Mobile: +86-182-2195-1605
Fax: +86-21-6191-8697
Web: http://www.yiguannetwork.com
Thanks for this post, I thought it might be a scam when I replied to the first mail from saying that as a small, London based junior football club we weren’t bothered about their registering the Asian names as we didn’t have any aspirations to expand into another continent!! I then got 2 messages back, one apparently from the company asking us not to object because “longlanejfc” was important to their products (be interesting to see how!) and then another from the original telling us they’d advised the company to change their name because of our objection. Oh well!
They must be getting some business. We received one last week – April 2012.
http://www.yiguannetwork.com/en.index.htm
well they almost had me fooled, till i Googled internet keyword and found you.
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from Tianhua Ltd on May 15, 2012. They want to register ” emrs ” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name 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?
Best Regards
John
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.ygnetwork-ltd.com
Hi, I got a similar message from”Jon” today (31/05/2012). Thank you to all those who have done the above work especially Lucia – I was unsure about this, but I am glad I didn’t take further action on this con. I buy product from Shanghai, so it could have been very easy to fall for this one…………..Thanks
Hey Guys,
Got one today as well – via a help desk form.
Name: John
Email: john.zhang@ygnetworkit.com
Dept: Support
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from Hansen Ltd on June 4, 2012. They want to register ” calendarised ” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name 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?
Best Regards
John
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.ygnetworkltd.com
Mine is a little more tactful. He’s basically saying that the guys trying to register my domain names are a new company in ASIA (a sub company of another company). I asked him why that company wants a sub company and why they don’t just use their current name; he says it’s because they wish to take my rankings and search popularity to benefit from their own as they are also in the same sector. Big mistake!
He sent a price list, all the other details as above. I checked with godaddy and none of these domains are registered, can get them all for less than £40. He wants almost £160.00! Had emails from two different people aswell but the most annoying is “John” – who has terrible English !
He emails me every single week to chase it up; after 2 months (bearing in mind he told me I only had 28 days to choose, 60 days later his “client” still hasn’t registered?).
I sent him an email back to scare him. I acted as though I was fully in belief that this is serious, but made sure he knew he better stop harassing me at the same time!”
“Dear John,
I am currently in touch with my solicitor regarding your emails. Firstly, you have noted you are aware this company will be using my name to benefit themselves. You’ve sent this to me in writing via email and have also told me that you’re starting a bid against two companies working in the same sector. Your problem being that one is trademarked (to that specific sector) and one is not.
Regardless of whether I pay for your “internet keyword registration” you have now made it clear that this is the intent and are pressuring me to pay you an amount to secure my own brand.
Once we look into this thoroughly we will take the action required / necessary to resolve it. Please be so kind as to release your office address to me so we may correspond by post rather than email.
Regards,
Miss W_____”
Needless to say he has not replied.
Just noticed! Hey, Jan (commenter just before mine) – same guy for me! Thanks for his (fake) address! I’ll send my (fake) solicitor over there to sort him out 🙂
PS. That is the EXACT same email I received, the one Jan had. Wow, John sure is busy registering all these keywords 🙂
We get these all the time, have been for years. None of the threatened registrations ever happen. The usual–touchsquid.tw, touchsquid.cn, and so on.
I used to reply, now just delete.
Thank you so much for posting this topic. I received this exact same email just yesterday, July 19th 2012. Mine was written by a Linda Zhang from HKBest. You’ve saved me hours of further research.
Thank you.
We constantly receive similar scams as described in these posts by parasitic, scumbag blackmailers from the People’s Repugnant of China.
One such nasty piece of work resides at ygnetworktech.com. An organisation or more likely a sad, sick little individual operating out of a filthy garret somewhere, in Shanghai.
In the beginning we would politely decline their offer and suggest they stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. However, as few of them over there have any brains they’re nastily persistent. Like AIDS only harder to get rid of! So we suggested they do carry out their threat and register our url but with their accursed .cn and .asia extensions. They never do though. It would be of absolutely no consequence to us even if they did. Our organisation trades in over a hundred countries world-wide but we doggedly refuse to deal with anyone in the PRC. On principle.
Thank you guys!!! We just got exactly the same stuff from ‘John’ in Shanghai: he’s a busy boy, as he’s the General Manager,
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.ygnetworkltd.com
It’s the same old, same old as you guys all got; and then the other company sending us the ‘we intend to persist’ stuff. I was just about to contact our business solicitors for advice, as we DO trade in Eastern Asia, so we actually could have been affected by it – if it were real ….. Hmmm. Think we’ll go elsewhere for our .CN and .ASIA domain names 🙂 Thank again guys – love the internet / hate the internet!
Dear Lucia, I write from Italy… and Thank You very much… we just got the same stuff from pipnet.asia…
The very same ‘John’ has been in touch with me, and his Chinese counterpart, who wants to use my domain names in that part of the world. Thank goodness my search on the net found this page. Needless to say I sent him a copy of the link. 🙂
they still keep coming! John Bing at the same address as Linda above.
my thanks to you all and especially Lucia for laying out this scam so clearly.
they are history.
Also received such an e-mail.. another scam?
Dear President,
We are the department of Asian Domain Registration Service in china. I have something to confirm with you. We formally received an application on September 6, 2012 that a company which self-styled “Futin Int’l Ltd” were applying to register “—–” as their Net Brand and some asia domain names through our firm.
Now we are handling this registration, and after our initial checking, we found the name were similar to your company’s, so we need to check with you whether your company has authorized that company to register these names. If you authorized this, we will finish the registration at once. If you did not authorize, please let us know within 7 workdays, so that we will handle this issue better. Out of the time limit we will unconditionally finish the registration for “Futin Int’l Ltd”.Looking forward to your prompt reply and have a nice day.
Best Regards
Warden Sun
Registration Dept.
If you are not in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On Oct 30, 2012, we received an application from Huasheng company requested “xxx” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Thank you Lucia and everyone who’s posted.
Like Jan and Linda, I heard from the infamous ‘John’, the ‘ygnetwork-ltd General Manager’, last weekend. And from a ‘Lin JianFa’ who is apparently from the company wanting to register the keywords and domains. Text identical to the ones shown in MK’s post.
Good to know it is a scam and I need do nothing further!
I got one from “John” and since I found this post i´m not going to answer him.
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from HongYuan Ltd on December 4, 2012. They want to register ” xxxxxx ” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name 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?
Best Regards
John
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.ygnetworkit.com
“John” and “Lin JianFa” are still hard and work and getting rather agressive.
“Our company has submitted the “parmetal ” as CN/Asia domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. John’s approval. We think this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian market. Even though Mr. John advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.”
Careful
Thank you for maintaining this page, Lucia. Your story gave me instant confirmation that I had received a scam in my email. They are using the exact same wording/templates 4 years later.
Same thing, but I am curious, this topic starts in 2009 and now is 2013 so John have been busy for almost 3 entire years collecting bucks.
Another one to add to the list from John at ygnetworksgroup.
“Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from BaoYuan Ltd on December 17, 2012. They want to register ” beyond-the-genome ” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name 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?
Best Regards
John
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.ygnetworkgroup.com”
A persistent scam that, I am sure, snares a number of people.
Thanks for this on-going thread.. they’re still at it, I’ve had 2 emails from 2 sources james.cheng@yiguannetwork.com, who first said he has a company interested in registering my name with .cn, .com.cn, .net.cn and .org.cn, then from a shaunchiou@live.cn who was the supposed enquirer. I questioned as to why they would do this, told them to not proceed, then had follow up from ‘james’ again. Same thing, “we would register your name as internet keyword”, etc, and he could send me a appl’n form price list, “to prevent anyone using them.” What’ the deal with China ?..the place is full of hoax scammers who want to rip off anyone they can!! I’ve worked in China; I don’t know ANY person there who would want my name!
Also please note, the company address given for ‘james’ is exactly the same as the previous post above by Claudia..
Glad I checked into this a little more. Got pretty much the same initial email from “Jim Bing” at YG-Registry as others. The YG-Registry has a website, but not sure how legitimate. This smelled bad from the get go, but went ahead and Informed “Jim” that the group who was interested in using “agriproserv” as a domain name in china/asia registries and as an “internet keyword” was not affiliated with us in any way. Just received another email from “Lin Jianfa” (via a hotmail.com email address no less lol) that despite the advice of “Jim”, “Lin” stated “We think this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian and Hongkong market. Even though Mr. Jim advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.” Really? Agriproserv? Thanks for maintaining this thread. I will just ignore further emails from these people. I had my fun exchanging emails with several Nigerian individuals on a few online auto sales sites that, for some insane reason, really wanted to buy my wife’s 7 yr old Oldsmobile for about $2000 and then ship it to Africa, which would cost about another $15,000. Pretty much knew the “car buyers” were bogus from the very beginning, but had fun playing their game right back at them. Guess I was a little bored back then.
I received the exact same messages as agriproserv starting on May 24 but the first one was from a Jim Gong. I did reply once to let him know that I have owned the domain name for many years and I was not affiliated with the company in China. I received a second message from ‘Jim’ offering to send registration forms if I want the domain names. I did not reply.
What was interesting is that my ISP, Cox, would not let me send the reply because they considered my message outgoing spam. I responded through another account that does not have an affiliated website.
Thank you for all this great info.
Yep.
‘Jim’ from http://www.ygregistryltd.com is still at it, in July 2013.
Also got hilarious letter from the company supposedly wanting to register as well:
“Dear Sirs,
Our company based in chinese office, our company has submitted the ” xxxxxxxxxx ” as CN/Asia/Hk domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. Jim’s approval. We think this name is very important for our products in Chinese and Asian and Hongkong market. Even though Mr. Jim advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Jiang zhifa”
Good old ‘Mr Jim’…..I replied politely the first time.
Since then, am now ignoring.
Thanks Lucia – sterling work.
I’ve also been emailed by Jim Gong and Jiang Zhifa (beginning 29 August) – seems this ‘company based in chinese office’ needs a lot of domain names …
Thanks to all other posters for alerting me to this!
I received this email a few days ago and really panicked about my Intellectual property. I even contacted my webhosting company for advice, but the info on this website has saved me time and money. Thanks guys!
YG Registry is definitely a scam. They try to scare you into paying big fees for domain names that nobody will waste money on.
I recently recieved such e-mails. I wrote and told the said application company that I was thinking of retiring and would sell them my dot com name for $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand dollars)
Which was met with total silence.
Thanks so much. “Mr. Jim” has been contacting me, too. Emails read pretty much word for word what everyone has been getting both from him and the “registering” company.
On 20 December 2014 our organisation received one of these too, from info@gytrademark.com. We will not be pursuing their generous offer to register ‘internet keywords’ and domain names in China!
I too received one of these emails (Dec 29, 2013) from ANDY ZHANG and I could not restrain myself to have some fun with these folks. Based on a scan of reports here, my reply included this:
==========quoted==================
“I’m a little confused, Andy.
“So you (Andy Zhang) are the General Manager.
Robert Zhang is the office manager?
but Edward Wang is also the Office Manager?
John (John Zhang, I think) is the General Manager, I guess.
I’m not sure who Mr. James Cheng is in your organization.
“I did not expect to see so many different levels of manager doing the same job of notifying companies about possible internet domain conflicts. Who is the best person to deal with on this?”
================end of quote=======
Not sure if I will get a reply or not but I hope it sends a tiny message either way. Thanks for providing such a great collection of background on this scheme!
Had the same from Abby Wang, ygcompany.org … funny thing is I own the addresses anyway & they cost me pennies. 🙂
got the same stuff yesterday and today. And I fell for it to reply that the company they mentioned does not have any relation to my business. Here’s their mail:
******* snip *****
Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
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 Huatong Ltd on January 6, 2014. They want to register ” hebrideanteastore ” as their Internet Keyword and ” hebrideanteastore .cn “〔 hebrideanteastore .com.cn ” 〔 hebrideanteastore .net.cn “〔 hebrideanteastore .org.cn ” domain names etc.., they are in China domain names. But after checking it, we find “hebrideanteastore ” 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?
Best Regards,
Jim
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Head Office)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China
Tel: +86 216191 8696
Mobile: +86 1870199 4951
Fax: +86 216191 8697
Web: http://www.yg-registry.com.cn
*****snap ******
As I said, I was stupid enough to reply. Now, today came this
***** snip ****
Dear Sirs,
Our company based in chinese office, our company has submitted the “hebrideanteastore ” as CN(.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn) domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Mr. Jim’s approval. We think this name is very important for our products in Chinese market. Even though Mr. Jim advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Jiang zhifav
******************* snap *****************
I have not replied. But was is the best answer to stop them sending their crap?
I have this on my website in the contact form:
It is strictly prohibited to use any of the contact data published on this website to send unsolicited advertisements or any other publications (SPAM or Junk Mail) or use any of that data for any other purposes which is not related to this website. The right to take legal measures is explicitly reserved
Quite obviously it did not stop them.
Any advice on what to do?
Cheers!
Looool Sabine, I just got the exam message a couple of days ago! Getting the second message looking like this:
“Dear Sirs,
We are kenya Ltd based in Chinese office, our company has submitted the “lachette” as CN domain name and Internet Keyword, we are waiting for Ms. abby’s approval. We hope your company will not object our application, because this name is very important for our products in Chinese market. We don’t want your company to use this name in China, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China. Even though Ms. abby advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.
Best regards
Ye Yun
kenya Ltd”
As a reply I told them the following:
“Thank you for your e-mail. Since we are the owner the name “[our webdomain]” we will not approve your submission and if you do not understand this and continue with the submission we will by no means pursue you will all legal actions available to us”
– Let’s see where it goes, but I think that should give them some stuff to chew on and stop the scam…
I just received the same scam – they don’t even bother to change the name, they always go by ‘Zhang’ this time for me it was ‘Sean Zhang’ I responded by saying I have not affiliation with any companies in China and they wrote back saying they would go ahead and buy all the .cn domains – but its interesting as they didn’t try to sell me anything. Its scary as they even set up a fake website!
How are we going to stop these pirates?!?!
here’s what I received –
(Please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On March 18, 2014, we received an application from Huaqi Holdings Ltd requested “*********” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Sean Zhang
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Headquarters)
B06, Yujing Building, No.1 Jihe Road,
Shanghai 201107, China
Tel: +86 21 6191 8696
Mobile: +86 182 2195 1605
Fax: +86 21 6191 8697
Web: http://www.yiguandns.com.cn
—-
To whom it concerns,
We will register the “********” as internet keyword and China domain names .cn, .com.cn, .net.cn, .org.cn. We have submitted our application and are waiting for Mr. Sean Zhang’s approval. We think these CN domains and internet keyword are very important for our business. Even though Mr. Sean Zhang advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
Best regards
Gareth Bai
Here another one:
(Please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On March 25, 2014, we received an application from Huaqi Holdings Ltd requested “margetconsulting” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Michael Liu
General Manager
China Registry (Headquarters)
3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road,
Xuhui District, Shanghai, China
Tel: +86 21 6191 8696
Mobile: +86 182 2195 1605
Fax: +86 21 6191 8697
Web: http://www.chinaregistry.org.cn
and another…..
(Please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On May 5, 2014, we received an application from Huahui Holdings Ltd requested “cloudbilling” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. 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?
Kind regards
Jack Wang
General Manager
Shanghai Office (Headquarters)
B06, Yujing Building, No.1 Jihe Road,
Shanghai 201107, China
Tel: +86 21 6191 8696
Mobile: +86 182 2195 1605
Fax: +86 21 6191 8697
Web: http://www.yiguandns.cn