{"id":1460,"date":"2010-04-02T17:45:42","date_gmt":"2010-04-02T09:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/?p=1460"},"modified":"2010-04-02T17:45:42","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T09:45:42","slug":"domain-name-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/domain-name-scams.html","title":{"rendered":"Domain Name Scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here they go again. Are these web hosting company so desperate to get any kind of business that they have to resort to domain name scams to earn their income? Ever since the first time they send me one of these messages saying that somebody so and so wants to register my domain name with a .cc TLD or dot whatever, I was of course taken in by their professional looking correspondences. Fortunately I checked around first before succumbing to their little domain name scams.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>So this time around when I received this domain name scam again, I&#8217;m not so anxious and know straight away that this is just another one of their tricks to fleece some money from you.<\/p>\n<p>Anybody can buy a domain name that sounds like yours. If say you just bought a <em>exampledomain.com<\/em>, someone else is free to buy <em>exampledomain.net, .org, .biz, .info or .whatever.<\/em> For small fries like us, it is not possible to buy the whole slew of <em>exampledomain.whatever<\/em> as we are likely to go broke just maintaining it.<\/p>\n<p>And here comes some scammer saying somebody wants to register a domain a .cc or .whatever and they want to protect your intellectual property. Well be my guest.<\/p>\n<p>They also overcharge if you plan to buy those domains through them. Most country specific TLD would cost around $20, but this scammer may double, triple or quadruple the price.<\/p>\n<p> Anyway, people are more aware of it by now as I&#8217;m seeing many people posting about such scams online, so I&#8217;ll just post another in my blog for refresher. And here&#8217;s their letter in full just so you can study their letter content and make sure you are not caught in their little trick.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div align=\"center\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-5685769204706262\";\ngoogle_alternate_color = \"FFFFFF\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\ngoogle_ad_format = \"468x60_as\";\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text\";\n\/\/2007-08-06: JanLeow.com Blogs (Content)\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"5832813811\";\ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\";\ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\";\ngoogle_color_link = \"003399\";\ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\";\ngoogle_color_url = \"808080\";\ngoogle_ui_features = \"rc:0\";\n\/\/--><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p><br clear=\"all\"><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>First Name: Jin.<br \/>\nLast Name: Smith<br \/>\nE-mail Address: jin.smith@apimnr.hk<br \/>\nCity:<br \/>\nState\/Prov:<br \/>\nCountry: China<br \/>\nComments: Dear CEO\/Manager:<\/p>\n<p>We are a domain name registration center in Hongkong, mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On Mar. 31 2010 we received a formal application from a local company of your country who is applying to register some domain names with the keyword &#8220;cameron-highland-destination &#8221; and register it as their internet 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&#8217;s registration, If you don&#8217;t agree the third company to register, please inform me, looking forward to your reply. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely yours,<\/p>\n<p>  Jin.Smith<br \/>\nCustomer Service Manager<br \/>\nPhone: +852-31757930 (8002)<br \/>\nFax: +852-31757932<br \/>\nEmail: jin.smith@apimnr.hk<br \/>\nWebsite: www.apidnr.hk<\/p>\n<p>Comment submission<br \/>\nThe above were submitted from &#8220;Comments&#8221; form<br \/>\non cameron-highland-destination.com<br \/>\nFri Apr 02 03:00:03 2010<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\nAlso included is the user&#8217;s IP address  below, which we detect at the time the user submits the form.  This verifies that each submission is from a unique visitor.<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\n114.245.142.110 (country unknown)<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>[update 12\/7\/2010]<br \/>\nApparently my post above of their email got their attention and they contacted me that it damages their reputation. Just too bad. They should not engage in unethical email posting and scare people about so and so who wants to registered another similar domain name, and talk about intellectual property rights protection because anybody is free to register the other TLDs. I know of one who used similar domain name as mine with a difference of one character! That guy was hoping people will key in the wrong URL and end up in his website instead which was filled with advertisement. That&#8217;s how they earn their money from other people&#8217;s hard work. Anyway, up to now from the date of the message in April till now in July &#8217;10, I checked, and nobody registered the other TLDs, .net, .org, .info, .cn, .hk, .asia, .whatever. Nyet. Nada. Nil. Nothing. Zilch. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, dear Frank, I do need to keep this message online so as to prevent others from getting caught in such scare tactic email messages so it will remain and not removed. Their message as per below requesting me to remove this posting.<\/p>\n<p>From: frank@apidnr.com.hk<br \/>\nwe are Asia Pacific Internet Management Company Limited,and our website is www.apidnr.com.hk. We found malicious message at http:\/\/www.janleow.com. Wold you do us a favor to delete them?It has a bad effect on our reputation,so we kindly wish your webmaster can help us, thank you very much! www.janleow.com\/life\/domain-name-scams.html Dept. of Supervision &#038; Auditing (Law) Frank<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>A quick check with WHOIS and found that this website was registered in 2009, so it is less than a year old. Why the need to engage in intellectual property rights scare tactics to get people? Most web hosting company who got good reputation won&#8217;t do this kind of thing. Need more business? Do it right and people will trust you.<\/p>\n<p>Domain Name: APIDNR.HK<br \/>\nContract Version: HKDNR latest version  <\/p>\n<p>Registrant Contact Information: <\/p>\n<p>Holder English Name (It should be the same as your legal name on your HKID card or other<br \/>\nrelevant documents): ASIA PACIFIC INTERNET MANAGEMENT COMPANY LIMITED<br \/>\nHolder Chinese Name:<br \/>\nEmail:<br \/>\nDomain Name Commencement Date: 28-10-2009<br \/>\nCountry: HK<br \/>\nExpiry Date:  28-10-2010<br \/>\nRe-registration Status:  Complete<br \/>\nName of Registrar: HKDNR<br \/>\nAccount Name: HK2397438T<\/p>\n<p>Technical Contact: <\/p>\n<p>Given Name: SAM.YANG<br \/>\nFamily name: SAM.YANG<br \/>\nCompany Name: ASIA PACIFIC INTERNET MANAGEMENT COMPANY LIMITED    <\/p>\n<p>Name Servers Information: <\/p>\n<p>NS7.01ISP.COM<br \/>\nNS8.01ISP.NET<\/p>\n<p>Domain Name: APIDNR.COM.HK<br \/>\nContract Version:  HKDNR latest version  <\/p>\n<p>Registrant Contact Information:<\/p>\n<p>Company English Name (It should be the same as the registered\/corporation name on your<br \/>\nBusiness Register Certificate or relevant documents): HONG KONG NETWORK SERVICES CO., LIMITED<br \/>\nCompany Chinese name:  ??????????<br \/>\nAddress: ZHONGHUAN  HONGKONG  HONGKONG 519000<br \/>\nCountry: HK<br \/>\nEmail:<br \/>\nDomain Name Commencement Date: 02-11-2009<br \/>\nExpiry Date: 02-11-2010<br \/>\nRe-registration Status:  Complete<br \/>\nName of Registrar:  HKDNR <\/p>\n<p>Administrative Contact Information:<\/p>\n<p>Given name: SAM.YANG<br \/>\nFamily name: SAM.YANG<br \/>\nCompany name: ASIA PACIFIC INTERNET MANAGEMENT COMPANY LIMITED<br \/>\nAddress: ZHONGHUAN  HONGKONG  HONGKONG 519000<br \/>\nCountry: HK<br \/>\nPhone: +852&#8211;31757930<br \/>\nFax: +852&#8211;31757932<br \/>\nEmail:<br \/>\nAccount Name: HK2399993T<\/p>\n<p>Technical Contact Information:<\/p>\n<p>Family name: SAM.YANG<br \/>\nCompany name: ASIA PACIFIC INTERNET MANAGEMENT COMPANY LIMITED<br \/>\nAddress: ZHONGHUAN  HONGKONG  HONGKONG 519000<br \/>\nCountry: HK<br \/>\nPhone: +852&#8211;31757930<br \/>\nFax: +852&#8211;31757932<br \/>\nEmail: <\/p>\n<p>Name Servers Information:<\/p>\n<p>NS7.01ISP.COM<br \/>\nNS8.01ISP.NET<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Oh, and found more info at Techrepublic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<strong>A Bait-and-hook Scam<\/strong><br \/>\n<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a what has been called an &#8220;internet keyword scam&#8221;. Here&#8217;s the first email you&#8217;ll get probably to your public email address.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n&#8220;Dear CEO\/Manager,<br \/>\n<br \/>\nWe are a Global Domain Name Registration Center in Hong Kong, mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On {INSERT DATE} we received a formal application from a local company of your country who is applying to register some domain names with the keyword {INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME} 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, according to our policy, 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&#8217;s registration. If you don&#8217;t agree the third company?s registration, please inform me. I?m looking forward to your reply. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nKind Regards,<br \/>\n<br \/>\nElla.Charles<br \/>\nCustomer Service Manager<br \/>\n<br \/>\nTel: +852-31757931(ext8003)<br \/>\nFax: +852-31757932<br \/>\nEmail:Ella.Charles@api-dnr.com<br \/>\nWebsite: www.apidnr.com.hk&#8221;<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThey create this illusion that they are the knights in the shinning armor in defending your company&#8217;s Trade mark for free (the bait). Then if you play into their hand and asking them to reject this &#8220;third party&#8217;s&#8221; application. As you are thinking that what a nice girl name &#8220;Ella.Charle&#8221; from Hong Kong that benevolently defends your company&#8217;s interests. They deploy the hook as in following email:<br \/>\n<br \/>\n&#8220;Dear {insert your name},<br \/>\n<br \/>\nWe perfectly understand this is your company name or trademark, and that was exactly why you?ve got these emails from us. Domains are different from trademark or company name, as they can be registered worldwide. Now the aforementioned third party is applying the following domain names and internet keyword:<br \/>\n<br \/>\nDomain names as below:<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.eu<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.cn<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.hk<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.sg<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.jp<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.com.au<br \/>\nwww.{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}.asia<br \/>\nInternet keyword as below:<br \/>\n{INSERT YOUR COMPANY&#8217;S NAME}<br \/>\nOnce you would like to protect or preserve them by registering ahead due to the importance, one valid application form will be sent to start your prior registration. Or we are going to approve the application from the third party if your company does not lay claim to these domains. Please let us know if there is anything more we might be of assistance. Thanks very much and your early reply will be appreciated.<br \/>\nAn introduction of Internet Keyword is enclosed for your review.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nRegards,<br \/>\n<br \/>\nElla.Charles<br \/>\nCustomer Service Manager&#8221;<br \/>\n<br \/>\nOf course if you ignore them, they&#8217;ll have very polite following up emails day after day to &#8220;disturbing&#8221; you into buying their hosting service.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nHope this helps.<br \/>\nPosted: 01\/27\/2010 @ 08:32 AM (PST)<br \/>\n<br \/>\nseanlee86<br \/>\nJob Role: eBusiness Administration<br \/>\nLocation: Toronto, Ontario<br \/>\nMember since: 01\/27\/2010<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<strong>Bait and Hook Domain Name Keyword Scam<\/strong><br \/>\n<br \/>\nI just received the same sequesnce of emails from these folks in HK offering the opportunity to protect myself by registering the additional domains as well as registering my Keyword so some other party can not do it. Obvioulsy we can register all permutations of your domain name with various suffixes if there is markting value.<br \/>\nThese folks charge 3 or 4x the US based rates that you would find at GoDaddy who mI use. No such thing as protecting the keyord unless unique TM or you register it in a domain registration before someone else. They wanted $175 USD.<br \/>\nSo avoid these folks!<br \/>\nPosted: 02\/08\/2010 @ 11:20 AM (PST)<br \/>\n<br \/>\nIraMarks@&#8230;<br \/>\nJob Role: Other<br \/>\nLocation: Laguna Niguel, California<br \/>\nMember since: 01\/10\/2005\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/internet-brand-trademarks-and-internet-intellectual-property-rights-protection.html\">Internet brand, trademarks and internet intellectual property rights protection<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here they go again. Are these web hosting company so desperate to get any kind of business that they have to resort to domain name scams to earn their income? Ever since the first time they send me one of these messages saying that somebody so and so wants to register my domain name with &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/domain-name-scams.html\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Domain Name Scams<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12],"tags":[89,160,161],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1bS5F-ny","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1089,"url":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/internet-brand-trademarks-and-internet-intellectual-property-rights-protection.html","url_meta":{"origin":1460,"position":0},"title":"Internet brand, trademarks and internet intellectual property rights protection","author":"Jan","date":"13 April 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I received an email from WorldWideNetwork.asia purporting that someone by the name of Peter Alldis was attempting to register my name with a .cn and .asia top level domain (TLD) name. Because they discovered that a janleow.com exist in the internet, they would like to offer the chance to register\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Website&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Website","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/category\/website"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":602,"url":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/create-internet-domain-name-web-site.html","url_meta":{"origin":1460,"position":1},"title":"What&#8217;s in an internet domain name?","author":"Jan","date":"1 January 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"When creating a domain name for your web site, here are some notes to create a domain name that would fit in with the web site you are building. But if you are registering your own personal name, please go ahead! You can read this article later. But if you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Website&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Website","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/category\/website"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/make-your-own-web-site-getting-started.html","url_meta":{"origin":1460,"position":2},"title":"Make Your Own Web Site &#8211; Getting Started","author":"Jan","date":"31 March 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When you make your own web site, they consist of two things: A domain name A web hosting company The above two need to work together to create your web site, they are both separate though it may look as though it is one single entity but actually they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Website&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Website","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/category\/website"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3103,"url":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/domain-name-with-without-www-prefix.html","url_meta":{"origin":1460,"position":3},"title":"To use or not to use WWW before your domain name","author":"Jan","date":"18 August 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems the www. prefix to your domain name is actually a subdomain. When internet first started, and website were being created, www prefix would refer to a website as being a World Wide Web, probably trying to differentiate from the intranet website I suppose. However, due to frequent usage,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Website&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Website","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/category\/website"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":654,"url":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/make-your-own-web-site-initial.html","url_meta":{"origin":1460,"position":4},"title":"Getting started to make your own web site","author":"Jan","date":"2 January 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So what do you need to make your own web site? To start your own website you will need: Web Hosting company A domain name That's it! It sounds simple, but there are various considerations when deciding on each item. It all depends on what you want to do. Before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Website&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Website","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/category\/website"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1488,"url":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/playing-around-with-dns-zone.html","url_meta":{"origin":1460,"position":5},"title":"Playing Around with DNS Zone","author":"Jan","date":"7 May 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been tinkering and fiddling with my domain DNS zone. I tweak my website a lot. This is one interesting hobby, making website, experimenting with a feature here and there and trying something new and see whether it will be useful widget or just some red herring. DNS zoning is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Website&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Website","link":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/category\/website"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janleow.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}