During the week I received an email from a Chinese domain name reseller, claiming that my domain name creativeitworld was up for grabs by a Chinese company that has decided it wants to take creativeitworld for its own use. Here’s the email:

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.

We received an application from Huafeng Ltd on September 2, 2013. They want to register ” creativeitworld ” as their Internet Keyword and ” creativeitworld .asia “、” creativeitworld .cn “、” creativeitworld .com.cn ” 、” creativeitworld .hk “、” creativeitworld .com.hk ” domain names etc.., they are in Asia, China, Hong Kong domain names. But after checking it, we find “creativeitworld ” 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: www.yg-registry.org

To which I quickly fired off an email saying, “We at Creative IT have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the company in China.” This gained two responses in quick succession:

Dear Sirs,

Our company based in chinese office, our company has submitted the ” creativeitworld ” 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

Followed by:

Dear Creative IT ,

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/ASIA/HK domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn/.asia/.hk/.com.hk) 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: The domain names 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/ASIA/HK 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/ASIA/HK domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn/.asia/.hk/.com.hk) and internet keyword to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send an application form and the price list to you and help you register these within dispute period.

Kind 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: www.yg-registry.org

To put it bluntly, this is a scam that if you were to fall for it, could bilk you out of potentially thousands of dollars in needless fees. The fact is, CN/ASIA/HK domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn/.asia/.hk/.com.hk) are Chinese owned and operated. If you do not have legally recognised representation in China, you are not permitted to purchase any Chinese domain names. Same goes for .com.au for Australia, .ca for Canada. For most of us, .com, .net, .org and .inf are our only options and anything else (and there are over 250 to choose from) are either legally beyond our reach, or are simply a waste of time.

So, if you own a domain name – or twenty as I do – don’t panic. You are not going to lose any business. It’s yet another scam from the Third-World, and all you need do is treat the email or more likely emails like the spam that they are.

And if you find yourself angry that you – like many of us – fell for the initial email and replied in good faith, then do as I did and tell these Red Chinese, Third-World scammers what you think of them:

 
 

Dear Slant Eyes,

Take your rice crap scams and stick them where the sun don’t shine.

It might not work for you, but it sure cheered me up.