Scam, spam, or a threat?

[ringway]

I received an email this morning in the spam folder and have treated it a such.

I called their bluff by saying our company had gone into administration (we have not) and that the name would not be useable until taxes had been paid to HM Customs & Excise.

I have also tracked and traced the email to see the location and details of the original sender.

Am I being too casual about the whole thing or is there a threat?


The sender is allegedly from Hong Kong.

Copy of the email with trade names and return contact details deleted.

Dear CEO & Manager,

We are a domain name registration center in Hong Kong, mainly dealing with domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection. On Oct 29,2009 we received a formal application from a company who is applying to register several domains, using “ringway******” as the keyword. After investigation,we find that you are the original user of the keyword. Such similar domain cases may involve your trademark and company name,and may cause website confusion and conflicts. For a responsible attitude, we inform you here and ask for your opinion. If you don't mind,we will finish registration for the third company.


Look forward to your reply.

Contact details deleted for forum use.

​

Any opinions would be interesting.



Regards

Paul.

 

[Gridlock]

Scam/attempted extortion - never reply, just ignore.

"Nice company you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it"

 

[Biscuit]

yep scummy scam....

ignore.

 

[timskemp]

common scam

 

[grober]

"Dear CEO and manager " we are so concerned about your particular company that we don't even know your name. yeah right!

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

I assume your full details are on whois, so if they were truly a domain name registration center (sp) they'd refer to you by name.
If not then even so they still would not refer to you as CEO/Manager.

Biggest scam I had thrown at me was from Getty but you don't want to get me started on that...

 

[A-AvantGarde]

As above, most definitely a scam / avoid.

Sounds like the scams that were going round where someone would call from "Domain Registrations" or something official sounding saying someone is trying to register domain name similar to your .com / .co.uk etc, and they wanted to check whether they are authorised to register it.

For a fee they could register the domain name in your company name instead of the 'potential third party'.

 

[Shude]

Perhaps I'm being dumb but it appears that all they're asking for is permission to register a similar-sounding domain.

Where is the scam please?

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

yeehaww....
we are a domain name registration center in hong kong mainly dealing with domain name registration - Google Search

 

[markmifsud]

Perhaps I'm being dumb but it appears that all they're asking for is permission to register a similar-sounding domain.

Where is the scam please?

Its as A-A says.

What they are trying to do is make you think, "oh, if they get that domain then they may take some of my business" then you confirm that you wish to rent the domain.net .co.uk etc etc even though you never had any intention of having them, or need them. So they get you to pay them for 3 or 4 domain registrations that you have been scared into paying for.

 

[Shude]

What they are trying to do is make you think, "oh, if they get that domain then they may take some of my business" then you confirm that you wish to rent the domain.net .co.uk etc etc even though you never had any intention of having them, or need them. So they get you to pay them for 3 or 4 domain registrations that you have been scared into paying for.

After a bit of reading it looks like they *do* register the domains anyway but they tend to sit dormant and probably expire in the end.

 

[Ted]

Dear ringway
I am a scummy money grubbing sh*te, and I am thinking of registering lots of names on the mbclub forum. Some examples are ringway1 ringway2 ringway4 ringway5.
There may be many others that I may register as - all with ringway in them.

I will post all sorts of stupid messages, and people may confuse your most wonderful posts with these.

Send me one hundred of your English pounds, and I will register them but not use them.

Yours in sincere friendship
Ted

Sound familiar?

 

[markmifsud]

Dear ringway
I am a scummy money grubbing sh*te, and I am thinking of registering lots of names on the mbclub forum. Some examples are ringway1 ringway2 ringway4 ringway5.
There may be many others that I may register as - all with ringway in them.

I will post all sorts of stupid messages, and people may confuse your most wonderful posts with these.

Send me one hundred of your English pounds, and I will register them but not use them.

Yours in sincere friendship
Ted

Sound familiar?

Hey Ted, do you also write the emails "dear friend, I have to move 100,000,000 $ out of africa"

 

[bennesspipers]

Paul, You must learn to keep of those 'naughty' websites, hehe

 

[crockers]

yes - keep OFF them too...

 

[Dryce]

I called their bluff by saying our company had gone into administration (we have not) and that the name would not be useable until taxes had been paid to HM Customs & Excise.

You should just ignore these.

There have been variations of this sort of thing going on over the years.

1) Company claiming it can re-register or renew your domain as if they are responsible. Naughty rather than sinister.

2) Mainly asian domain registries claiming that they have had enquiries about domain names similar to your own implying they are doing you a service by offering you the chance to protect your domain.

This is a variation on (2).

Ignore. To confirm or reply merely affirms there is somebody at the other end to try and continue scam or pass on the email address as being live.

 

[bennesspipers]

Blast ! crockers fetched the spelling police

 

[ringway]

Send me one hundred of your English pounds, and I will register them but not use them.

Yours in sincere friendship
Ted

I'll give you 50 quid - take it or leave it.

 

[ringway]

Paul, You must learn to keep of those 'naughty' websites, hehe

I'm not that sort of girl.

Hmmph.

 

[ringway]

Many Thanks for the advice guys.