The latest hard sale (or is it a scam?) comes from China and it may already be sitting in your email box. The email claims that a company is applying in China to use your brand name, which happens to be your registered domain name. The email hints that your branding is in jeopardy. The sender, in one email, offered to handle this, presumably straightening out or preventing the registration of your brand in China. Later emails made offers to sell the company numerous domains with .cn (China) extensions.
Who are these guys? One of my clients received an email. They aren’t on the list of companies officially authorized to register domains https://www.internic.net/alpha.html. GoDaddy in the US is on the list. 1&1 in Germany is on the list. Tucows in Canada is on the list. When in doubt, check the list of authorized domain resellers.
Are you planning to do business in China? If not why would you want a .cn domain name? Unless looking for a Chinese company, people in the US are not going to looking for .cn websites to visit.
If you get an email, don’t respond to it. These emails may be used to harvest valid email addresses for SPAM emails. Respond once, you may get a hundred offers for knock-off designer watches and male enhancement pills.
If you get an email don’t click any links. It’s unknown if these emails contain links to websites flush with cookies that will cause problems on your computer.
When you have a dispute… One email begins “Notice: Regarding the Domain name dispute and registration case, we did not receive any of your reply until now.” If there ever is any kind of dispute about your .com address, then you will be contacted by the company that registered your .com domain. Even if the email looks like it’s from that company, follow the rules of no return emails and no click throughs. Go to the company’s website, login and look for messages on your account or call that company directly.
Don’t encourage these hard-sell guys. Don’t respond
