Spam regarding AFF domain?

[Flashback]

Did anyone else receive an email like this?

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 August 26, 2013. They want to register " australianfrequentflyer " as their Internet Keyword and " australianfrequentflyer .asia "、" australianfrequentflyer .cn "、" australianfrequentflyer .com.cn " 、" australianfrequentflyer .hk "、" australianfrequentflyer .com.hk " domain names etc.., they are in Asia, China, Hong Kong domain names. But after checking it, we find "australianfrequentflyer " 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: (CN) YG Registry

 

[Pushka]

We get one like this every month or so. The first one we took seriously and replied to it. They sent a reply. It's just a scam to get you to register their cn domain names when you don't need to. Our business is all about IP so that's why we reacted first time. Thirty or so emails later and we don't bother.

 

[Flashback]

We get one like this every month or so. The first one we took seriously and replied to it. They sent a reply. It's just a scam to get you to register their cn domain names when you don't need to. Our business is all about IP so that's why we reacted first time. Thirty or so emails later and we don't bother.

Indeed. I've had them regarding domains for clients that I look after - but I was more concerned about how this one came about...

 

[Pushka]

Ours was properly designated as our domain name so they are pretty clever. We have trademarks registered in Singapore so maybe it came from there. The interesting thing is that China refused our trademark; I suspect because they don't want to prevent "counterfeiting".

 

[straitman]

I have sent an email to admin to make sure he is aware.

 

[Pushka]

This was one we received last week.

JIM has been very busy.


Regarding Asia/Cn/Hk domain name & Internet Keyword
Jim Bing [[email protected]]
Sent: 15 August 2013 21:19
To:
Team
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 and Asia. We received an application from Huafeng Ltd on August 12, 2013. They want to register " (our domain name) " as their internet keyword and China/Asia/Hongkong (CN/ASIA/HK) 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,
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.cn

And this one three days ago

(Letter to the President or Brand Owner, thanks)

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 August 19,2013 that a company which self-styled "BTD Intl Ltd" were applying to register "(our domain name)" as their Brand Name and some 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 "BTD Intl Ltd".Looking forward to your prompt reply.

 

[JohnM]

The first one we took seriously and replied to it.

You didn't :!::shock:

I hope you don't reply to unsolicited emails from Nigeria...

Never reply to anything that is unsolicited. If it's important enough, and genuine, they will phone.

 

[Pushka]

You didn't :!::shock:

I hope you don't reply to unsolicited emails from Nigeria...

Never reply to anything that is unsolicited. If it's important enough, and genuine, they will phone.

It was three years ago and we were in the midst of multiple trademark registrations. And many issues are dealt with in exactly this manner. Ever dealt with trademarks and domain management internationally?

I can assure you, they do not ring you but email you. I've not long renewed our TM with the USA patents and trademarks office (USPTO) and that requirement came from an unexpected email. I took it seriously. Just as well as it was perfectly legitimate.

 

[serfty]

I set up a website for a social golf club two years ago and received the first one of these about two months later.

I "googled" pertinent parts of the content and soon realised I could ignore it.

 

[TonyHancock]

Indeed. I've had them regarding domains for clients that I look after - but I was more concerned about how this one came about...

..... I guess the question is - how did Mr Jim Gong come to associate your email address with australianfrequentflyer? Like others in this thread i have received similar emails but they have been for domains I or my company own, which seems to be a different situation to this.

 

[jetlagger]

If it's important enough, and genuine, they will phone.

Except the VERY unimportant calls from 'Telstra related" BPO centres. :evil:

 

[admin]

This is clearly spam and completely out of our control. I get these types of emails all the time and ignore them.

What puzzles me is how they associated you with AFF and how they got your email address (I assume you got an email rather than a PM). Our server is pretty secure and there have been no reported security breaches.

(There was an issue about 3 or 4 years ago when the service we use to administer our newsletter (aweber.com) was hacked and spam was send to some people on our distribution list.)

As we all know, there are some sharks on the internet looking at taking advantage of the uninformed. Always best to ignore, and not reply to any unsolicited contact from unknown people.

I am now going to close this thread as discussing security issues on a public website is never a good idea. Fell free to PM me if you have any further information. Thanks

Did anyone else receive an email like this?