A new identity theft scam? Thread poster: Alexey Ivanov
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Alexey Ivanov 
Russian Federation
Local time: 08:22
English to Russian
Today I received an e-mail message in very bad English notifying me that a certain Mr. John Sun (the author of the message is very inventive, isn't he/she?) has applied to this obscure domain-registering authority for registering a domain which is the same as mine except for the extensions of which they provided several like ".cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/.asia/ ". And the author warns me that if I don't reply to him within 5 days they will approve his application. That smacks of the old good identi... See more Today I received an e-mail message in very bad English notifying me that a certain Mr. John Sun (the author of the message is very inventive, isn't he/she?) has applied to this obscure domain-registering authority for registering a domain which is the same as mine except for the extensions of which they provided several like ".cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/.asia/ ". And the author warns me that if I don't reply to him within 5 days they will approve his application. That smacks of the old good identity theft and my first inclination is not to reply at all. Has anyone received anything similar? And what would be the profit of the author if I replied to this message? They already have my e-mail address, so what would be their advantage if they get a reply from me? ▲ Collapse
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And I doubt their after your identity, just your money.
Unless you buy the domain from them, which they may or may not have a right to sell, within the timeframe specified, they intend to "sell" it to their, most likely non-exisiting, buyer.
So the simple answer is just to ignore the email, unless you have an urgent need for a .net.cn domain.
[Edited at 2010-04-05 20:13 GMT]
| | | | | Just forget about it! | Apr 5, 2010 |
OK! Let them sell the domains. They surely don't have a buyer. They just want to know whether you fall in the trap and respond to the email, so that they can keep pestering you. Just forget about it! They probably send mass spam to a million domain owners.
By the way: they have your email because they can easily grab them from a whois search (look for your domain in www.allwhois.com and you will see ... See more OK! Let them sell the domains. They surely don't have a buyer. They just want to know whether you fall in the trap and respond to the email, so that they can keep pestering you. Just forget about it! They probably send mass spam to a million domain owners.
By the way: they have your email because they can easily grab them from a whois search (look for your domain in www.allwhois.com and you will see that your email appears there quite clearly). You might want to discuss this with your ISP so that your email does not appear as the administrative contact, and your ISP's email appears instead.
[Edited at 2010-04-05 20:30 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | RobinB
United States
Local time: 00:22
German to English
If you search for the name of this domain registration authority, you will probably find a flood of hits for this scam (including messages from people who fell for it).
Just ignore it.
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Drew MacFadyen
United States
Local time: 01:22
Spanish to English
+ ...
I receive those all the time. The motivation from the mailer's perspective is to get in contact with someone that is "worried" about losing a branded website TLD - and then to convince you to pay legal fees and money to secure the rights to that url in specific TLD's. Another spin is where the fraudsters really do register your site and then try to scare you in to buying it back.
I would not bother with replying.
Drew
| | | | Alexey Ivanov
Russian Federation
Local time: 08:22
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you one and all | Apr 6, 2010 |
Now it is abundantly clear. I never fell for the Nigerian letter type of scam or for any lottery or "your e-mail address has won a million pounds/dollars/euro" scams, but this "you'll loose your domaine name" threat is definetely a new twist. If all the previous schemes were based on human greed, this one is based on fear to loose your domaine name and is blackmail.
What surpises me about all of the scams I have come across is the fact that 99 per cent of them are written in very poor Engl... See more Now it is abundantly clear. I never fell for the Nigerian letter type of scam or for any lottery or "your e-mail address has won a million pounds/dollars/euro" scams, but this "you'll loose your domaine name" threat is definetely a new twist. If all the previous schemes were based on human greed, this one is based on fear to loose your domaine name and is blackmail.
What surpises me about all of the scams I have come across is the fact that 99 per cent of them are written in very poor English.
Thank you again for explaining to me the idea behind this scam.
Best regards,
Alex
[Edited at 2010-04-06 06:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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