Scam Alert: ASIA Brand and Domain Name Disputes

One of our clients called today after receiving a suspicious email. The subject line is "Notice: Brand name ***** dispute ASIA". It's a scam. You can pretty much ignore every email you receive pertaining to your domain name unless it comes from a) your web designer, or b) your original domain name registrar.

Here's what the email looks like:

"We are the department of Asian Domain registration service in china. we have something need to confirm with you. we formally received an application on April 30, 2010. one company which called "VSC Investment Company" are applying to register "thermokingedmonton" as Brand Name and the following Domain Names: ***** After our initial examination, we found that the Domain Names applied for registration are as same as your company's name and trademark. these days we are dealing with it, hope to get the affirmation from your company. if your company has not authorized the aforesaid company to register these, please contact us as soon as possible. In addition, we hereby affirm that our time limit is 7 workdays. if your company files no reply within the time limit, we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by VSC Investment Company"

There are variations of this email going around with different motives. If you receive the email, chuck it.

Reference URL 1: http://www.firetrust.com/en/blog/chris/domain-name-scams

Reference URL 2: http://www.rumblepup.com/chinese-domain-name-fraud/