[German]I'll add this topic here in the blog, maybe some potential victim soul will read this before the money flows. For years I have been receiving emails from a Chinese organization named chinanameregistry. They write, a company is trying to register my domain borncity in China and would like me to contact them if I have business connections there. The whole thing is a domain name scam and has only one purpose: to rip off gullible domain owners.
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Mail from the China man
The mails are always quite short and in a friendly style, so everything look quite serious at first sight. Here is the last mail I found in my inbox these days.
Dear Mike Zhang asks me to forward the following e-mail to my CEO immediately, as it is very urgent. You might get a bit suspicious when you read the passage "If this email concerns you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thank you very much". I have never heard of a person receiving a request to ignore an e-mail. Here is the text of some mail.
Dear CEO,
(It's very urgent, please transfer this email to your CEO. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
We received an application from Hai Tong Ltd on April 25, 2022. They want to register " borncity " as their Internet Keyword and " borncity .cn "、" borncity .com.cn " 、" borncity .net.cn "、" borncity .org.cn " domain names, they are in China domain names. But after checking it, we find " borncity " 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
*******************************************
Mike Zhang | Service Manager
China Name Registry (Head Office)
No. 300, Xuanhua Road, Changning District, Shanghai200050, China
Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1582177 1823
Web: www(dot)chinanameregistry(dot)com
So the good China man claims that a Chinese company wants to register the name borncity used by me as domains in the top-level domain .cn. As long as there is no attempt to take over my domains borncity.de and borncity.com, I don't care. Personally, I don't plan to register any more top level domains for borncity. But companies with protected names might be more interested in not having their names appear in domains held by other people/companies. This is especially true when companies do business in China.
It's all a scam
So far I have deleted the mails – I seem to remember that I wrote back once that I don't care what they do with borncity in China and was rather wondering how they pronounce the R in this name. When the above mail arrived in my inbox again, I spontaneously tried a short search for chinanameregistry and found it.
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In this article, someone warns companies against this fraudulent approach. The goal of these mails is to grab a domain registration from the victim at an increased price. The scam has been running for many years, there is even an entry Domain name scams in the English Wikipedia.
But somehow the scammers still seem to be successful, otherwise the mails would not exist. One should ignore the mails and also not answer. To protect your business interests, you can register your domain name with a local registrar for different top-level domains (.de, .at, .ch, .eu, .org, .com).
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Thank you for sharing with this information! Today I also got the same e-mail from them! Than I googled and found your story :) Have a nice day!
Good Evening – I too just read the same email. It looked suspect to me as why would I care what they do there? If I cared, I would have registered the domain!
Thanks for publishing though as it was nice to verify my initial reaction.
DYARAMA ONG
Thank you for sharing with this information! Today I also got the same e-mail from them! It looked suspect to me as why would I care what they do there? Than I googled and found your story :) Have a nice day!
Thanx for sharing! Today I have received such an email too, and I was wandering whether to reply or not… While searching the internet, I have come across your warnings – very useful!
Thank you for this. I just got similar mail and I was about to send mail to China domain registry regarding this matter but luckily I found this article. Apparently someone in China tries to register domain under my trademark name and they are asking is that my representative in China or not. Well, it is childish game I must say but sometimes those games could seriously harm new and still growing companies.
They are still rolling out the same email. Just received it.. Thanks for sharing!
They have just started using a new domain name. I have exactly the same email but this time from mikezhang@domainregistry.org.cn instead of mikezhang@chinanameregistry.com.cn
So domainregistry.org.cn is the same scamming company.
They have also used cnnetwork.org in the past.
By the way, they have been doing this since at least 2009, so it must work for them.
This is the post (from October 2021) and thread from my web site that is saying the same thing you are saying above.
https://nonewwars.co.uk/blog/2021/10/chinese-domain-registration-emails/
Just searched chinanetregistry-org and got this post. Good info with some comic relief mixed in. Thanks!
Same exact email, received today. Thank you so much!
Thanks, I also received it! They really play it well and I responded, but than before preceeding any further duckduckgoed this guy mike[at]domainregistrychina.com and found your site.
I also revived the same email, updated 15 Jan 2024.
Thanks for the intimation.
Ping. I just got it today, too, for my tallandtrue.com domain.
Thanks for taking the time to post about the scam. 🙏
I've received the same email today. Thank you for sharing the facts.
OMG you are a life saver.
I did transfer money to them and I cancelled on time after reading your topic.
Thank you very much and God bless you
Thanks for sharing, saved me further investigation time
Vielen Dank,
so etwas habe ich heute auch erhalten
Lieben Dank für einen Artikel. Hatte gerade die Mail im Postfach und mein erster Gedanken, ich habe 3 R im Domainnamen, ist doch bestimmt betrug *lach*
Just got the same scam. Thanks for the post.
Great information, I just received it today.
Thanks for your advice.
mit freundlichen Grußen
Hi,
I received a similar mail today expressing some urgency to respond – thanks for publishing this scam!
Here's some more detailed information : https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/30298-conflict-with-your-company-name-or-trademark-email-scam
Best, Elfrun Lehmann