We have had a number of emails forwarded to us from our customers regarding an email that they have received from an apparent Asian domain name registrar.  The email is very polite and sounds official and professional. It starts out informing the recipient that the Asian registrar has received a request from another company asking to register a list of domain names that include the company name of the recipient. They claim that they are protecting the recipient from having another company register these domain names and that they are offering the recipient an opportunity to register the domains.

The email is a fraud.  If you want to see a sample of one of these emails, check the footer of this blog post.

We had so many of our customer complain about this, we decided to do some investigations ourselves, along with our US and NZ based lawyers. As a test, we opened the lines of communication with the sender of the email to see what would happen next. When we initiated contact with them, they proceeded to quote us on how much it would cost to have the domain names registered. They then provided us with the necessary order forms to complete the transaction - and it wasn’t cheap! Our lawyers performed some investigations and spoke with ICANN and NZs DNC- neither recognised the “registrar” as valid.

When we informed the “registrar” that SAFI Technologies would be taking action against them, the registrar responded as though we had hurt their feelings!  The “registrar” also kept in contact via phone with us, which makes it seem more valid since they are willing to make voice contact - don’t be fooled.

The “registrar” ceased contact with us once they realised lawyers were chasing them from the US and from NZ.

So, if you have been contacted by these people, I suggest you simply don’t respond to them. Though it might be a good idea to check whether some of the domain names are worth registering! Just don’t register them through this fraudulent “registrar”, because you’ll never get them!

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. A sample of the email is as follows:

Dear CEO,
We are Asia Domain Name Registration Limited, which mainly deal with domain name registration and dispute
internationally. We have something important need to confirm with your company.

On the Jan 31, 2008, we received an application formally. One company named ” Creation International Holdings Ltd ” wanted to register following Domain names:
yourcompany.com.cn
yourcompany.net.cn
yourcompany.org.cn
yourcompany.com.hk
yourcompany.hk
yourcompany.tw
yourcompany.com.tw
yourcompany.asia

Internet brand keyword: yourcompany
through our body.

After our initial examination, we found that the keywords and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other aims to buy these domain names. Now we have not finished the registration of Creation International Holdings Ltd company yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible

Best Regards,
Tony Liang
________________________________________

Asia Domain Name Registration Limited
Tel:00852-3059-3057
Fax:00852-3059-3080
Email: tony.liang@ytym.org
Web: http://www.asiadnr.org