Chinese trying to steal our domain name?

nin9abadga · 15 Aug 2007 at 08:48

hi all, just got this as an enquiry through our website. has anyone ever had this before?

Dear Manager,

We are Hong Kong China Technology Group Limited, an approved domain name and internet brand Registration Organization for the overseas authorized by China government. It is our bounden duty to inform you that on the 15th of the Aug. 2007 we have received the application from EIFEIDA Company. They wonder to register the “zf-group” as their domain name and internet brand, and we are dealing with their registration. We inform you this affair in time in order to avoid the unnecessary confusion in the enterprise names (internet brand) which, maybe, will result to the unnecessary disputes over intellectual property rights. We want to get your company’s answer. According to our registration principle, if you want to protect your domain name and internet brand by yourself, the name of the enterprise user or the trademark name holder has the registration priority within our 5 to 8 working days of the audit period. On the contrary, if we can not get your reply within the audit period, we will think that your company give up the domain name and internet brand registration priority, and we will accept the application from other companies to register because the registration principle is that "Every company or individual can register the domain name and internet brand which is not registered and who registers first who owns first."

If you have any question, please contact with us by phone or email at any time. Thank you.

We are looking forward your reply.

Abby Fei
HongKong China Technology Group Limited
Xuhui District, Shanghai, China
Tel:+86(0)21-6427 6475
Fax:+86(0)21-6427 1117
Email:[email protected]

Web: www.ispgov.cn

bear in mind we've had the domain name for years. the website they quote i can't get onto, however a whois lookup does know the domain.

so if i have to ask it's a scam right?

but anyone seen this before?

Shoseki · 15 Aug 2007 at 09:16

Well, the website loads for me, but I can't confirm it. If in doubt, contact nominet.

Lagz · 15 Aug 2007 at 09:27

Looks like a blatent scam to me. They can't even write properly :confused:

.

Moredhel · 15 Aug 2007 at 10:04

They're trying to trick you into renewing with them I'd guess. There was a thing a while back, a UK registrar sending all domain name owners letters saying "your domain name is going to expire, renew it now!" with a link to do so on their site. They claimed it wasn't a lie because all domain names expire eventually.

nin9abadga · 15 Aug 2007 at 10:19

thanks for the replies all. the more i look at it the more sus i'm getting. they don't specify which domain name for a start, we own the .co.uk one (which runs out this year actually - oct), our us arm owns .com but most of the others are owned by other people anyway.

thanks guys

edit: just had a call from our quality guy. i sent the email to him to get his opinion and he passed it to HQ in germany. zf are very hot on brand and ip at the moment and it would appear that they are dusting down the lawyers ready to try and take it further. it would be funny if it is a scam

Shoseki · 15 Aug 2007 at 11:38

nin9abadga said:
dusting down the lawyers

lol

unwashed potato! · 15 Aug 2007 at 12:11

Moredhel said:
They're trying to trick you into renewing with them I'd guess. There was a thing a while back, a UK registrar sending all domain name owners letters saying "your domain name is going to expire, renew it now!" with a link to do so on their site. They claimed it wasn't a lie because all domain names expire eventually.

i recently got a letter saying this from an american domain registration place, i a genius so scammers can't get me but i can see why someone might think of ok must renew with them as they must be the copmany the first copany registers it with if that makes sense.

Sic · 15 Aug 2007 at 14:12

Mammalian said:
i a genius

sweet, sweet irony

tom_e · 15 Aug 2007 at 14:29

Mammalian said:
i recently got a letter saying this from an american domain registration place, i a genius so scammers can't get me but i can see why someone might think of ok must renew with them as they must be the copmany the first copany registers it with if that makes sense.

I got this as well they wanted mad amounts of cash to renew with them

nin9abadga · 16 Aug 2007 at 08:25

as a minor update, i contacted nominet as suggested and they came back with this:

I have discussed this with our legal team and they suggest referring you to the following page of our web site

http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/legalinfo/scams

Once a domain name is registered no one can take it away from the
registrant, so long as the registration is renewed every two years, the
contact details are kept up to date and there is no dispute resolution
case with regard to the name. It is of course impossible for a company to
register all possible variations on a name (for example, zf-group.co.uk
zfgroup.co.uk zf-group.org.uk etc etc) but if there are particular domain
names you are concerned about you can register them through the registrar
you normally use for what would no doubt be a fraction of the cost of
using one of these companies using scams to try to get business.

end of issue i reckon.