I have just been approached by a domain name hosting company, SK International Holdings, who trade also as www.asiadm.org.cn, who advised that an unknown company, ALBIGENS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS, had been trying to regsister 9 different domain names, all with my company's name but with different country codes and that they were also registering my company's name as a trade mark.

It is not practical or financially viable to register domain names for your business in every possible variation, for every possible country, which is why I understand international law prevents anyone from registering your trading name for their own gain.

Rather than a genuine attempt to prevent extortion and fraud this is another scam to get companies to register names that they have no need of, with a company which they would never deal with either...

Have a look at  http://www.kenkai.com/seo-blog-article-145.htm for a list of other web-domain scammers.

Please see below the chain of correspondence; everyone beware!

From: bruce.xie [mailto:bruce.xie@sknet.hk.cn]
Sent: 25 August 2008 08:11
To: info
Subject: Intellecual property rights (TO CEO)
Importance: High

Quoting from [whiskyman]:

I have just been approached by a domain name hosting company, SK International Holdings, who trade also as www.asiadm.org.cn, who advised that an unknown company, ALBIGENS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS, had been trying to regsister 9 different domain names, all with my company's name but with different country codes and that they were also registering my company's name as a trade mark.

It is not practical or financially viable to register domain names for your business in every possible variation, for every possible country, which is why I understand international law prevents anyone from registering your trading name for their own gain.

Rather than a genuine attempt to prevent extortion and fraud this is another scam to get companies to register names that they have no need of, with a company which they would never deal with either...

Have a look at  http://www.kenkai.com/seo-blog-article-145.htm for a list of other web-domain scammers.

Please see below the chain of correspondence; everyone beware!

 

 

 

Many thanks for information; as with everything there are a huge number of people out there who prefer to scam for a living rather than do real work creating real products and services.  Just another thing that we all need to be aware of.

Look what turned up in our mail this week, look familiar?

Name: bruce xie



Contact: 00852 3059.3057



Email: bruce.xie@sknet.hk.cn



Enquiry: Dear CEO,                       

we are a domain name registration service company in Asia, deal with the domain name



registration and dispute internationally. Now we have something important need to



confirm with your company.

On the Sep 2, 2008, we received an application formally. One company named \"Albinal



International Holdings Ltd \"wanted to register following Domain names:    



my company name.asia  

my company name.cn 



my company name.com.cn  



my company name.com.tw 



my company name.hk 



my company name.in 



my company name.net.cn 



my company name.org.cn 



my company name.tw 

Internet trademark:



my company name

through our body.

After our initial examination, we found that the Internet trademark and domain names



applied for registration are as same as your company\'s name and trademark. We



don\'t know whether you have any relation with them. These days we are dealing with



it. Now we have not finished the registration of Albinal International Holdings Ltd



yet, If we do not get your company\'s reply in the next 3 workdays, we will pass the



application of Albinal International Holdings Ltd directly, in order to deal with



this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,



Bruce Xie



Auditing Director


Auditing Department 

Tel: 00852 3059.3057



Fax:00852 3019.8068    00852 3187.5699 ¡¡¡¡



Email: bruce.xie@sknet.hk.cn



         



Web: www.skholdingscompanyltd.asia

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

Confidentiality Notice. This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third



party is your business partner or distributor in Asia please DO NOT reply. We will



automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit



procedure.we have to notify you,and our registration organization are not



responsible for any dispute questions about trade mark,intellectual property nor



patent after they succeed in registration.hope you can understand.thank you.

You can see they are registered under his own name, which is very suspect!

http://whois.domaintools.com/skholdingscompanyltd.asia  

Feel free to write your complaints to sharoncao@todaynic.com  and sharon@now.net.cnas I did today.

Quoting from [kulcha]:

The following website is closed after reporting it to the registrar www.todaynic.com

www.skholdingscompanyltd.asia

www.todaynic.com also known as www.now.net.cn  are looking to close the following linked sites for me as well.

www.DNRCENTER.HK 
www.BJ-HK.ASIA 
www.STAR-EAST.HK 
www.WESTTECHNOLOGY.ASIA 
www.SKNETSERVICE.HK
www.NETSERVICE.HK 
www.STAR-EAST.HK
www.CNDATA.HK 
www.CHINA-NET.HK 

The following domains also linked to them are on lock&hold by www.dns.com.cn

www.asiadns.net.cn
www.asiadnr.net.cn
www.asiadm.org
www.sknet.hk.cn
www.sknic.hk.cn
www.westech.hk.cn
www.hkstareast.com
www.asiadm.net.cn
www.chinasps.net.cn

Both registrars have been extremely fast to react but there are others I am reviewing now, so keep these email scams being posted so we can shiut them down and make life more difficult for them.

Yes this is an ongoing scam but a quick google check will make anyone find out who they are. They are not even smart enough to modify the contents, they just change the destination company domain name. Here is another blog post about those scammers:


http://blog.sinohosting.net/beware-of-chinese-domain-names-fraud/

Quoting from [newbridgebiz]:

Yes this is an ongoing scam but a quick google check will make anyone find out who they are. They are not even smart enough to modify the contents, they just change the destination company domain name. Here is another blog post about those scammers:



http://blog.sinohosting.net/beware-of-chinese-domain-names-fraud/

Which is exactly why CNNIC needs to do something to combat this problem, this email was sent to them today and will remain on here until they do something about it.

Sent to service@cnnic.cn

Dear CNNIC

There are numerous online reports of China/HK based company using multpiple websites (I believe close to 100 fake sites) that are being registered under false pretences.

One such site is asiadm.org.cn details of registration can be found here http://whois.domaintools.com/asiadm.org.cn this person has 91 domains which I am sure you can check.

The attached email shows an example of how they operate.

So far todaynic.com and dns.com.cn have been proactive but the public cannot be expected to do this by themselves. todaynic.com has said they can only close the sites down if reports are made individually and dns.com.cn has lock&hold the sites I have provided along with supporting emails.

We have posted this on alibaba http://resources.alibaba.com/topic/342002/Domain_Name_Registration_Scam_SK_International_Holdings_Asiadm_org_cn.htm

And there are other blogs helping solve this but we believe China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) needs to be more proactive in catching these scammers before it gets out of control like Nigeria.

I am going to post this email to CNNIC on Alibaba until I get a plausible response from your group on what you are doing to combat this problem.

Many thanks for your input with this one, sadly all too often the authorities that are supposed to be there to help prevent fraud and scams such as this do absolutely nothing about them, despite having plenty of evidence on which to act. I write based on personal experience about other Chinese based scams.

All that we can do, to help protect ourselves and others, is to publish these examples in the hope that anyone similarly approached will "Google" the details and find postings such as these. May I please urge all who have been approached by what they consider to be a scam, of any sort, to publish details of it on this site, and anywhere else that they can, in order to maximise the coverage and help prevent others from becoming victims. 

Only this way, without far more action from the authorites which we know that we cannot rely upon, will we be able to keep these scams under some sort of control. They thrive on ignorance, the ignorance of the victims knowing nothing about the scam process; we have to keep publishing all of the details.  Many thanks to all for your help.  

Quoting from [whiskyman]:

Many thanks for your input with this one, sadly all too often the authorities that are supposed to be there to help prevent fraud and scams such as this do absolutely nothing about them, despite having plenty of evidence on which to act. I write based on personal experience about other Chinese based scams.

All that we can do, to help protect ourselves and others, is to publish these examples in the hope that anyone similarly approached will "Google" the details and find postings such as these. May I please urge all who have been approached by what they consider to be a scam, of any sort, to publish details of it on this site, and anywhere else that they can, in order to maximise the coverage and help prevent others from becoming victims. 

Only this way, without far more action from the authorites which we know that we cannot rely upon, will we be able to keep these scams under some sort of control. They thrive on ignorance, the ignorance of the victims knowing nothing about the scam process; we have to keep publishing all of the details.  Many thanks to all for your help.  

There is hope that these culprits will be caught...we just need to keep the online reporting

Dear customer,



Thank you for your email. As we would work together with HKCERT and Hong


Kong Police to make Hong Kong and the Internet a safe place for business, do


you mind if we can also forward your email to Hong Kong Police and HKCERT


for investigation? In the meantime, you can consider to report the case to


your local law enforcement authority.



Should you have any queries, please feel free to contact us.



Best regards,



Customer Service Department


Hong Kong Domain Name Registration Company Limited


Unit 2002-2005, 20/F ING Tower, 308 Des Voeux Road Central,


Sheung Wan, Hong Kong


Phone No.: +852 2319 1313


Fax No.: +852 2319 2626


Email: enquiry@hkdnr.hk



The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged.


If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately


and then delete this e-mail entirely.  You must not retain, copy, distribute


or use this e-mail for any other purpose not intended by this email or


disclose any of its content to others.  The recipient should check the email


and attachment for the presence of viruses.  The company accepts no


liability for any damage cause by any virus transmitted by this email.

I have sent the chain of email correspondence to the these people, I will advise any results.

Quoting from [whiskyman]:

I have sent the chain of email correspondence to the these people, I will advise any results.

Thye following person can block the domains registered to now.net.cn and todaynic.com chris@todaynic.com

He has confirm the following dns has been changed to stop the following sites...

www.DNRCENTER.HK 

www.BJ-HK.ASIA 

www.STAR-EAST.HK 

www.WESTTECHNOLOGY.ASIA 

www.SKNETSERVICE.HK

www.NETSERVICE.HK 

www.STAR-EAST.HK

www.CNDATA.HK 

www.CHINA-NET.HK 

I have sent him additional sites to block today and will update this post when I get word.

I request if you have got an email from a new site not listed here do post it so we ca shut them down.