The Chinese Domain Name Scam
January 7th, 2008 by Vishen Read more about ArticlesA number of our clients have received email like this from a domain registrar in China. Here is the exact email a client received. (we changed their actual domain name to the fictitious name plaxolabs to protect their privacy)
Dear CEO,
We are the domain name registration organization in Asia, which mainly deal with international company’s in Asia. We have something important need to confirm with your company.
On the Jan 3, 2008, we received an application formally. One company named ” HengTong International Holdings Ltd” wanted to register following
Domain names:
PlaxoLabs.cc
PlaxoLabs.com.hk
PlaxoLabs.com.tw
PlaxoLabs.hk
PlaxoLabs.mobi
PlaxoLabs.net.cn
PlaxoLabs.org.cn
PlaxoLabs.tw
Internet brand keyword:
PlaxoLabs
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 HengTong company yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.
Best Regards,
Mars.zhou
Wow - what utter crock. What what I loved about this scam email is how honest it all sounds. You almost want to thank Mr Mars Zhou for being so diligent and bringing this to your attention.
The scammers behind this are using two of the greatest marketing tricks in the book.
The first is the “likability” trigger that Cialdina writes about in his book “Influence”. They make you almost like them by appearing to be nice, diligent and on your side.
The next is the scarcity trigger, also covered by Cialdini in “Influence”. You may never have considered registering your domain in China, but when you find that someone else is about to grab your precious name and it won’t be available anymore, you suddenly develop an irrational urge to buy this name.
More on these scams:
Thread on Search Engine Forums
Recent posts by Vishen
- The Green Room - Two Nights of Fun, Networking and Internet Marketing Mania
- 8 Wealth Tactics from T. Harv Eker’s Guerrilla Business Intensive Seminar
- 7 Quick n' Easy Steps to Create Videos That Impress
- 3 Surprising Mathematical Principles That Every Persuasive Marketer Must Know
- The Dead-End "Thank-You" Page
About the Author
Vishen is a co-founder of MindValley.
Before MindValley, he was an exec in Silicon Valley and New York for several internet and technology firms. He turned bedroom entrepreneur at 27 and by the time he was 31 had founded 6 web businesses and never had to work a conventional job again.
Check out other posts by Vishen
If you liked this article, here are some related posts:
If you want to see what's in the private lab...
Ask yourself... which part of your business would you most like to improve?
I can send you 7 tactics related to your specific needs, if you like.
You don't have to buy anything, just take it as a backstage pass into our private course.
Will it give you the solution you've been waiting for?
There's only one way to find out.
Mike Reining
Vishen Lakhiani
Write them back and tell them you want to register:
plaxowantschinatoleavetibet.hk
See how much positive feedback you’re going to get on that puppy
Your correct response is to report this immediately to the CNNIC by emailing the correspondence with your suspicions to service@cnnic.cn.
The CNNIC is the China Internet Network Information Centre which regulates domain names in China. Visit them at http://www.cnnic.cn/en/index/index.htm - all the rules and regulations for China Domain Names are spelt out here, and you can email them direct from the site. They are not amused by this,and will likely take action.
Thanks for sharing. A similar scam scheme is covered in this blog post:
http://blog.sinohosting.net/beware-of-chinese-domain-names-fraud/
[...] doing some research here, here and here I have confirmed my initial belief that these are just emails to scare business owners [...]
It is covered here as well:
http://blog.sinohosting.net/beware-of-chinese-domain-names-fraud/
LOL–In China I think they kill people for stuff like this. I saw an article written up about four other scams dealing with domain names on this site:
http://www.buildasitebookmarks.com/DNS_scams.html. Check it out all you domain name owners. Ok–l8r..
[...] http://blog.mindvalleylabs.com/the-chinese-domain-name-scam/333/ [...]