The Chinese Domain-Name Scam

Picture the following scene: your company has finally closed a deal with some Chinese supplier (in whatever field). You are excited about the possibilities and glad to start working with them, but just as the ink is drying on the agreement, you receive an alarming email with a message warning of another party trying to hijack your domain name in China, which could put your business's name at risk overseas. At first glance, the email looks official enough to cause some concern, even for the most experienced business people.

Almost everyone who has a business connection in China, or with commercial companies in China, receives (or will receive) an email from someone claiming they want to do the following for the recipient:

• Prevent their domain name from being registered by someone else in China.
• Register their domain name in China, "just in time" to stop someone else from competing with them.
• Take steps to make sure their domain-name registration in China does not expire.

 

In other words, the email received can contain various promises and offers of legal and commercial assistance - to protect your company's intellectual property, to protect the brand name, or to help you register your brand or your domain in China or in other countries.

The emails look convincing, but it is a scam

Every so often there seems to be a rise in the number of emails reported to us about the "Chinese domain-name scam", and recently we received several messages from clients asking what they should do about this email they received (usually in shaky English), informing them that they must register their domain name in China immediately, or lose it forever...

As far as we can assess, every single one we have seen (clients always send them to us for review) is a scam.

First: do not reply!

Do not reply to the sender of the email. The scammers send thousands of these emails every day, and most likely no attempt has actually been made to steal or use your domain name. But if you have an important brand that needs protecting, it would do no harm to brief your lawyer as soon as possible, especially in the field of copyright.

What is important to understand is that if the scammers hear back from you - that is, if you replied to this email - it will serve as encouragement for them to start meddling with your domain name, since you have now proven to them, and they know, that you exist, and you have shown them that your domain name matters to you. At that point, they may start acting to actually register the domain that resembles yours in their own name, or carry out other fraudulent actions, in order to make you actually pay them for their "help" in undoing what they themselves did.

An example of a Chinese domain-name scam email

One of our clients received the following email, which in this case did not land in his spam folder - showing that Outlook did not identify it as a scam:

Dear Sir/Madam,

This email is from China Intellectual Property Office, which mainly deal with Chinese Brand Name and Domain Name etc. Here we have something to confirm with you. A company named “Megaa International Ltd” was applying to register ” ” as its Chinese Brand Name some domain names(.asia/.cn/.com.cn/.hk/.com.hk/.tw).

But after our audit work, we found that the keyword are the same as your company name. Because this registration will determine the ownership of the Brand Name. We need to check with you whether your company has authorized “Megaa International Ltd” to register the Chinese Brand Name and those Domain Name, and whether you have dispute about this registrations. If you authorized this, we will finish the registration as per our duty. If you did not authorize, please contact us by email in time, so that we will handle this issue better. Thanks for your cooperation.

Looking forward to your prompt reply.

Where to go from here

The first thing you should do when you receive an email offering to protect you from "others" who are looking to register a Chinese translation or a variation of your brand or product name as a domain, or from someone looking to sell you a translation or variation of brands that are already registered, is to ask yourself whether this even interests you, or is relevant in one way or another to your business. If it is, and you hold a trademark in China, leave the matter to the lawyers - pass it on for them to handle.

The second thing is to check whether you even have a need to register such domains in China or in other places around the world, and if so, to register all the domain names you need to protect your company or brand as soon as possible. Our recommendation is always to think through which domain names the business needs calmly and at ease - not when someone sends a threatening email on the subject. Now is the best time to work out which brand names and logos are important to your business in China (if any at all), and if there are such, to protect those brand names and logos by registering them as trademarks in China and registering the domain names with reputable registrars.

In any other case - simply mark the received email as junk, or delete it (just do not reply to it).

 

From domain scams to trademark scams, you need to stay alert about every email you receive concerning intellectual property rights in China. It is essential that you recognize potential scams, act early by registering your domain names and trademarks, and consult intellectual-property lawyers whenever you are in doubt. The cost of preparation and awareness is negligible compared to the financial risks and the reputational damage that could potentially occur if you fell victim to one of these scams.

Stay safe out there.