Business saying they are going to steal my domain

[bleached]

A business has just contacted me saying they are going to use my domain name (I Have .com, .es ,co.uk, .it etc) but they are going to set up business doing the same activity as I am with the domain extensions .cn, .asia, .hk etc...

I canīt believe this is possible, what can I do, anything to protect me?

Thanks to all responders.

[Green_Grass]

Is this the domain scam from this Chinese company.. where they ask you to buy all these extensions at a cheap price to pre empt such a move..

[bleached]

So you think this is a scam Green_Grass?

They actually havenīt bought such domains as of yet, but it sounds a little fishy. I am somewhat worried as I would never imagine someone would have the cheek to do such a thing and get profit from my branding. My domain name is really unique too. Strange...

[Slade]

Can you post a snippet of the content of the email?

*Wait until a mod or someone says it's ok, and remember to scrub all identifying information.

[g1smd]

Simply go to your normal registrar and buy them all if you are at all worried about someone else hijacking them in the future.

This is a scam by the people that emailed you to drum up more business for themselves by scaring you into buying from them.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Scamming B%^&*&^!
They contacted me a few weeks ago. They had a Hong Kong address. I got back to them saying we had an associate company in Hong Kong and could we have an appointment to see them. Guess what happened next?

Tell them you don't want the domain names and that they are welcome to them. You'll hear no more about it and they won't buy them.

[bleached]

Iīm going to take the advice from BeeDeeDubbleU. It is just a little intimidating when someone makes a threat to your business. Having said, the .cn .hk domains donīt really have any real value, but its the principle and this is why we have copyright and protection laws.

News just in, got a response from this company that is supposedly in Hong Kong. They say (just a snippet):

If you think their registration will confuse your clients and harm your profits, we can send a dispute application document you and help you register these domains within dispute period. I think maybe this is the best way to prevent domain name grab. But if you don’t think their application will affect your company, you can give up,we will finish their registration.

Hope get your decision asap then we can handle the next step better.

Best Regards.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I googled "hope get your desision asap".

[google.co.uk...]

[stapel]

I got an e-mail from these scammers just this morning. It seems the safest bet is to ignore their offer of "help"....

Eliz.

[marvin]

I received this email too, I Googled a few of the phrases in it (and the name of the company sending the email) and it seems to be a pure scam.

nb - if I was genuinely worried about people registering the .cn .hk etc versions of my domain name I would have bought them myself a long time ago!

[bleached]

Seems like the scam started in March/April 2008. Died of death for a few months and is now back. Glad that this scam has been totally uncovered. Cheers all.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

It is worth mentioning that these scams do not all originate in the far east. Last year I received a telephone call from a very pleasant and plausible lady here in the UK. She had called to warn me that someone was trying to register variations of one of my domain names. She said that it was only right that I, as the the original owner of the domain, got the offer first.

I was almost taken in by her apparent sincerity but a warning bell started ringing in the back of my head and I said I would check this out and call her back. I soon realised that it was a scam but I bought the domains myself anyway for Ģ1.99 each.