I don’t think think this scammer meant to be so funny.
By now, pretty much everyone has seen the Fake Trademark Protection domain name scam, sometimes called the Asian Domain Scam.
Here’s how it works: A scammer, typically pretending to be an Asian domain name registrar, sends an email to the owner of a domain name and says that someone else is trying to register domain names using the same brand. The scammer says they’re reaching out as a courtesy. If the recipient doesn’t respond, the scammer says it will go forward with registering the domain names. The con is to try to get you to register the domains as a preventative measure.
Most of these scam emails identify the name of the purported company trying to register the “brand” in various ccTLDs. My wife got one of these emails over the weekend, and the name of the purported company is, well, quite hilarious.
From: “Andy Yang”
Date: Dec 13, 2014 10:18 PM
Subject: Important [redacted] Brand Registration Confirmation
To: [redacted](Please forward this to your Principal, because this is very urgent.)
Dear Principal,
We are the department of registration service in Asia. Currently, we have a urgent issue needing to confirm with your company.
On December 11. 2014, we received an application from Con Group Co. Ltd who wants to register the brand name [redacted] and domains in some countries.
After our initial examination, we found these domain names and Brand name that they applied for are as same as your company’s name. These days, we are dealing with it. I wonder whether you authorized Con Group Co. Ltd to register these domain names with us. If you authorized this company, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically.
If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other purposes to register these domain names. Now we have not finished the registration of Con Group Co. Ltd yet. In order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us via email or telephone as soon as possible.
Best Regards,Andy Yang
Senior Consultant
Address:No.259 Wuhu Road,Hefei,Anhui,China
Tel: (+86) 739-5266069
Fax:(+86) 739-5266169
ds-cn.cn
Devan Crow says
“These days we are dealing with it”… omg that’s funny
David says
It is damn funny. hahaha!
What countries is this for, though? I’ve got to wonder if some of the smaller ccTLDs are covertly in on this, as a shady sales stimulus. Now if you could trace that, that’s an even bigger story.
Christopher Hofman (@HofmanLaursen) says
We’ve collected around 500 names and 1000 emails of scammers at scam.europeandomaincentre.com, so do share if you get one. This is what we got on Andy
Andy Yang, Senior Consultant, Tel: (+86) 739-5266069 Fax:(+86) 739-5266169 Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Andrew Allemann says
Do you do anything with the info? Can anything be done?