I finally received a scam e-mail that helped me out.
I hate getting scam e-mails about my domain names — from phishing attempts to the appraisal scam to the “U.S. Copyright Registry” to broken-english e-mails that inform me someone is trying to register my trademark in Asian domain extensions.
But today I got one that was actually quite helpful. You’ve probably received it before — an e-mail explaining that an alternate extension to one of my domains is available for registration and that I must respond to secure it.
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE UNITED STATES LEGAL CODE
TITLE 15, Sec 1125. False descriptions, and dilution of Trademarks and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Be advised: Protecting a domain name registrant or trademark owner from confusing and/or conflicting domain name registrations is not the responsibility of the domain and trademark registration processes….You are required to advise the Domain Notification Processor of your intent to license this name on or before the expiration of this notice.
Note: you may disregard this notice. If you disregard this notice or fail to reply:
(a) The licensing rights of this domain name may be assigned to any other applicant,
(b) DNNP and or any ICANN accredited registrar will not be liable for loss of domain name license, identical or confusingly similar use of your company’s domain name; or interruption of business activity or business losses.If you fail to reply to DNNP this domain may be registered by any third party without further notice. You must advise us of your intent to (a) secure this domain name or (b) to leave this domain name for Public Registration.
…you know the one.
But in this case it was helpful. I own SaltWaterPools.biz. Salt water pools are an increasingly popular alternative to traditional chlorinated pools. But .biz is a bad extension. My spam informed me that SaltWaterPools.us was available. That’s a better extension (albeit still no .com), so I logged into my Moniker account and registered the domain name.
Thanks, domain name scammer!
Rob Sequin says
I used to get emails telling me that domain.net was going to expire and that since I owned domain.us, this company would get me domain.net when it drops.
Of course I just put in a backorder myself but I did get some leads from that company. I would think that they would do well with people who didn’t know about backorders but since I don’t get those emails anymore, I guess they did not make any money with that business model.
Patrick says
That’s great Andrew!
Not too long ago I received an email from a scammer telling me he owned PropertyBible.com
and since I owned PropertyBible.info I might like to male an offer on the .COM.
He didn’t know I was letting the .info expire.
I checked and PropertyBible.com was available.
I believe it was tasted and dropped.
Imagine he was hoping to sell a domain he didn’t even own.
I thank my scammer also. 🙂
Patrick
Ms Domainer says
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Andrew,
Thanks for this post. A few months ago, I also received a spam email about the .com version of a .net that I owned, and the spammer was asking a rather steep amount (4 figures), so I emailed a simple “no, thanks.”
Tonight, on a hunch (and based on your post), I checked availability, and lo and behold, it was available!
It must have just dropped because in the whois, it was still showing as being parked, but it had been deleted from the registry.
It was first regged in 2002 and shows 197,000,000 in Google (as one word). More than that, it’s useful to me personally.
It sounds too good to be true, but 15 bucks for two years was worth the risk (even if the domain has to be rehabbed).
I had just assumed that the spammer owned the domain.
So thank you for the tip! If you’re a member of namepros, I can rep you. Just email me your user name and link to a post at the namepros forum at Bugzita[at]gmail.com.
Happy domaining!
Ms Domainer
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Enrico S. says
Our clients receive these all the time and, of course, contact us in a panic that someone is trying to register their trademarks. Most of the extensions noted in the spam email are useless. But for those that are not, I tell them to simply register them with their current registrar and ignore the email.
Ricardo says
I got a couple notices this week about a .com for sale.
I own the .net.
I just looked.
They must have dropped it yesterday or today.
I just reg’d it.
Ms Domainer says
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Well, this isn’t a trademark; it’s a popular variant of my first name, so no problems there.
This is good information to know; I think that I had checked the whois and it was registered, but it never occurred to me that it was being tasted and would be dropped or left to expire.
Thanks again!
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Steve M says
Thanks for the tip, Andrew.
…shucks…an’ besides that, these junk/spam e-mails are also great idea starter/ generators for legitimate ways to harness the power of the Internet.
Chris Nielsen says
Some of these people register the names and try to sell it a great profit to those that are interested. If they really have registered the domain, and you are not willing to pay their high prices (which you can generally negotiate down to something like $50), you can just wait 5-10 days and keep checking to see if they drop it, at which time you can get it.
Others just send the email, but have not registered the domain and hope you don’t know enough to see if it’s registered, or even to verify that you are being contacted by the real owner. In these cases you can just register it right away.
But it bothers me that people refer to these as “scams”. When someone offers you a domain name, even at insain prices, that is not a scam. Scams are illegal acts and you can report them to the authorities. Asking or charging excessive prices for a domain name is not against the law.
The trademark domain scam from China should be illegal if it’s not, because they are LYING when they say someone is trying to register your trademark. In the other cases, they are not LYING to you, they just are not telling you information that you could use to get the domain for $8.
We may not like that someone has a domain we think we should have, and we may not like the idea of someone making large profits from an $8 domain, but as the OP said, they would not even have known about the domain if the spammer (and I generally consider these to be spam) had not told them it was available. So how much do people think it IS worth to be told about domains like this? Is this a service that has any value? If you just register the domain yourself, you will have a nice feeling that YOU have taken advantage of someone else’s efforts. Hey, I’ve done the very same thing. “Thanks for letting me know about the domain, I just registered it myself…! :-)”
So while we may not like these non-scam emails, will we be missing them if we no longer get them any more? Perhaps we should encourge them to ask for donations from the people they contact? I think many people could consider what they do a useful service and be willing to donate a few bucks if they let me know about a domain they want. Many thousands of domains expire each day and donations could reach significant amounts.
Andrew says
Chris, the reason I call this a scam is because they try to trick recipients into thinking its some sort of government notice. Its akin to the notices that look like invoices for renewing your domains but actually authorize the transfer of the domain and payment for renewal to a different registrar.