Chinese domain registration emails

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I got an email from Adrian Liu adrian@cnnetwork.org of China Registry Head Office saying:

(It’s very urgent, therefore we kindly ask you to forward this email to your CEO. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
Dear CEO,
We are the domain registration and solution center in China. On October 5, 2021, we received an application from Hongxiang Ltd requested “nonewwars” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (nonewwars.cn, nonewwars.com.cn, nonewwars.net.cn, nonewwars.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor in China?

Best Regards

Adrian Liu | Service & Operations Manager

China Registry (Head Office)

Tel: +86-2161918696

Fax: +86-2161918697

Mob: +86-13816428671

6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China

*****************************************

This email contains privileged and confidential information intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy this email and inform the sender immediately. We appreciate you respecting the confidentiality of this information by not disclosing or using the information in this email.

Gotta love the “Best Regards”.  It’s like a mugger saying “Have a nice day”.  I like to be helpful.  So I replied:

No, Hongxiang Ltd is nothing to do with us at all.

It probably does not matter what you say in the reply, because this comes next.  From one Zhihai Ning ningzhihai@outlook.com saying:

To whom it concerns,

We will register the China domain names “nonewwars.cn” “nonewwars.com.cn” “nonewwars.net.cn” “nonewwars.org.cn” and internet keyword “nonewwars” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Adrian Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Adrian Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist in this name.

Kind regards
Zhihai Ning

I thought I ought to respond.  Out of politeness.  Especially since they said “Kind regards” which as we know is always a genuine sentiment.

I don’t see how I can stop you.

But I am interested. Why do you want to use the NoNewWars name?

Back to a reply from Adrian Liu adrian.liu@chinaregistry.org.cn at the China Registry.

Based on your company having no relationship with them, we have already suggested that they should choose another name to avoid this conflict, but they persist in this name as China domain names (nonewwars.cn, nonewwars.com.cn, nonewwars.net.cn, nonewwars.org.cn) and internet keyword. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company then register it to promote their company.

As is known to all, the domain name registration based on the international principle is opened to company and individual. Any company or individual have the right to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Your company haven’t registered this name as China domain names and internet keyword, so any company is able to obtain them by registration. But in order to avoid this conflict, the trademark or original name owner have priority right to register China domain name and internet keyword during our dispute period. If your company is the original owner of this name and want to register these China domain names (nonewwars.cn, nonewwars.com.cn, nonewwars.net.cn, nonewwars.org.cn) and internet keyword to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send you an application form with price list to help your company register these China domain names and internet keyword during our dispute period.

Best Regards

Adrian Liu | Service & Operations Manager

China Registry (Head Office)

Tel: +86-2161918696

Fax: +86-2161918697

Mob: +86-13816428671

6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China

****************************************

This email contains privileged and confidential information intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy this email and inform the sender immediately. We appreciate you respecting the confidentiality of this information by not disclosing or using the information in this email.

Now I understand.  It is a scam that is simply frightening people into buying domain names they otherwise would not want or need.  Let’s see if I’m right with a quick search…

Hmm.  I wonder if it is a scam…!  🙂  Apparently they’ve been doing this since at least 2009 – twelve years.  So it must work.  Well, he wasted some of my time, I’ll waste some of his.

But China is a communist country. I thought there was no such thing as copyright under communism.

I am awaiting the next email…

57 thoughts on “Chinese domain registration emails”

  1. Hi Simon
    Same scam letters came our way. But “Adrian Liu – Service & Operations Manager” is now named “Paul Liu”.

    Thanks for your block, we will now ignore the many letters including the one sent by Zhihai Ning saying that ” we will persist in this name. “

    Reply ↓

  2. Thanks, Louisa.
    I’d forgotten about this scam. I’ve just checked and, surprise surprise, the domain names nonewwars.cn, nonewwars.com.cn, nonewwars.net.cn and nonewwars.org.cn are not in use. So it really is just a scam to sell Chinese domain names to people who neither need nor want them.

    Reply ↓

  3. Thank you Simon,

    Our small charity organisation received this exact email on the 28 July 22 (I do not check my spam folder regularly, which is where it had been put), and thank goodness for that.
    I do like your responses, esp. the last one.
    Thank you for posting

    Reply ↓

  4. Thank you for the post, you’re the first result on Google and they’re doing the same thing to me (word for word). I told them they could have my domain for $10 mill USD though. Here’s to hoping. lol

    Reply ↓

    • So a spammer telling lies to sell unwanted domain names has resulted in me appearing at the top of a Google search? The Internet moves in mysterious ways!

      They reckon they can afford to employ 130 staff (I wonder how many are just doing the spamming?) and have half a million customers (and I wonder how many are real customers, and how many scam victims). Will those kind of resources, maybe you’ll get your $10m yet!

      Reply ↓

  6. Merci pour vos témoignages , Très édifiants.
    Je viens de recevoir les mêmes messages d’arnaque, et les mêmes réponses après ma réaction vis à vis de leur premier mail, de la part d’un certain Zhihai Ning.
    Je trouve quand même triste et déplorable que des individus supposés travailler honnêtement, puissent se livrer à de telles bassesses d’arnaques afin de vendre des noms de domaines inutiles …

    Many thanks

    Reply ↓

    • Google Translate:
      “Thank you for your very edifying testimonies.
      “I just received the same scam messages, and the same answers after my reaction with their first email, from a certain Zhihai Ning.
      “I still find sad and deplorable that individuals supposed to work honestly, can engage in such baseness of scams in order to sell names of unnecessary domains …”

      Reply ↓

    • Ray, oui, c’est triste. Il est triste que les autorités permettent à ce genre de chose de continuer, pour année après année après année …

      Ray, yes, it is sad. It is sad that the authorities allow this kind of thing to continue, for year after year after year after year…

      Reply ↓

  7. We just recived this from:
    Albert Liu
    (If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from Hongjia Ltd on October 30, 2022. They want to apply for “mastercare” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (mastercare.cn, mastercare.com.cn, mastercare.net.cn, mastercare.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best Regards
    Albert Liu | Service & Operations Manager
    China Registry (Head Office)

    Tel: +86-2161918696
    Fax: +86-2161918697
    Mob: +86-13816428671
    6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China
    *****************************************
    This email contains privileged and confidential information intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy this email and inform the sender immediately. We appreciate you respecting the confidentiality of this information by not disclosing or using the information in this email.

    And I replyed:
    Hi. Thanks for contacting us. We have no deal with that company and as you say its conflicting with our trade and company name…

    Got answer from this man:
    Zhihai Ning
    To whom it concerns,
    We will register the China domain names “mastercare.cn” “mastercare.com.cn” “mastercare.net.cn” “mastercare.org.cn” and internet keyword “mastercare” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Albert Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Albert Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist in this name.
    Kind regards
    Zhihai Ning

    I havent replyed…..

    Reply ↓

  9. Received the same email today. Unfortunately, I already own one of the domains they mentioned.

    Tried to call the tel but its not connectable. The mobile number has no answer.

    Reply ↓

  10. Hi, I got a similar email from Zhihai Ning for my company domain. I immediately googled ‘Zhihai Ning’ and stumbled upon this.

    Reply ↓

  12. Thanks for the alert.
    It helped me a lot.
    I got it from Jeff Liu (chinaregistry.org.cn) and Zhihai Ning (vip.sina.com)

    Reply ↓

  13. Hi,
    Got the same scammers from China, now using the name Frank Liu, luckily, I wasn’t born yesterday & having worked in China for several years I know how this plays out:

    (Please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from Hongjia Ltd on February 4, 2023. They want to request “parkerfarm” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (parkerfarm.cn, parkerfarm.com.cn, parkerfarm.net.cn, parkerfarm.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best Regards
    Frank Liu | Service & Operations Manager
    China Registry (Head Office)

    Tel: +86-2161918696
    Fax: +86-2161918697
    Mob: +86-13816428671
    6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China
    *****************************************

    Reply ↓

  14. I have had the same correspondence. Mr Liu now calls himself “Simon Liu”. Thanks to this blog, it looks like a scam and will be taking no further action with it.

    Only China is doing this – scam capitalism from a country under Communist rule. What an irony.

    Reply ↓

  15. Thank you for this post. Our ministry received this email this week. 05/10/23 Thank you for letting us all know about the scam.

    To whom it concerns,

    We will register the China domain names “jcceos.cn” “jcceos.com.cn” “jcceos.net.cn” “jcceos.org.cn” and internet keyword “jcceos” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Frank Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Frank Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist in this name.

    Kind regards

    Zhihai Ning

    Reply ↓

  16. Here’s another scam email to me from domainregistry.org.cn They must not keep good records of who they have tried scamming before. I shall reply and pretend to be very concerned just to waste their time.

    vvv – NOTE THE EMAIL BELOW IS A SCAM – vvv

    From: "Mike Zhang"
    To:
    Subject: "nonewwars"

    Dear CEO,

    (It's very urgent, please transfer this email to your CEO. If this email affects you, we are very sorry, please ignore this email. Thanks)

    We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China.
    We received an application from Hua Tai Ltd on June 12, 2023. They want to register " nonewwars " as their Internet Keyword and " nonewwars .cn "、" nonewwars .com.cn " 、" nonewwars .net.cn "、" nonewwars .org.cn " domain names, they are in China domain names. But after checking it, we find " nonewwars " conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?

    Best Regards
    **************************************
    Mike Zhang | Service Manager
    Domain Registry China (Head Office)
    No. 300, Xuanhua Road, Changning District, Shanghai200050, China
    Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-1582177 1823
    Web: www(dot)domainregistry(dot)org(dot)cn
    ***************************************************

    ^^^ NOTE THAT THE ABOVE EMAIL IS A SCAM ^^^

    Reply ↓

  17. So this means that they have gone from using chinaregistry.org.cn to using domainregistry.org.cn to disguise their previous scamming. They also use cnnetwork.org and china-registry.net

    domainregistry.org.cn does not come up much in searches yet, perhaps we can fix that. domainregistry.org.cn scam domain name registry china email mikezhang@domainregistry.org.cn

    This scam even has its own description on Wikipedia now: fake trademark protection.

    Reply ↓

  18. Thanks your blog，I still receive this email today，I search his name and lucky your answer is in the first，same people

    Reply ↓

  19. Hi,

    I have also received this kind of email today as on 19.07.2023. The mail body is like this ”

    (It’s very urgent, therefore we kindly ask you to forward this email to your CEO. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)

    Dear CEO DigitalSushma.Com,

    This is a formal email. We are the Domain Registration Service company in China. Here I have something to confirm with you. On July 19, 2023, we received an application from Hongyuan Ltd requested “digitalsushma” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (digitalXXXXXX.cn, digitalXXXXXX.com.cn, digitalXXXXXX.net.cn, digitalXXXXXX.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor in China?

    Best Regards

    Thomas Liu | Service & Operations Manager

    China Registry (Head Office)

    Tel: +86-2161918696

    Fax: +86-2161918697

    Mob: +86-13816428671

    6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China

    Its Totally a fraud details given in the email. Please do not reply to this kind of scam.

    Reply ↓

  20. “Totally a fraud details given in the email. Please do not reply to this kind of scam.”

    Certainly do not believe this kind of scam. Never send payment details. But replying to them, pretending to be worried, asking lots of questions, asking again for advice, asking again for clarification, asking for an update, asking again why they have stopped replying, asking again for an update, hitting them with lots of emails – if everyone did that they would give up.

    Reply ↓

  21. Hi Simon,

    Two years after your post, they are still trying. We have had these iinvitations to pay n two of our companies. We are looking for a way to report them!

    Thanks again,

    Reply ↓

  24. They tried it with us as well.

    (Please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    We are the domain name registration service company in China. We received an application from Hongyuan Ltd on December 19, 2023. They want to request “hubsec” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (hubsec.cn, hubsec.com.cn, hubsec.net.cn, hubsec.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best Regards

    Thomas Liu | Service & Operations Manager

    China Registry (Head Office)

    Reply ↓

  26. Today, they he is called Thomas. Most China IP ranges have been blocked on my MX, so I checked how this got through. The MX they send from is using an US IP address for mx2.chinesedomain.net, which is where this scam came from. For a brief moment, I wondered if I should engage to waste their time, but then I figured, it’s a billion of them, surely they have all the time in the world.

    Reply ↓

  27. Thank you, Simon, for posting this valuable information!

    I have to do with a Frank Liu and his buddy Zhihai Ning in the last days, and only today came across your post and a similar one located in Germany. I had not intended to buy the domain names suggested, but now that I know the evil background of this business, I regret the effort I took in weighing the pros and cons and composing a friendly e-mail in which I (briefly but nonetheless) explain why I don’t find it necessary ..

    I’ll send that e-mail, but I will append a post scriptum in which I ask Frank to give my kind regards to as many of this brothers as I can find in mails documented your site and others ;-))

    Here’s the content of the first mail I receved from Frank Liu:

    (If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    This is a formal email. We are the Domain Registration Service company in China. Here I have something to confirm with you. We received an application from Hongpai Ltd on August 14, 2024. They want to apply for “korrida” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (korrida.cn, korrida.com.cn, korrida.net.cn, korrida.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best regards
    ________________________________________
    Frank Liu
    General Manager
    Name Registry

    Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671
    12F Kaike Building, No. 1801 Hongmei Road, Shanghai 200233, China

    Reply ↓

  28. Ensuring the protection of your home is essential in today’s unsettled times… deleted fear-mongering

    {ur}=Premium-quality gun safes for sale]https://deleted/access-control{/url]

    Reply ↓

  29. They tried it with us as well.
    ———————————————————-
    (If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    This email is from China domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongpai Ltd on October 16, 2024. They want to request “peru-gourmet” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (peru-gourmet.cn, peru-gourmet.com.cn, peru-gourmet.net.cn, peru-gourmet.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best regards
    ________________________________________
    Simon Liu
    General Manager
    Domain Registry

    Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671
    12F Kaike Building, No. 1801 Hongmei Road, Shanghai 200233, China
    ———————————————————————-
    To whom it concerns,
    We are the Hongpai Ltd. We will register the Chinese domain names “peru-gourmet.cn” “peru-gourmet.com.cn” “peru-gourmet.net.cn” “peru-gourmet.org.cn” and internet keyword “peru-gourmet” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Simon Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Simon Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist with this name.
    Kind regards
    Zhihai Ning
    —————————————————

    Reply ↓

  30. Thank you for the update to say they are still at it.

    If they only get small percentage of people fall for it, they must be making a pretty good income from this scam.

    Reply ↓

  31. Dear British friend, thank you so much for this post on your blog. We too have received a letter from these Chinese scammers. It turns out that they are working on a similar scheme all over the world, including Russia.

    For us it was an unpleasant surprise to receive such a letter, because we faced a real patent troll (right at the moment of registration of our trademark NOVJOB in the Russian Federation). And we even thought – oh no, really again?

    And your article gave us confidence that this is really a scam. In addition, the “domain registrar” who supposedly writes to us – his domain registered only a couple of years ago. So says the service whois. So it seems that this is really scammers and we should not answer anything to them.
    Thank you again.

    Here is the letter we received:
    ============================
    From: Steve Liu
    Subject: novjob
    Programm: Foxmail 7, 1, 3, 52[cn]
    Sent: 26 Oct 2024, 19:59:02 PM. (Sun, 27 Oct 2024 00:59:02 +0800)

    (Please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. We received an application from Hongpai Ltd on October 27, 2024. They want to register “novjob” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (novjob.cn, novjob.com.cn, novjob.net.cn, novjob.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?

    Best regards
    Steve Liu
    General Manager
    Domain Registry
    Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671
    12F Kaike Building, No. 1801 Hongmei Road, Shanghai 200233, China
    =============================

    Reply ↓

  33. I also got this e-mail from Thomas Liu. I’m glad I found this page and the info. I actually DID have a Chinese outfit hijack my business name years ago. They were selling portable electric generators under my business name and all the tech support and parts orders were coming to me at my US phone number. I’ve never been involved with generator sales. I sold tools (still do some of that). But it seems that Kenowa Tool Service was a convenient name for them to use so they did. The requests for parts, supplies, tech questions, etc became a real pain. This happened in 2004 right after hurricane Katrina. I figured that I didn’t need this again, so I started looking into actually registering my other business name with the Chinese to stop this. Glad I found out this was a scam. I’ve got better things to do with my time.

    Reply ↓

  34. Today, 19 november 20024, they are still sending out the same scam email, saying exactly the same things.
    The only thing that changes is the person sending the email; one time it’s Steve Liu, another time it’s Simon Liu, or Frank Liu, Thomas Liu, Albert Liu… My goodness! I think they’re all brothers, part of the famous LIU Dynasty! LOL!
    Oh, and don’t forget, the phone numbers are fake.
    Have a good day everyone.”

    Reply ↓

  35. Thanks a lot for your blog with info.

    I received the same email for my website https://topflighthotel.com

    (If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    This email is from China domain name registration center. On November 4, 2024, we received an application from Hongpai Ltd requested “topflighthotel” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (topflighthotel.cn, topflighthotel.com.cn, topflighthotel.net.cn, topflighthotel.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best regards
    Paul Liu
    General Manager

    NET Registry

    Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671
    12F Kaike Building, No. 1801 Hongmei Road, Shanghai 200233, China

    I noticed that the email address is not from NET Registry, (Paul Liu ) so I googled and found your blog

    Apperently, it is a family business, as the als are from the Liu family 🙂

    Reply ↓

  36. Dear Simon Reed,
    Thanks very much for posting this wee blog.

    I grabbed my surname as a domain name (barzdo.com) about 20 years ago.
    A couple of days ago I checked the Spam Box and found an almost identical email but from Thomas Liu (thomas@nameservice.net.cn)

    t must be quite a large family concern, this Chinese domain business, with many members of the Liu family working there!

    I responded that my surname is unusual and it seems peculiar that any Chinese organisation would be in the slightest bit interested in a pretty exclusive Lithuanian surname for a Chinese keyword.

    Now I’ve had an almost identical contact from Hongpai Ltd about persisting. That’s when I decided to research and yours is the top hit from the DuckDuckGo listing. Good job, Simon.

    Just thinking about the efficacy of them nabbing my surname for a keyword…
    if I was selling stuff under that name, it would probably be beneficial for my business having Chinese customers searching that keyword and coming up with my business in their search results. So I think I’ll let them just get on with it.

    I like the idea of Amers in this thread, selling them my dot com domain. I’d ask for less. £100K would do me nicely.

    Cheers!

    Reply ↓

  37. Yesterday, I checked my SPAM folder, and I found the following to my info@XXXXXXXXXX.uk email address, from jesse@cnregistry.net, with the date: 2024. 12. 09. 12:06, with the subject: “XXXXXXXXXX”

    —————————————————————————————-
    (If you are NOT CEO, please kindly forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please ignore it. Thanks)
    Dear CEO,
    This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from Hongpai Ltd on December 9, 2024. They want to register “XXXXXXXXXX” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (XXXXXXXXXX.cn, XXXXXXXXXX.com.cn, XXXXXXXXXX.net.cn, XXXXXXXXXX.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Best regards

    Jesse Liu

    General Manager

    Tel: +86-2161918696 | Fax: +86-2161918697 | Mob: +86-13816428671

    12F Kaike Building, No. 1801 Hongmei Road, Shanghai 200233, China
    —————————————————————————————-
    First, I checked the URL of the email in virustotal.com, it was a clean redirect to https://www.chinaregistry.com.cn/. But I couldn’t understand why they needed my concern. And my domain name (XXXXXXXXXX.uk) is not an international name, so what relationship would I belong into. But I replied to the email:
    —————————————————————————————-
    Dear Jesse,

    I’m the owner of “XXXXXXXXXX.uk” only. I’m not a business partner in China by any means, but I’m willing to sell my domain for a reasonable price to Hongpai Ltd.

    Best regards,
    —————————————————————————————-
    After this, today, I received an email from zhihaining@163.com and zhihaining@vip.sina.com, with the same title: “Iorg Chinese domains and internet keyword” and the following, same content:
    —————————————————————————————-
    To whom it concerns,

    We are the Hongpai Ltd. We will register the Chinese domain names “XXXXXXXXXX.cn” “XXXXXXXXXX.com.cn” “XXXXXXXXXX.net.cn” “XXXXXXXXXX.org.cn” and internet keyword “XXXXXXXXXX” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Jesse Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Jesse Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist with this name.

    Kind regards

    Zhihai Ning
    —————————————————————————————-
    Well, what can I say… This SCAM-ing procedure is not going well for them.
    But I ignored the bullshit, and replied with the following:
    —————————————————————————————-
    Hello Zhihai Ning,

    Do you wish to buy “XXXXXXXXXX.uk” from me?

    Thank you for your reply in advance!

    Best regards,
    —————————————————————————————-
    No reply since then.

    So, then I decided to check the name (Zhihai Ning) online, and I stumbled upon this page, to my regret not earlier. I wasted too much time on them.

    Reply ↓

  38. Dear Simon Reed,

    Thank you very much for the share. I didn’t expect that this scam would still be going on in 2025… When I received the first email, I replied to them that we don’t have any other Chinese distributors, and then I received a message from Zhihai Ning saying they would insist on using it. Fortunately, I searched online and found your post.

    Reply ↓

  39. Still working with exact same names. Peter Liu is the first person to contact though. Thanks for posting this so I could figure out what this was about.

    Reply ↓

  40. Hi Simon Reed, THANK YOU for posting this article. I’ve got the same message yesterday coming from frank@nameservice.org.cn with the exact same text and then today an e-mail from Zhihai Ning zhihaining@163.com with the exact same follow-up message

    Fortunately they just copy and paste everything and it was easy to spot that was a Scam after finding your post (THANK YOU by the way). I am wondering how it will be in the near future with AI

    Reply ↓

    • Amri, you are very welcome.

      I have had some spam posts already that were AI generated. Thankfully, they were fairly easy to spot, but it is early days. I expect the spammers will learn how to use AI to rip us off.

      Simon.

      Reply ↓

  41. Hi Simon,
    Thank you for posting this, I also got this email…

    Anthony Zhou 25 December 2024 at 03:27
    Reply-To: anthony.zhou@cnregistrar.com
    To: sean.farmar@boscasolutions.com
    Dear Manager,

    (If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks!)
    I’m Anthony Zhou(Mr.), Operating Manager, working for a network service company based in Shanghai, China, mainly responsible for registering Chinese domain names. On December 23, 2024, we received an application from Lishan Holdings Ltd requested “boscasolutions” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names( boscasolutions.cn/ boscasolutions.com.cn/ boscasolutions.net.cn/ boscasolutions.org.cn).

    After checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it’s necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your business partner in China?

    Kind regards

    Anthony
    ==============================
    Anthony Zhou(Mr.)| Operating Manager
    CNREGISTRAR Headquarters

    No. 98 Xinhua Middle Road, Zhangyan,
    Shanghai 201500,China
    Mobi: 0086 134 828 19 147
    Tel: 0086 21 6 191 869 6
    Fax: 0086 21 61 91 86 97
    ———————————————————————————————————
    Tip: Please Add mail sender account to your contacts to make sure our response does not end up in your spam folder.

    They have been back and forth emails and I’m playing my game…

    Reply ↓

    • Sean, I realised from your post they do not just randomly change the name, the address changes too.

      Google cannot find the address in yours, and it seems Xinhua Middle Road is a ‘garden street’ filled with touristy shops.

      The 1698 Yishan Road given in mine is a parking lot! Although 1698 Yishan Road is in a business district and could be anything.

      300 Xuanhua Road is a huge commercial rental space with loads of busineses.

      1801 Hongmei Road is a Macdonald’s!

      Searching for other people’s blog posts and warnings about this scam shows they use loads of different addresses. So they are probably all randomly selected.

      Also, in so doing, I see that this seemed to have started in 2008, and it was 2009 to 2010 where they settled down to using the current names and text. It seems to have begun when the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) legislation was implemented by China in the run up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics. This concept of IPR was new to communist China – they took to making money from it very quickly. The wealth from capitalism attracts parasites like this as well as making business people rich. They probably see this as a legitimate business operation.

      Reply ↓

  42. Actually, come to think of it, they probably DO think it is a legitimate business operation. A form of insurance.

    Just as savings banks threaten us with possible rainy days in the future, meaning we should give them our money, or insurance companies scare us about fires or flooding or thieves, meaning we should give them our money, or mobile phone companies started out scaring us about being stranded alone with no way to contact anyone, meaning we should give them our money.

    So these parasites are threatening us with scary intellectual property theft, meaning we should give them our money.

    They probably think they are doing us a favour.

    Reply ↓

  43. Thank you for your post!!
    I’ve got exactly same email few weeks ago.
    At first, I almost believed the email and trusted the person who is in charge of chinese domain registration and then when I got am email from him that I should buy chinese domain to get rid of this conflict. I started to doubt if it is their sales strategy. Fortunately, I found your blog post!
    Below is the email I got from one of them.
    ————————————————————————–

    To whom it concerns,

    We are the Hongfei Ltd. We will register the Chinese domain names “XXXXX.cn” “XXXXX.com.cn” “XXXXX.net.cn” “XXXXX.org.cn” and internet keyword “XXXXX” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr. Nick Liu’s approval. These CN domains and internet keyword are very important for us to promote our business in China. Although Mr. Nick Liu advised us to change another name, we will persist with this name.

    Kind regards

    Zhihai Ning

    Reply ↓

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