Two more domain registration scams – fake renewals

I help look after PeaceTaxSeven.com as it records the journey of seven war tax protestors.  I got a very well constructed email from what appeared to be the hosting company, sent to the right contact address,

Shame they used the brain-dead American date format – we don’t use that in the rest of the world.  Not the Peace Tax Seven, not me, not the hosting company.  But many lazy developers just use American code libraries and not change them appropriately.

Shame they got the VAT rate wrong at 21%.  A few countries in the EU have that rate, but not us.  But, not everyone would notice that, especially the way our tax has been fiddled with this past few weeks.

Shame they said the total payable is £11,097 !  Assuming they used European format numbers and meant £11.097, that would be 11.08% VAT.  WTF?

They do have a (faked) link to the hosting company to pay the bill.  And the incorrect email address ( support@collelli-otterdahl.com ) which is some company with a poorly configured email server.

Perhaps if they were not so incompetent and sloppy, these people might be able to get real jobs in the IT industry.

The other one is for NoNewwWars.com and is utter rubbish as well as totally criminal.  It uses domain domainnav.org to provide a fake re-registration page.  It claims to come from info@newnametech.guru and yet reply to info@ygxbitssites.ltd

They use stripe.com to take payment – I have tried to contact them to tell them they are used by criminals but cannot work out how to do so.

 

 

Chinese domain registration emails

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…