Inveis.com .cn domain scam

Today I received the following email from [email protected]…

[Note: If you also received this email, it’s spam, my advice is to delete it!]

From [email protected] Wed Apr 02 07:58:16 2008

Received: from mxvip26.hichina.com ([218.106.248.76])

by peach.[host].com with esmtp (Exim 4.68)

(envelope-from [email protected])

id 1JgwvB-0000vO-6L

for info@[host].co.uk; Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:58:16 +0100

Received: from 125.33.195.130 (HELO WWW-49DC599EB58) (envelope-from [email protected])

by mxvip26.hichina.com (quarkmail-1.2.1) with ESMTP id S4192785AbYDBG6B

for info@[host].co.uk; Wed, 2 Apr 2008 14:58:01 +0800

Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:01:52 +0800

From: “toby.yang” [email protected]

To: “info” <info@[host].co.uk>

Subject: domain name

Message-ID: [email protected]

X-mailer: Foxmail 6, 10, 201, 20 [cn]

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

boundary=”=====003_Dragon171030833688_=====”

X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.1

X-Spam-Score: 21

X-Spam-Bar: ++

X-Spam-Flag: NO

Dear {tradename}.：

We are Beijing Inveis Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd which is the domain name register center in China.

We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register “{tradename}” as their domain names and Internet keyword on Apr 1st, 2008. Because this involved your company name or trade mark so we inform you in no time. If you considered these domain names and internet keyword are important to you and there was necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon.

Kind

Regards,

Toby.Yang

Tel:

+86-10-82476192 (ext.612)

Fax: +86-10-62477798

Email: toby,[email protected]

Beijing

Inveis Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd

Upon closer inspection I realise they don’t specify the domain extension, I visited their website to investigate further. Their main page contains statistical information about .cn domain names, which is the ccTLD for China.

It’s a nice idea, it looks like a legit email, and it plays on trademark law, which states that you MUST defend your trademark in order to maintain it.

However, the first thing I notice as odd is the , they use in the email address, then the fact they didn’t specify the domain these people are trying to register, and I’ve never heard of them.

A quick google of “Inveis.com” finds a blog post entitled “Domains scam“.

Apparently, they will register your domain under .cn and try to sell it back to you if you respond with any concerns over your domain name.