Reply To: “Bogus” Trademark emails from China

[John C.]

Up

0

::

Yes these emails are quite common and are usually a scam – in my experience especially if they originate in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, India, etc.

My rule of thumb is to ignore any emails about your domain name unless it originates from the company you purchased your domain name through or your hosting company / website developer. This is especially true for invoices.

Bear in mind also, that sometimes the emails we receive from our legitimate domain registration companies are, even if not a scam, a little misleading – they can sometimes play on your fears in an effort to up sell you by telling you to purchase all known variants of your domain name (for example if you own acme.com.au, they will suggest it’s a good idea to purchase acme.com, acme.net, acme.org) – this can become quite an expensive proposition as there are thousands of different variants, and now you can even apply to own all of .acme for $200k!

I usually recommend customers stick to .com.au if it’s available, perhaps .com if they have an international audience and the other country domains and Top Level Domains only if they have a genuine need and / or unlimited budgets that are weighing them down.

Cheers,
John