Posts Tagged ‘domains’

Email Scam – Internet Trademark Intellectual Property Rights

There seems to be a new wave of this particular scam email, usually from the ‘Domain name registration center in Shanghai’ or the ‘Domain name registration organisation of Asia’ or similar.

The email will read something like:

—–Original Message—–
> *From:* fiona [mailto:fiona@east-technology.org]
> *Sent:* 08 October 2009 08:34
> *To:* office@your-name-here.co.uk
> *Subject:* Re:Europeanarts-Intellectual property rights (To CEO)
> *Importance:* High
>
> Dear CEO,
>
> We are the domain name registration organization in Asia, which mainly
> deal with international company’s in Asia. We have something important
> need to confirm with your company.
>
> On Oct.7,2009, we received an application formally. One company named
> “Baldfiltering company” wanted to register the following domain names:
>
> your-name-here.asia
> your-name-here.cn
> your-name-here.com.cn
> your-name-here.com.hk
> your-name-here.com.tw
> your-name-here.hk
> your-name-here.cn
> your-name-here.tw
>
> and Internet Trademark:Europeanarts
>
> through our entity.
>
> After our initial examination, we found that the keyword and domain
> names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and
> trademark. These days we are dealing with it. If you do not know this
> company, we doubt that they have other aims to buy these domain names.
> Now we have not finished the registration of Baldfiltering company
> yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by
> telephone or email as soon as possible.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Fiona
>
> **Auditing Department **

Do not be taken in by this, as it is nothing more than a misleading and dishonest marketing ploy.

They basically want you to contact them so they can explain the importance of you buying all those domain extensions from them.

If, for any reason you would like to buy the Hong Kong extension of your domain name that’s fine, but you should go through a trusted domain registration company.

The article in this link explains what happened when one domain owner replied. Notice the amounts they want to charge towards the bottom of the article. Also the many comments from other domain owners who have received similar emails.

Domain name renewals

Expired domains

If you do not renew your domain name in time, you run the risk of losing the domain and any associated website/emails will go offline. How long it takes to go offline depends on the domain extension and which registry it came from.

.co.uk, .ltd.uk, .plc.uk, .me.uk

All .uk domains names are registered through Nominet. When your domian name goes past its expiry date you are given 30 days grace before the domain is suspended. As soon as the domain is suspended, any emails and website you had set up will go offline. The domain name will be held in suspension for a further 60 days and will then be deleted, then it will publicly be available for re-registration. The domain is still renewable at the normal price anytime during this 90 day period.

.com, .net, .info, .biz, .org, .tv

There are stricter (and possibly costly) procedures for these domain names. If you have any one of these domains and you do not renew, your site and emails will go down the next day and your site will change to a generic click site which is the domain registry’s default page. At this stage it takes upto 24hrs to come back online after the renewal payment has been processed.

Redemption period

Depending on the registrar used, the domain renewal will still be allowed at the normal price for approximately 30 days after the expiry date.  Then it will be placed in a ‘redemption grace period’ during which time the domain owner would need to pay a redemption fee to release the domain before it can be renewed. The redemption fee can be upto $160 and is non refundable. This shows the importance of renewing your domain name on time.

Redemption fess do not apply to any .uk domain names.

Renewal reminders.

We will firstly send an automated email renewal reminder the month before your domain name/hosting package is due. e.g. Anything due for renewal in December, your first renewal reminder will be sent at the beginning of November to the billing email address we have on file for you, so it is important you keep your email address upto date.

We will follow up with a second reminder at the beginning of the month your account is due for renewal and a third to chase the renewal before the domain/hosting package goes past the expiry date.

Please note It is the clients responsibility to ensure any domain is renewed.
From time to time there are anomolies in any system which will result in you NOT being billed for a name. If you are not billed – we don’t get paid – we thus will NOT renew a domain name – it should ALWAYS be considered to be the clients responsibility to contact us and ask us to renew a domain name.