2 posts tagged “domain name”

Continuing the silly email season, I mentioned this one today at the Vista Group luncheon (with original paragraphing), offering to buy the jya.net domain. Until the one accusing me of discriminating against gays (!), this was going to be the funniest one of the last week of February. I’ll still blog it since I told Jim and Mark I would:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am an independent contractor working on behalf of a variety of companies, and individuals across the world.
I work in a variety of online industries including (albeit not limited to) web design, development, and hosting.

I have been tasked with contacting, and negotiating on behalf of an individual in relation to the domain name jya.net.
A quick ‘Whois’ look up provided this address as a contact for the domains ownership, hence why you have received this.

In this particular case, the individual on whose behalf I am working is developing a network of information based websites.
The intention is that development will provide a variety of useful information that many many Internet users are looking for on a daily basis.
It is hoped that good rankings in search engines, and natural interest in the subject matter will allow such a network to be successful, and profitable.
A vital aspect of such a development is the domain names around which the various websites are branded. A website about cats is clearly more suited to the ‘cat.com’ domain than ‘stevethepussycat.com’. Numerous people looking for information on cats would type in cat.com, and thus a good domain is a sure fire way of reaching your target audience.

On the basis of the above, down to business.. We would be very interest in obtaining the domain name should it be obtainable for the offer price of 300(USD).

The whois database is not particularly informative, but I hasten to add that for any individual, or a company, such a cash injection during such a tough economic period is always helpful. Perhaps the sum of the above will make a sale a viable possibility for you.

I thank you for your time, and politely request a response in a timely manner.
Many Thanks

It is probably spam, and I opted not to reply. The sender included his name, more than I can say for the previous one blogged here.
   We get a lot of these but this is probably the second or third one with an offer price.
   I’m sure you can already see a few problems with this email, which is probably automated.
   For a start, how can there be a ‘natural interest in the subject matter’ of jya? What is a jya, anyway? I know why these three letters exist (Jack Yan & Associates) but why would anyone else be searching for them?
   Now, the price. The princely sum of $300, and how it could help us during tough times.
   Reprinting stationery for an international company: $4,000 for a minimum order. Changing addresses on the server for affected team members, probably not that cheap. Losing goodwill associated with the domain name: priceless.
   Getting $300 for the domain would be the worst deal ever.
   This is what suggested to me that it was spam. If the writer had even visited the site, he would have realized what was at stake.
   I was going to write back with some of the above, then I thought: I am not interested in commencing a dialogue with a spammer. Plus earlier requests, when I did write back, were never acknowledged.

Since November, I have received scam emails from a company called China Net Technology Ltd. A page about the scam can be found in the comments here.
   The MO: a company finds a dot com and sends them a letter, saying that another company plans to register the same name, but for various Chinese territories (with the cn, tw and hk suffixes, among others).
   Your expected reaction: you panic and decide to negotiate with the company, because it claims it is a registry service for domain names.
   Their response: they send you a form for the domain names, at outrageous (thousands of dollars) prices.
   Initially, I was so naïve I started talking to these people. They did highlight a few domains our company planned on getting, so we registered those—but through our regular domain name registration service, paying a normal price.
   When they sent me the form, I said, ‘Forget it.’ I knew how much these names were actually worth and how they were probably phonies. Their response, sensing that the deal was about to slip through their fingers, was to say that the company wanting to register the domains was known for porn.
   By this point I didn’t really care.
   It got more suspicious as these emails kept on coming, either from another company or from the same one, but claiming yet another group was planning to register the same domains. I’ve had three more for one dot com and another for a dot org, same MO.
   Ergo: these are scammers.
   I was lucky. According to the E-consultancy page I cited, some folks even get called up by the scammers. I was fortunate that I was travelling when they first emailed me, so they never figured out where I was.
   So while you should protect your domain names, if you are interested in Chinese ones, do not get suckered in by these folks. Use your regular registry service or a respectable company.