Scamming an Internet Brand Name

Hardly a week goes by that a client, a family member or someone else I know doesn't forward me a email in a panic, wondering what they should do about it. One email in particular always originates from China and in a somewhat fear-mongering tone, informs the recipient about a threat to their "Internet brand name" by another company who is about to register that name for their own use; likely an evil use. If the recipient acts fast, they can head off this serious threat to their business.

The scam is so well documented that I'm not going to bother to recap all the foolishness here but in an effort to keep my creative juices alive and, at the same time, waste the time of one such scammer, I decided to play along. Over the course of a week, I entered into an exchange with one of these guys. Kevin Yang's English was poor so I decided to use poor English too in my responses. His original message, however, clearly copied from a template was entirely meant to get my attention. I like how he introduces himself as being from "the department of registration service in China". Evidently, there's only one department of registration services. Kevin's messages are in RED. My responses are in GREEN.

(If you are NOT CEO,please forward this to your CEO, it is urgent.Thanks.)
 
Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on September 29, 2010, One  company which called "Martut Holdings, Inc" are applying to register "oceanic" as brand name and  domain names as below :

oceanic.net.cn
oceanic.tw
 
After our initial examination, we found that the brand name being applied is as same as your company's name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it, hope to get the affirmation from your company. If your company and this"Martut Holdings, Inc" are the same company,there is no need reply to us,We will accept their application and will register these for them immediately.

If your company has no relationships with that company or you did not authorize them,please reply to us within 7 workdays,if we can't get any information from you within 7 workdays,we will unconditionally approve the application which is submitted by "Martut Holdings, Inc".

Thanks for your cooperation.

Best Regards, 
 
Kevin Yang
Senior  Consultant

In my first response (and I obviously had no idea how long it would go on), I decided to react with the level of panic and shock he was likely looking for:

"What?
No! They are NOT affiliated with our company at all and they may NOT encroach on our intellectual property name!

Who can I report this to?

Thank you so much fo contacting us over this."

 

I wasn't sure how easy it would be to rope Kevin in. I figured he must be so used to people telling him to piss off but within an hour or so, he emailed me back and copied in someone named Peter Jiang into the thread. I imagined Peter Jiang was his boss, looking over this shoulder to see how well he was doing.

Dear Sir,

 

Sorry to bother you again,Because today Mr peter.jiang from our register department confirmed with me whether your company needs the priority to protect these domain names.but I can't get your company's final decision till now, Hope you can make an decision on this matter asap, so that our register department can handle this case better in time, If your company needs to protect these domain names and brand name in advance, please contact me in time, I will send you the application form and relevant procedure.

 

Now we had done our best to handle this case, if your company can not take care of it in time, then if the registration brings any loss or effects, your company is responsible for it. Hope you can understand

 

Once again,thank you for your assistance and cooperation

 

Have a nice day!

 

I made my responses brief:

Yes!!!

Please protect my company name! I'm very concerned about this. Who do I need to talk to?!

Thanks You!

Kevin had to have been feeling a twinge of excitement at having caught a fish by now, no?:

Dear sir, The domain names registration is open in the world, the registration rule is 'first register, first obtain', so anyone can register any domain name which has not been registered. 

Now you have 2 options:1. You can register these domain names under your company name now, you have the priority of registration, and we can help you register these domain names.2.You can give up the registration, then the mentioned company will succeed in registration.

If you need these domain names in future, you can arbitrate through China Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center within 2 years(if out of 2 years time limit, the Dispute can not be accepted), if the arbitration is successful, you can buy these domain names from the holder.Pls give us your option, option 1 or option 2?

I usually waited until the end of the day or the next day to respond. My messages felt so impossibly foolish that I doubted he would believe me. My grammar became horrendous in places:

Yes, we want to protect our name ASAP from another company registering our brand name from registration.

This is ESSENTIAL for us.

Please tell me what we should be doing ASAP. I have spoken to my neighbour since he is a lawyer and he suggested we try to register this brand name ASAP! Is this what you're suggesting we do to? Can you help us do this?

We are very, very concerned about this threat to our business!

We don't want to end up in court over this so please let me know what we should be doing.

I was wrong, though...he did seem to believe me. HIs next response acknowledged my confirmation and introduced costs.

Dear Sir：

Thanks for the confirmation,if your company needs to protect these domains in advance, we can help you finish the registration also,Attached the Application Form,then pls finish the application form and return it to us in time, so we can handle this case better in time.Below is the price and procedure for you to check:

Country	Dispute Domain Name & Brand Name	Price(USD/per year)
China	www.oceanic.net.cn	35 USD /per year
Taiwan	www.oceanic.tw	59 USD /per year
Brand Name	OCEANIC	180 USD /per year
★Following is the procedure, For you reference: a. We send the Dispute Application Form to you. b. You fill in the application form return it via email(scaned) or fax. c. We send the billhead to you. d. You transfer the payment to us according to the Bank information on the billhead and fax the payment proof to us. e. We register the domain names for you within 2 workdays after getting the payment. f. You will be awarded the certificates of brand by one of Chinese Governments after 15 workdays.

Thanks for your cooperation,any questions pls contact us in time.

Have a nice day!

The US$180 per year for registration of the brand name? Someone is clearly making some good money here.

Anyway, he attached a PDF form for me to fill out. We had now been going on a few days and frankly, I wasn't all that interested in keeping it going since I was getting bored. I did feel that the more time he spent on my shit, though, the less time he'd spend bothering other people. When he attached a PDF, I saw the opportunity to extend things a bit longer. Could Kevin provide me tech support in an efficient manner?:

What format is this form in and do I need special software to make it work? I use Word Perfect with Windows 95 but i cannot open this document at all. It says something about File Open error x3342223. Is that a Chinese thing?

Can you FAX us to this form? 

If we purchase the brand name registration, will that also cover Mongolia? We heard many companies in Mongolia are wanting to take advantage of global brands. This is what I heard from my neighbour (the lawyer I told you about). He's a criminal lawyer and knows about all these things.

I'm really glad you're helping us here. Thanks!

To which he replied, somewhat surprisingly to me:

Dear sir,
 
Please see attached application form with picture format, if you can not open it, I will fax to you.
 

For the brand name registration, yes, surely it covers Mongolia.

He attached the form a second time in JPG format. His acknowledgement that my brand name was, in fact, also covering Mongolia was like crack to an addict. I couldn't resist:

Thanks you again, Kevin.

Can you please confirm that these countries are also covered?

Brussels
Nepal
West Germany
The Vatican

The office next door to mine had multiple WEBSITE ATTACCKS on their domain name and they said that these countries are the ones to really watch out for. I can't believe I didn't know this before! It's a scary world out there.

I don't see a picture of my brand in your email.

Can I call you with our company credit card number and give you this information on the phone? Do I need to fill out an application?

Please let me know...I feel like every day we wait is one day closer towards my brand being misused!

I"m sorry if this is difficult but I don't know about technology. My son knows a lot about these things and I tried to get him to explain it but I couldn't understand him either. He's only 6 years old but he's really smart with these things. Very frustrating for me!

Anyway, let me know where to FAX my credit card copy. Do you also need my social security number?

To be honest, I felt pretty confident I would not hear back from Kevin after this one. West Germany? Really. My six year old son? Kevin didn't skip a beat, though...:

Dear sir,

1. No, does not cover these countries.

2. Now attached the application form again, please see attachment, if you can not see it this time, please tell us your fax No., I will fax it to you.

3. Yes, you need to fill in the application form.

4. For the payment, you need to transfer the registration fees to us through bank, not credit card.

If you have questions, please let me know in time.

As you might imagine, I was upset to hear those countries were not covered in my brand name registration.

Thanks you Kevin.

Our FAX is 327 5020 in Fiji. I don't know what software to use to receive your FAX though since whatever you're using to send it is not appearing in my email either. Would it be different if I use a different web software? I'm using Netscape but I think I have Explorer too but I need to find it.

I went to the bank this morning and asked about the registration fee for my brand name but they didn't know what I was talking about. Do I need to give them some paper?

He had to have been losing patience by this point. Four days had passed and I was still not fully grasping what he was trying to sell me. I tried to waste a bit more of his time by making him search for Fiji's country code:

Dear sir,

I faxed the application form to 327 5020 , please check.

After you fill in form and return it back, we will send you the Invoice, then you can take it to bank to pay.

Please confirm the receipt.

I think Kevin may have called the office by this point since I didn't immediately respond to his request for a completed application. I do have a job, after all. I finally got around to formulating a response and I also decided to introduce a new character into the thread:

Bula Kevin,

My daddy asked me scan for you and SEND.

Here it is!

I thought the chances were pretty good that Kevin had never heard of Frank Zappa but more than that, I was interested to see whether he'd continue to have a conversation with my six year old son. He did.I also made mistakes all over the form:

Dear sir,

Please tell me what you need to register?

Brand name:oceanic
oceanic.net.cn
oceanic.tw

All of them? or just Brand name:oceanic?

For how many years? You ticked 15 years and 20 years, which is you want?

To which I replied, rather succinctly I might add:

 

My dadds says to registering ALL!

 

I was impressed with Kevin's willingness to engage a 6 year old and even continue to address him as "sir":

Dear sir,

How many years? You ticked 15 years and 20 years, which is you want?

 

To which I replied with a nonsensical:

 

Can we do 2 sets of 10 equal 20 years?

Is that possible?

 

I was unable to believe that this was going on 5 days later and I think Kevin might have been getting a wee bit impatient. He could probably still smell the sale, though:

Dear sir,

I called Frank, but no this person.

what is your full name? what is your daddes full name?and what is your Phone Number?

 

Uh-oh...he did call the office again. Now that it was actually starting to disrupt other people on my end, I decided that we were nearing the end and that I had, in fact, sufficiently gotten some creative juices going. Rather than just ignore it altogether, though, I was slightly interested to see how weird I could make it:

 

my daddy full name is Bartholomew Destrictus Medellenia. I know it's such long words!

my name is Mango. I can't give my number because I'm only 6 and my daddy says I can't give number to stranger.

Frank is there! Who did you call?

What's your dadde's name?

 

I was secretly dying to know Kevin's Dad's name.

Dear sir,

what is your daddy'd phone Number? I can call him, I think it is OK.

 

Now I was really bored so chose to put a bullet through the head of this thing...that is, until the next time.

 

Hello.

Who the hell is this and why are you emailing my son?

He is 6 years old and I've told him not to talk to strangers.

What do you want?

 

I can only imagine what he was thinking by this point. His final response seemed to be a reset to six days prior.:

Dear sir,

Thank you for your reply, there are some questions for the form:

1. the choose of these domain names and brand name
2. Registration time
3.Detailed company information

Now we hope your company can handle this case with respect, please fill in the application form carefully and return it back. In the meantime, please return the business license back, so that we can confirm if you are the owner of the trademark.

We hope your company handle this case with respect, otherwise, we will forward this case to Legal Department and China Embassy to check.

 

There is a lesson here, people. When I think of it, I'll let you know but in the meantime, any emails you receive warning you about protecting your "Internet brand name" shouldn't be responded to. If the Chinese Embassy come knocking on my door, however, I'll let you know.