For several years, Asian companies have been pressuring firms to register identical domain names in Asian Top-Level-Domains (TLDs). It is a kind of scam called “Slamming”, and is an illegal practice to mislead firms in order to sell them unsolicited services.
Unknown third party, pressure, threats, high prices…
The slamming scam always begins with an email, written in English and adressed to the CEO of the targeted company. The hustler tries to contact the manager who is often ignorant of the rules related to domain names.
They present themselves as accredited Asian registrars, mainly in China. This unknown third party notifies the firm that one of their clients wants to register domain names containing the trademark of the tartget of the scam.
The eager Asian “registrar” realized that the targeted firm owns the rights to the domain names in question. For “ethical” reasons, the Asian provider kindly offers to register the domain in the name of the target instead of for their “client”. The prices are often prohibitive. The greedy scammer threatens to proceed with the initial domain registration request if the rights holder does not purchase the domain names within seven to fifteen days.
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