The scam of the Chinese company that wants to register your trademark or domain

If you have received an email from a supposed Chinese company warning you that another company wants to register your name or your trademark with .cn, .com.cn, .asia, .hk or .tw domains, it is a scam. Do not reply or pay anything.

It is a very old fraud: it has used the same template for years. The sender poses as a domain registration company or a patent and trademark office, and offers you "priority" so that you register the name before the other party. If you pay, they keep the money and do not register any domain or any trademark.

How to recognise it

Almost all these emails follow this pattern, in English:

Dear Sir/Madam,

This email is from China Intellectual Property Office, which mainly deal with Chinese Brand Name and Domain Name etc.

Here we have something to confirm with you. A company named "TaeMu Group" was applying to register "TUDOMINIO" as its Chinese Brand Name some domain names (.asia/.cn/.com.cn/.hk/.com.hk/.tw).

But after our audit work, we found that the keyword are the same as your company name. Because this registration will determine the ownership of the Brand Name. We need to check with you whether your company has authorized "TaeMu Group" to register the Chinese Brand Name and those Domain Name, and whether you have dispute about this registrations. If you authorized this, we will finish the registration as per our duty. If you did not authorize, please contact us by email in time, so that we will handle this issue better. Thanks for your cooperation.

Looking forward to your prompt reply.

The name of the "interested" company, the sender's name and the list of extensions change from one email to another, but the story is always the same:

• A third party wants to register your name in China.
• They, "out of duty", ask you first whether you authorise it.
• There is a rush: you have to reply now.

If you reply, the next email asks you to pay for registering several domains for years, at prices well above normal.

Why it is fake

• Anyone can register an available domain. No legitimate registrar warns you that a third party is interested in a domain or gives anyone preference. If the domain is available, whoever requests it first gets it.
• No trademark office writes to ask your permission before another company registers a name. With trademarks the case is more complex (it depends on whether you have the trademark registered in Spain, in the EU or internationally), but the friendly warning with an urgent deadline does not exist.
• The "China Intellectual Property Office" is not an official body. The real office is the CNIPA, and it does not contact foreign companies in this way.

What to do

1. Do not reply. Replying confirms that your address is active and you will receive more emails.
2. Mark it as spam or delete it.
3. If you really want to have your .cn domain or your trademark in China, do it yourself through your usual channels, without going through whoever wrote to you.

If you have already replied or paid

• If you only replied, nothing serious happens: stop replying and delete their emails.
• If you paid, call your bank or card issuer as soon as possible, explain that it is a fraud and ask them to cancel or dispute the charge. Keep the emails and the payment receipt.
• If you sent them any password, change it immediately.

If the email mentions the renewal of a domain you have with us, do not use its links: go directly to the client area and check the status of the domain there.

There are more variants of this kind of scam, such as fake renewals or expiry notices: we explain them in scams involving domains, trademarks and renewals.