Today I received a weird message in my inbox pretending someone in Asia (Mr. John Wang) was about to register several e-romagnoli domains with different suffixes. Although it looked like a nice, informative and risk less message, I didn’t even bother answering.

Of course, this is a scam! All they want from me is to purchase these domains using their platform, at a very high price.  It is indeed very unlikely that anybody is trying to register any e-romagnoli.* domain,  and Mr. John Wang probably doesn’t even exist. On top of that, I assume they’ll ask me to pay with bank wire, MoneyGram or Western Union and never give me the domains in the end.

So be careful with these unsolicited messages and remember to use you credit card for your online shopping. Paypal is a good option too, as it doubles the security: you get protected from Paypal and from the credit card company that you use to transfer the funds thought Paypal. However with bank wires,  MoneyGram or Western Union, you’ll have absolutely no way of filing a dispute and claiming your money back in case you get scammed. I advise you to have a look at the secure payment options page on ebay as a reference for online payment good practices.

Here is a the full text:

From: Judy <Judy@domainasia.cc>
Sent: Wed, 9/6/2010 17:13
Subject: (e-romagnoli)Notice of Domain Names Property Protection 2010-6-9
Dear Sir/Madam
I’m sorry to disturb you so abrupt. We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,

On 8th June. we received a formal application submitted by Mr. John Wang who wanted to use the keyword “e-romagnoli” to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/.asia/ domain names.
After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration  are same as your  domain name and trademark. We aren’t sure whether you have any relation with him. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down his registration, but if we do not get your company’s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his application

As authorized anti-cybersquatting organization we hereby suspect Mr. John Wang is a domain investor. so we need you to attach importance to this issue.

In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely 　　　　　　　　2010-6-9
Judy
Oversea Marketing Manager
——————————————-
Room 1008,
International Building,
No.38 YueLong road,NanTong City
Tel:+86(513)85330968
Fax:+86(513)80260081
Email:Judy@domainasia.cc
Website: www.domainasia.cc