Do you own a domain name?

In my inbox this morning, I had an email from a company claiming that another company wanted to purchase my brand name and some domain names.

Do these companies not realise that I google absolutely everything?  I’m sure that their company is legit but these companies prey on small businesses and use other ‘interested’ companies to basically try and get you to buy up domain names through them at extortionate prices.  I don’t need tykestights.asia, .eu, .net etc.  With a well maintained .co.uk site, none of these other domains would ever rank higher with google for my customer base.  And besides, if I did want them, I would much rather pay a couple of quid to 123.reg than the hundreds of pounds they want me to pay them to protect my name.  Yes it is a good idea to protect your brand name but if you choose not to, your brand name is protected on a first use basis anyway.

If you ever get one of these emails, just beware that it is a scam to scare you into purchasing domain names through them.   Just google it and you will find that there are lots of companies – mostly in China, who are targeting small businesses.  Here is the email they sent me so that you know what to look out for:

(If you are not the person who is in charge of this,please forward to the right person/ department, as this is urgent, thank you.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in Asia. Currently, we have a urgent issue needing to confirm with your company. On Sept 12th,2012, we received an application formally. One company named "Shadi Management Group Ltd" wanted to apply for the Brand Name"  tykestights  "and some domain names through our body.

According to our initial check, these domain names and brand name are as similar as your company name. So we confirm with you if this company was authorized by you. If it was neither authorized by you nor your branch company, please contact us in 10 working days.

Best Regards,

Tom Tan

Auditing Department  Manager