Domain Name spam – domain name con artists
I have had a few emails recently from companies claiming to be contacting us because someone else wants to buy up Kenkai domain names. They claim that they are a registration company and they are doing you the courtesy of contacting you prior to selling domain names that use your brand name. Of course, what they then suggest is that you buy the domain names from them first to protect your brand name. It’s not such a bad idea to protect your brand name, but not at exorbitant prices!
These domain name spammers and con artists pray on people that don’t know any better. People that don’t realise that if you are based in the UK and you own the .co.uk and .com versions of a domain name, it doesn’t really matter if someone then comes in and buys the .ltd.com version of the domain name, it’s never going to rank higher in the engines over a well optimised .com or .co.uk website with superior longevity.
If you do want to buy such domain names to protect your brand name, go to somewhere like 123-Reg, who you can buy a .co.uk for £2.79 per year and a .com, .org, .info or .biz for £8.99 per year and don’t pay the domain name con-men £35 or £45 for the same domain name. If you want to check to see if your domain name is available you can check it out here: domain name registration.
Westtechnology.asia
The most recent such email I received, was from an Asia company calling themselves, westtechnology.asia, from a member of their staff called Angle Yu using the email address, angle.yu@westech.hk.cn.
They claim that a company called Volats International have asked them to buy Kenkai.asia, kenkai.com.hk, kenkai.com.tw, kenkai.hk, kenkai.net.cn, kenkai.org.cn,
kenkai.tw, as well as the ”Internat Trademark” kenkai. These pointless domain names cost $200 plus each!
Volats International may well want to buy these domain names and Westtechnology.asia may well not be a bunch of conning, spam-bastards, sending unsolicited emails out with the intention of ripping off unsuspecting site owners. In fact, I’m sure both Volats and West Technology are genuine, honest companies and the fact that they use spam to solicit their business and that it has been a month and none of these domain names are yet owned by Volats International, is purely a coincidence.
Whether Westtechnology.asia are genuine or not and whether Volats International exists or doesn’t, I won’t be buying these worthless domain names in a hurry and I would suggest that unless you are targeting a Tiawanese market, for example, don’t buy them from these people either.
If you have an example of similar emails, I would love to hear from you.
