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Requesting The Opinion Of Hacker News: Received This Letter, am I alone?

4 points by keltecp11 ↗ HN
This was sent to our CEO, is it legit? Is this Chinese Cyber Squatting? They sent this message to our 'feedback@TapInko.com' account (which they must have received by going to our website).

A message from: jake shen(jake.shen@qpnic.org.cn):(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please transfer to the right person/department. Thank you.) Dear CEO, We are the department of registration service in China.we have something need to confirm with you.We formally received an application on February 24, 2009,One company which self-styled "Path soft Corp" are applying to register (tapinko) as internet brand name and domain names as below (tapinko.cn tapinko.asia tapinko.mobi tapinko.cc tapinko.net.cn tapinko.org.cn tapinko.com.cn. .etc). After our initial checking,we found the internet brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we need to get the confirmation from your company.If the aforesaid company is your business partner or your subsidiary company, please DO NOT reply us,we will approve the application automatically.If you have no any relationship with this company,please contact us within 7 workdays. If out of the deadline,we will approve the application submitted by "Path soft Corp" unconditionally. Please forward the email to your decision maker,and let them contact me in time,so that we can handle this in reasonable,Look forwarding to hearing from you. Best Regards, Jake Shen Senior Consultant TEL: +86 21 69929440 Fax: +86 21 69929447 Website:www.qpnic.org.cn Address: Room 301, 42th, nong 1519, Jinyuan 1st Road, Jiading District, Shanghai city.

5 comments

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cperciva
It's a scam -- they're trying to get you to pay lots of money to register those domain names.
socialtistics
I get similar letters at least once a week. The first time it did catch me off-guard, but after talking with our attorney we determined it was a scam to get people to buy China domains. Interestingly enough the same company "Path soft Corp" is always the one trying to register domain names that supposedly infringe on my trademarks.
chris123
I got the same email too. A new twist on an old scam.
lacker
When you go to buy a domain name, if it's available, they just give it to you. They don't go checking if anyone else wants it first. If these guys wanted tapinko.cn, they would already have it. So this is bogus.