(no subject)

[scarfman]

Say, anybody else experience or know of a case like this:

About three weeks ago I got an email at my Arthur, King Of Time And Space address with a subject heading directing it attention of the CEO, and purporting to be from legal counsel of some outfit in China who are interested in registering the domain name arthurkingoftimeandspace.cn and the keyword arthurkingoftimeandspace in China, against the advice of himself their legal counsel since obviously arthurkingoftimeandspace.com is already years in use. Long story short, over the course of three back-and-forths with this supposed legal counsel or his supposed client (good cop-bad cop?), I told them that I'm not a corporation but just this guy drawing cartoons and putting them on the internet, and I have no awareness of or interest in exercising what right I might have to the things they were asking about, especially if it entailed any expenditure to me. I also asked each of them out of curiosity what their interest is, but neither responded to that.

Is this a(n attempted) scam? If so, how is it meant to work, when they pick a mark who has any money? Whether it's a scam or not, am I in any danger of losing what rights I have for not having protected rights I didn't conceive having any use for? At the moment my domain registration should be effective till next May seventh.

Comments

[billroper]

What they're trying to get you to do is to pay to register those domain names to protect your valuable trademark. :)

[scarfman]

That thought occurred to me ... but when, if I were going to do that, I'd do it with the hosting service I already use, what use is it to the scammers for me to do it?

[sabremeister]

They're hoping you'll thoughtlessly click through on the links they provide to their own hosting services, and make you pay for the foreign domains there, rather than with the hosting service you know and trust. From that, they get your credit card details,and we all know where that leads...