[mooeypoo]

Okay, my parents own the domain name www.schottlender.net (after our last name) for 5+ years and use it for their company. They recently received this email:

Quote

From: charlie@boxs.asia [mailto:charlie@boxs.asia]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 9:45 AM
To: [***censored***]
Subject: [!! SPAM] Schottlender brand name protection
Importance: High



Dear N



Good day to you

We received a formal application from a company who is called Meiao Global
Investment Co.,Ltd（http:// <http://www.meiaoinv.cn/> www.meiaoinv.cn) are
applying to register " schottlender " as their trademark and Internet brand
name on September 2, 2008. During our auditing procedure we find out that the alleged Meiao Global Investment Co.,Ltd has no trademark, nor patent even similar to that word. As authorized anti-cybersquatting organization we hereby suspect the alleged Meiao Global Investment Co.,Ltd to be a domain invester. Hence we need you confirmation for this issue,


If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to appropriate
dept.

If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor please
DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business
partner after this audit procedure.If you don't need those names and the
internet brand name,the Meiao Global Investment Co.,Ltd will be approved to obtain them not needed by original trademark or brand name owner.

Yours Faithfully,


Charlie

Auditing Director
DOMAINBOX GROUP CO., LIMITED
'Tel: +8610 80747734
4Fax: +8610 80747824
*Email: <mailto:charlie@boxs.asia> charlie@boxs.asia
Website: <http://www.boxs.asia > Http://www.boxs.asia

Confidentiality Statement:

The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged.
It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this email by anyone else
is unauthorized. If you are not an intended recipient, any disclosure,
copying, distribution, or other action taken or omitted to be taken in
reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this
message in error please be advised of your obligation to immediately notify
sender of the error in transmission, and to destroy all associated
documentation.

This smells like a scam, but it can also be real (why the heck not, smoeone just registers a brand and then contacts us to charge money, sounds perfectly cruelly logical to me, sadly).

Does anyone have any idea what to do with this? How can I be sure if this is a scam or not? Is this even legal? meh.

Help! My last name is being stolen!!

~moo

[ecoli]

sounds like a scam. Especially because they didn't contact you through legal snail mail and b/c of the last "confidentiality statement." If they're trying to steal your domain name, wouldn't they contact your webhoster? As well, how can they claim that your stealing their name when you obviously owned to domain first.

I say ignore it unless they contact you again.


PS - http://www.google.co...lient=firefox-a

more results come up warning of a scam than an actual company. Definitely bullshit.

[insane_alien]

i have had one of those from the same company about my gmail address. scam.

[insane_alien]

It seems schottlender.net has been googlepoisoned. a google link to it takes you to one of those 'Antivirus 2008' sites which actually infect your PC with viruses. DO NOT GO THERE.

however, going to the site it CLAIMS to be linking to http://www.schottlen...omercio/NES.htm results in a valid page.

also, as if you go there there is a lot more information than just an 'underconstruction' statement we can clearly say that it is not as unused as mayor or the company(which i strongly suspect has roots in malware) are claiming. they do not have a legal right to the site and they are actively trying to destroy the reputation of the owners.

[mooeypoo]

How do I fix this? The pages are HTML, simple, and I didn't touch them in at least a year... what do I do to fix this virus!?!? Call the hosting company?

insane_alien said:

if they are still paying for the domain name and don't want to sell then there is nothing you can do about it.

just like you can take someones house if they aren't living in it at the current moment.

also, believe it or not some companies aren't on the internet yet. they rely on advertising in papers and stuff. you can't really call them cheating because they haven't got a fully functioning website.

I don't know who that mayor person is, but this site is *MY* family's site, my parents company. Their only crime is that their website wasn't updated for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long (it's full of info, but because my folks had no time updating it, we decided a simple 'under construction' with a removal of links to the rest of the *UNUPDATED* info on the site would be less confusing).

The emails and contact info are VALID (trust me, I get plenty of mail to it) and so is the whois. The allegations on your post are not only uncalled for (I asked for help on a domain, not an opinion on the company, thankyou) but they are also cause for a lawsuit. I am asking the mods to delete it, seeing as it's unrelated, unhelpful and might actually do damage to a company that has nothing to do with what you're saying.

In short, [ censored ].

~moo

This post has been edited by mooeypoo: 5 September 2008 - 03:20 PM
Reason for edit: multiple post merged

[insane_alien]

I do not think the problem is with the servers(although a call to them could be useful).

I think what has happened is something that is getting scarily common, a false link has been created that looks exactly like a link to your page but redirects to a malware ridden site. is there perhaps a way to inform google of this?

[mooeypoo]

Okay, here's what I'm worried about: That it *IS* the server, because I was redirected to this spamsite from another system I have on the same server (but unrelated folders completely).

I installed joomla 1.5 recently on the subdomain moriel.schottlender.net and something weird happened when i tried to edit posts in the back end -- a click on either button ("Apply"/"Save"/"Cancel") would pop up this message and redirect me to the spamsite.

I didnt get there through google, this was already INSIDE the site. I contacted joomla (I thought there was a bug in their new release) but their code is fine. I uninstalled joomla from there and installed it on a completely different hosting I own, and it works fine.

So.. twice in the SAME HOSTING (hence, same server) and same domain (though with different subdomains) this happens. Are you sure it's not a server problem? I'm not... :(

~moo

[insane_alien]

okay, so maybe it is the server problem.

call them up, get it sorted.

in the meantime, i'm actually using that particular infection to teach my parents not to believe everything the see on the internet.

[mooeypoo]

Glad I could help :doh:

[insane_alien]

well at least now it won't be completely negative thing.

but the point that the asian company has no right to buy your parents domain unless your parents are actually wanting to sell it(and even then, they have exclusive rights on who they sell it to.)

[mooeypoo]

Even if they write this as their BRAND name or Trademark? My parents' company is written in ISrael only, I think, so it's not valid worldwide. We never thought it was a problem, seeing as our name is not very common (to say the least). If somone (for.. whatever.. reasons...) chooses this as their brand name, doesn't have have full worldwide RIGHTS for the name?

It's a bit weird, but to be honest, I have no clue how those things work. I know that when new domain extensions open (like the new .me recently) you still have no RIGHTS to open cokacola.me -- because Coka Cola is a brand name, and has Trademark copyrights on it.

Have no clue how it goes with "backward" copyright but.. weird.

[insane_alien]

looking on their site, particularly here i think that they are the ones cybersquatting.

thats probably what they want with your domain. fight them, you'll win.

[mooeypoo]

Well, they can't buy the domain without our approval, so I don't even want to answer them.

[insane_alien]

try googling to see if there is a site where you can report them. it definitely comes under unfair business practices.

[mooeypoo]

UPDATE: Apparently, my site was hacked and a fraudulent .htaccess page was inserted there.

Interesting, eh?

[insane_alien]

glad thats sorted out then. though it was a bit embarassing when i tried to get to the malware site on a virtual instance of XP and nothing happened.

quickly found another one though.

[mooeypoo]

You're so sweet -- Here I am fixing the problem and you complain you couldn't demonstrate on it.

Nerds, pff.


;)

[Sayonara³]

Don't reply. If a large company wants to buy your domain, then the first contact they have with you should be by letter from their legal representatives, not an email that makes no sense from someone who cannot spell.

[walduran]

I got the same message today, tell me what to do?

-----Mensaje original-----
De: tom.zou [mailto:tom.zou@boxs.asia]
Enviado el: Jueves, 11 de Septiembre de 2008 01:44 a.m.
Para: tome
Asunto: frome website

asunto: About brand name protection

cometarios: Dear Mr/Miss,We received a formal application from a company who
is called Meiao Co.,Ltd < www.meiaoinv.cn > are applying to register
"mydomainname" as their domain name and Internet keyword in China and also in Asia on Sep 10, 2008.

During our auditing procedure we find out that the
alleged Meiao Co.,Ltd has no trade mark, brand nor patent even similar to
that word.. Hence we need you confirmation for two things, First of all,
whether this alleged Meiao Co.,Ltd is your business partner or distributor
in China. Secondly, whether you are interested in registering these domains.

(The alleged Meiao Co.,Ltd will be entitled to obtain a domain not needed by
original trademark owner)This is a letter for confirmation. If we haven't
receive your reply. We will automatically confirm application from your
business partner after this audit procedure.If you are not in charge of this
please transfer this email to appropriate dept.

Thanks for your
cooperation

Bst Rgs Mr zouWorld DomainBox GroupTel: +86-10-80747734Fax:
+86-10-80747824Email:tom.zou@boxs.asia
http://www.boxs.org....//www.boxs.asia

[iNow]

ignore it