Apparently these types of emails have been going out for awhile, but this is the first time I’ve seen one. Someone that I know just received an email similar to this:

Dear XXX, We are the registration and solution center in China. We have an important issue to confirm with you. On July 25th, 2012, we formally received an application, one company which called “FAKE COMPANY NAME” are applying to register “yourdomain.com” as Web brand and Domain names: yourdomain.cn / .com.cn / .net.cn / .org.cn / .hk / .com.hk / .in / .tw / .com.tw / .asia After our preliminary investigation, we found the brand name and these domain names being applied are as same as your company’s, so we wonder whether your company consigned FAKE COMPANY NAME to register these domain names with us? 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 10 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by “FAKE COMPANY NAME” unconditionally.Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any question.

Right… Well, besides the obvious (spelling and grammatical errors), does this seem a bit fishy to anyone else?

“Hey there! You’ve never heard from us before, but we figured we’d turn down someones business to help your protect your own brand name! We’re offering you a unique opportunity to register these domain names before your competitor snatches them up!”

This company is pretending to be doing you a favor by giving you a heads up that some bogus company is attempting to infringe on your business name. They’re giving you the “opportunity” to purchase these domains first in order to protect your brand. It’s a pretty shady way to conduct business if you ask me. I hope that anyone who receives an email like this will do some research and ultimately not give the company any business.

I’m not even gonna give them the benefit of a backlink, but the company that sent this email out was niokow.com. In my research, I’ve seen similar emails coming from other domains as well. Anyway, it’s probably a good thing to be aware of.