This domain scam from eWorld is getting better and better… Seth Godin is trying to register calacanis.kr!??!!? :-)

Shoot! Caught again.

Danny promised he wouldn’t tell anyone about my plan to
quietly, subtly and without being noticed corner the market in
Calcanis domains. Then, having a monopoly, I could resell them
at a huge profit!!!

Next step: Obama.tv…

I doubt it is actually Seth Godin!?

Lets assume they don’t have any trojans on their web site
and are legitimately selling domain names.
Then they have a pretty innovative social engineering marketing
scheme. Find domains registered in US and make sure they get
registered for all other countries as well.
The only trick is to make it look like there is someone else
interested…

I wonder if they would be willing to send some money to
Nigeria if it were necessary, hypothetically speaking, to
unlock some funds to buy all the domains in question…
hehe

I also got an email like this for zenbe.com. The list of
domains is slightly different, and a bit longer, but other
than that its identical.

Its a very interesting scam. Wonder how successful it is.

I got a similar email from EWorld this week too.

i got the same e-mail From E-world this weeek..
who else know about this company?

do you think cannon, mercedes benz, the nba, samsung or microsoft know that this scam site is using their names and listing them as clients? It’s interesting. It does make me wonder how many people get suckered into their little schemes.

For anyone else who has gotten this email (I got mine today) did anyone else look up the company interested in buying their domain names? The one EWorld “warned” me about is specifically listed as a trojan company for these scam artists.

They need to learn to use google so they’ll figure out that we’re onto them!!

got it today. sent with read-receipt requested to an email address scraped off our site… *sigh*

Hello,

I’m a little confused. Was the term “calacanis” trademarked by someone else before another party started registering domains using it as the second level domain?

Ya, they tried to get us too, and I believed them and went so
far as to even call them in HK…. and then they replied with
their pricelist …. Hmmmm … Yes, thank goodness for your
comments and support here.
A very convincing scam.

This is all very confusing. On the one hand, Danny says there is no trademark, and then in another post he says there is. I can’t figure out what is going on with this.

yesterday I got the same email.
I won’t answer. And this is my advice to all
Google helps to find out the truth about this company

Got the same eworld.hk email text, today,
from “Edison Chao, Auditing Department”
claiming “HUBO Holdings Ltd”
wanted to register a hk version of my domain name,
which is registered in Canada.

From another thread somewhere (I forget where) I think I might know what’s going on here. This is only a guess, but I think the sender is trying to convey the false impression to people who own a single domain that someone is trying to obtain other domains with the same 2nd level name but different extensions. Such activity could in theory violate trademarks, or result in siphoning of traffic. The idea is probably to get you to “register” a bunch of additional extensions with the author, even though the author is probably not a registrar. In other words, I think this is a pure scam to steal the recipient’s money.

I’m a little confused.
If you think this is a pure scam to steal the recipient’s
money. What evidence is here? If you have pay some money
for them, and them have not help you register the domain
names, Then you can say that is a scam, right?
So, It seems to me, that only a Business practices. you
can not asperse others company.

Hi Jack,

Unless the letter writer happens to be the registrar or host associated with calacanis.com, and by chance happened to uncover the issue, there is a very high probability that this is a scam. I’m aware of no registrars that monitor for this type of activity on behalf of people who are not already clients, and the odds of even the registrar associated with calacanis.com making this connection are next to nothing. The implication is that the letter writer is most probably trying to scare the recipient into “registering” the extra extensions, even though the sender is not a registrar. In other words, it is very likely that this is pure fraud.

I am not listing my website for security reasons, but I just got the same email and it looks like this guys are trying to make me register my domain names through them via their scam.

I registered the domain names I thougth were necessary and crucial for my business through my hosting company for 1/10th of what Eworld was asking for. The company they listed as the other
interested party does not exist.

BE CAREFUL AND REPORT THEM TO THEIR WHOLESELLER WHICH IS TUCOWS.COM

Hi All, We had this same email come through today for our company name. Knew it was a scam straight off, as I have seen them before.
Has anyone checked out WHOIS for eworld.hk?
They own 220 domains and have only been registered themselves since February this year and their registration runs out next year.
You’d think that if they were legit, that they would register themselves for more than a year.

I think the combination of factors here really points to a pure scam (trying to frighten people to pay for additional extensions), even though the letter sender is probably not a registrar and so cannot even provide the extra extensions (in other words, it sounds like pure fraud to me).

The factors I am considering in reaching this conclusion are:

(1) The extremely low likelihood that a real registrar would catch this kind of issue, and then report it to the current domain owner.

(2) Other “companies” are engaging in the same practice.

(3) The high prices being quoted.

(4) The fact that the leter is originating in China, which has very weak enforcement of online scams.

My advice is to not let these companies scare you into buying extansions you don’t need,and when necessary or practical, add extensions to your portfolio via service ticket at your domain registrar or internet registry (whatever source you orginaly obtained domain name from).

I got this same scam from Oliver – Auditing dept, eworld, hk

I’m beginning to see alot of these emails coming from Asia, especially China. I wonder why these emails always seem to come from that region. At any rate, my opinion remains the same. It’s just a way to try to steal money without providing any services whatsoever.

This is definitely a marketing scam. Clever…