Clever Spammers…

My staff is pretty great about filtering the constant barrage of telemarketers, junk mail and spam mail for me. I’d say about 1/4 of our daily calls are someone calling saying “Have I got a deal for you small business owner… oh you aren’t the owner? Well put her on the phone”. Every once in a while, something that looks legitimate gets past the filters and ends up in my inbox for review. I received one such email today that, I have to admit, even had me second guessing it. I’ve posted it here in case someone receives the same:

(If you are NOT CEO,please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent.Thanks.)
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 27, 2009, One company which self-styled “Rose Soft Inc.” are applying to register “daisytwist” as internet brand and CN domain names as below :
 daisytwist.asia    
 daisytwist.cn    
 daisytwist.com.cn    
 daisytwist.com.hk    
 daisytwist.com.tw    
 daisytwist.hk    
 daisytwist.in    
 daisytwist.net.cn    
 daisytwist.org.cn    
 daisytwist.tw    
After our initial examination, we found that the internet brand applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it, hope to get the affirmation from your company. If your company and this”Rose Soft Inc”as the same company,there is no need reply to us,We will accept their application and will register those for them immediately.
If your company has no relationships with that company nor do not authorized,please reply to us within 7 workdays,if we can’t get any information from yours over 7 workdays,we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by “Rose Soft Inc”.
Thanks for your cooperation.

Best Regards,

Looks legit doesn’t it? My husband and I, both with Information Technology backgrounds and degrees, even had to look at it twice. A simple Google search turned up that it is simply a scam, designed to put fear into the mind of the small business owner, thinking that they might lose their “brand” on the internet. The gist is that if you don’t snatch up these domains they will sell them to another company. OK – great!  My business is local and we don’t plan on opening any Chinese, Hong Kong, or Taiwanese affiliates so they can have those domains if they want them! 

I have to say how disheartened I am to know that we aren’t evolving as a species past scamming our neighbor out of their hard earned dollars. Worse yet, in the age of the internet, these so-called neighbors can come from as far as Hong Kong.  But what I think is even more disappointing is that we have all become so numb to this behavior and so suspect of everyone else, we always assume that the other person is on the take. 

As always, we will continue to operate Daisy Twist in a fair and just manner by providing impeccable service and open communication with our clients. I am always open to receiving comments on our service and hope to be given the opportunity to prove that we are providing a great service at a fair price. 

What I am excited about is that spring is just weeks away and this warm 70s weather today has me itching to start our season! Happy End-of-Winter to all!