Domain renewal scams to watch for

Two types of email scam target business owners specifically because they own a domain name. Both look official. Neither is.

Fake domain renewal invoices

You receive an invoice that looks like it’s from a domain registrar, saying your domain is about to expire and asking you to pay to renew it. The catch: it’s from a completely different company, not your actual registrar.

Paying it doesn’t renew your domain — it either transfers it to the scammer’s registrar (sometimes called “domain slamming”) or you simply lose the money.

How to tell it’s a scam:

• The sender is a company you’ve never dealt with.
• The renewal price is much higher than normal (domain names typically renew for $20–$60 per year for common extensions).
• The invoice arrives much earlier than your actual renewal date.

What to do: Contact us before paying any domain renewal invoice you didn’t expect. We manage domain renewals for our clients and will invoice you directly when the time comes.

Chinese domain scam emails

This scam has been circulating since at least 2005 and is still active. You receive an email — often with broken English — from someone claiming to represent a Chinese domain registration agency. The email tells you that a Chinese company is about to register your brand name under Asian domain extensions (.cn, .com.cn, .asia, .tw, .hk, and others) and gives you a short window — usually seven days — to act first.

The goal is to scare you into paying to “protect” your brand in China.

What a scam email looks like

The emails follow the same pattern every time:

• Broken English — grammar and phrasing that a real business wouldn’t send.
• Urgency — a seven-day deadline to respond or lose your brand.
• Vague agency names — real Chinese trademark authority is the CTMO; scammers use names like “China Domain Name Registration Centre” or “Asian Domain Registration Service in China”.
• Unsolicited contact — a real IP agency would never approach you cold to warn you about a third-party application.
• High or unusual pricing — registration periods of five to ten years, well above market rates.

Here’s an example of the type of message these scams send:

“This email is from China domain name registration center… We received an application from BaoYuan Ltd… They want to register ‘yourbrand’ as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names.”

If you reply, you’ll receive an application form and quote. If you don’t proceed, expect follow-up calls and emails pressuring you to act.

What to do

If you have no business presence in China: Delete the email. Ignore any follow-ups. You will not lose your brand to a Chinese company by ignoring a cold-email scam.

If you do have business in China: Do not respond to the scam email. Seek advice from a law firm that specialises in Chinese intellectual property.

How do scammers find you? Your contact details are publicly available when you register a trademark with IP Australia, or via WHOIS lookups on your domain name.

If you’re unsure whether an email about your domain is genuine, forward it to us at help@jezweb.net and we’ll take a look.