I recently found a domain name that I wanted for a business venture I'm starting. The landing page was in Chinese, but with the help of Google translate I could see that the domain was for sale. I clicked on the button to submit a bid and was presented with a form in Chinese. With the help of Google translate I was able to understand the form. One of the required fields was a phone number, and I could not figure out a format for the phone number so I could not submit the form. This stymied me for a few days, but after a few days I went back and started looking through the JavaScript used on the page to validate the phone number. I found the regular expression being used and I was able to enter a correct sequence of digits to satisfy the form validation. For the price, I offered the equivalent of USD $1000, converted to Chinese Yuan. I hadn't heard back the next day, so I looked again. I noticed (duh) that there was also an email link on the page. It was a generic email @ename.com. I sent an email indicating that I was interested in purchasing the domain.
I got a quick response- and they offered the domain to me for about $400. I'm guessing they didn't see my original offer (yay) but all sorts of red flags were starting to go off. The domain name is a 4-letter name that has an important acronym as part of the name, and at the same time phonetically sounds like a fun word. Short of having that actual word for the domain name, this is almost ideal for this name. In other words- $400 was a bargain. Probably the Chinese owner did not recognize the phonetic significance of the word. (Contrast that to another domain I'm trying to purchase from a US owner. The "minimum bid" was $900, and when I bid the owner countered with $50,000 haha. And we are probably going to bite the bullet and buy that one- but that's another story).
Needless to say, I was wary about dealing with this Chinese domain service. Googling ename.com I found several things:
- They are an accredited registrar
- They have run afoul of ICANN policies in the past and there is some public "shaming" of them for that. But this appeared procedural not necessarily a sign of ill-repute. And it was several years ago and they're still accredited.
- More concerning- ename.com seems to be notorious for being a marketplace for hijacked names. But I also read some instances where original owners have been successful getting those names returned. In other words- this seems to be a typical Chinese marketplace. Buyer beware.
- But I wasn't finding anything about people's experience purchasing names through them, except a few very old anecdotes with mixed results.
I accepted the offer and started the process of registering, paying for the name and then transferring it. Bottom line: I now have the domain tucked securely into my US registrar. But the process was unnerving. If it was a more significant amount of money I would have been reluctant to go through with this.
The ename.com web site is 100% Chinese- no translation. Being a large registrar, auction and escrow site- you would think they have enough Western customers that they’d need to accommodate English speakers. In fact, I had to wonder if that was part of “the scam” (it wasn’t thankfully).
I kept an email dialog going with the person “Jenny” who originally responded with the offer. She even volunteered to see if the domain owner would accept a lower amount- and they did! This took about $20 off the price. This seemed kind of “scammy”. So Jenny gave me a final price and told me that I needed to create an account on ename.com. Between some screen shots she sent me (there were a couple dozen of those through this whole process) and google translate, creating an account wasn’t too difficult. They even had an “international template” that let me put my US phone number for the domain information (but it didn’t use that for other purposes which became a problem later on).
Now it came time to pay- I had to put roughly $400 into my escrow account. They have links to lots of Chinese banks and payment services. One of the services says PayPal and another says Western Union. Clicking on those- they were not PayPal or Western Union. They were Chinese equivalents (legit though). Its humorous that they would refer to them as PayPal and Western Union on their web site. I actually tried to use both of those sites but neither of them would accept my US credit cards (living dangerous here haha).
I emailed Jenny and explained my difficulty paying- and she emailed me back with bank information for a wire transfer. The bank account was in Hong Kong in the name of the ename.com owner. Well there’s a red flag. It was a dollar account making the transfer easier. I was able to go to my bank’s website and initiate a wire transfer (realizing that I was gambling with my $400). Jenny had said something about me paying bank fees- and my bank indicated there could be fees on the receiving side and they estimated $20. I just rounded up to $400- which added about $25 for fees. My bank also charged me $25 I think for the wire transfer fee.
This was Thursday night and on Monday Jenny emailed me that they received the transfer. At this point they had my money and, if they wanted, could just pretend I didn’t exist. Fortunately that didn’t happen- but I was still a long way from owning the domain.
Jenny sent me more screen shots telling me what I needed to do to formally accept the offer and initiate the escrow process. This was fairly straightforward using google translate in my Chrome browser to help with the process (there were instances though where I had to go back to Chinese and use Jenny’s screen shots as a reference). This went smoothly until the security/validation steps. There were three problems:
This time Jenny said that I could allow them to go into my account and push the name for me. Of course I would never let anyone do this normally- but I didn’t see any other way. I was still half expecting that my $400 would be stolen. But it also didn’t make sense that they would stick with me this long if their intention was just steal my money. If they started needing more money for other things, then of course that would mean it was a scam. But that never happened. Jenny was also very patient/helpful- she responded to every one of my emails and had better English than most of the Chinese vendors I’ve dealt with.
Once I gave the approval, the domain quickly got “pushed” out of my account- I no longer owned the domain haha gulp. Its also telling that she could have gone into my account any time she wanted- but waited until I gave her explicit permission. This was building my confidence.
Now I initiated the transfer into my registrar, getting the auth code and other details. I sent that info to Jenny and she said they’d take care of the transfer and thanked me for my business.
This is supposed to take up to 7 days, and I waited 3 days plus a weekend. I was starting to get a little nervous when the transfer hadn’t yet completed. Last night (morning in China) I emailed Jenny to ask about the status. This morning I woke up and the transfer had been approved. The domain name is locked away securely in my registrar, and I never paid a nickel more than the price I was quoted plus reasonable bank fees.
Ename.com had surprisingly thorough (and friendly) customer service- given that the language barrier was large and their entire process is designed for domestic Chinese use. Not a single email from me went unanswered- and every response was prompt. I have to say I am impressed. But- if ename.com is going to do business with the west they will certainly need a translated, international-aware web site, payment options and processes. I would never take that risk with more significant dollar amounts. But it seems they can be trusted with legitimate business- even though the site may host some domain hijackers as well.
In this case, I’m a happy customer of ename.com.
I got a quick response- and they offered the domain to me for about $400. I'm guessing they didn't see my original offer (yay) but all sorts of red flags were starting to go off. The domain name is a 4-letter name that has an important acronym as part of the name, and at the same time phonetically sounds like a fun word. Short of having that actual word for the domain name, this is almost ideal for this name. In other words- $400 was a bargain. Probably the Chinese owner did not recognize the phonetic significance of the word. (Contrast that to another domain I'm trying to purchase from a US owner. The "minimum bid" was $900, and when I bid the owner countered with $50,000 haha. And we are probably going to bite the bullet and buy that one- but that's another story).
Needless to say, I was wary about dealing with this Chinese domain service. Googling ename.com I found several things:
- They are an accredited registrar
- They have run afoul of ICANN policies in the past and there is some public "shaming" of them for that. But this appeared procedural not necessarily a sign of ill-repute. And it was several years ago and they're still accredited.
- More concerning- ename.com seems to be notorious for being a marketplace for hijacked names. But I also read some instances where original owners have been successful getting those names returned. In other words- this seems to be a typical Chinese marketplace. Buyer beware.
- But I wasn't finding anything about people's experience purchasing names through them, except a few very old anecdotes with mixed results.
I accepted the offer and started the process of registering, paying for the name and then transferring it. Bottom line: I now have the domain tucked securely into my US registrar. But the process was unnerving. If it was a more significant amount of money I would have been reluctant to go through with this.
The ename.com web site is 100% Chinese- no translation. Being a large registrar, auction and escrow site- you would think they have enough Western customers that they’d need to accommodate English speakers. In fact, I had to wonder if that was part of “the scam” (it wasn’t thankfully).
I kept an email dialog going with the person “Jenny” who originally responded with the offer. She even volunteered to see if the domain owner would accept a lower amount- and they did! This took about $20 off the price. This seemed kind of “scammy”. So Jenny gave me a final price and told me that I needed to create an account on ename.com. Between some screen shots she sent me (there were a couple dozen of those through this whole process) and google translate, creating an account wasn’t too difficult. They even had an “international template” that let me put my US phone number for the domain information (but it didn’t use that for other purposes which became a problem later on).
Now it came time to pay- I had to put roughly $400 into my escrow account. They have links to lots of Chinese banks and payment services. One of the services says PayPal and another says Western Union. Clicking on those- they were not PayPal or Western Union. They were Chinese equivalents (legit though). Its humorous that they would refer to them as PayPal and Western Union on their web site. I actually tried to use both of those sites but neither of them would accept my US credit cards (living dangerous here haha).
I emailed Jenny and explained my difficulty paying- and she emailed me back with bank information for a wire transfer. The bank account was in Hong Kong in the name of the ename.com owner. Well there’s a red flag. It was a dollar account making the transfer easier. I was able to go to my bank’s website and initiate a wire transfer (realizing that I was gambling with my $400). Jenny had said something about me paying bank fees- and my bank indicated there could be fees on the receiving side and they estimated $20. I just rounded up to $400- which added about $25 for fees. My bank also charged me $25 I think for the wire transfer fee.
This was Thursday night and on Monday Jenny emailed me that they received the transfer. At this point they had my money and, if they wanted, could just pretend I didn’t exist. Fortunately that didn’t happen- but I was still a long way from owning the domain.
Jenny sent me more screen shots telling me what I needed to do to formally accept the offer and initiate the escrow process. This was fairly straightforward using google translate in my Chrome browser to help with the process (there were instances though where I had to go back to Chinese and use Jenny’s screen shots as a reference). This went smoothly until the security/validation steps. There were three problems:
- It had me enter a security question- I used my Grandmother’s first name. That worked fine but every screen from then on asked for my Grandmother’s first name AND an “ID password”. I have no idea what that ID password is and Jenny never answered that question. The best I can guess is that the google-translated form omitted a field and their site accepted it- putting me in a stuck mode. I could find no way to edit/reset this.
- The phone number became an issue again. It wanted to do SMS verification but would only accept Chinese phone numbers. Jenny didn’t seem to understand this as she instructed me to enter an 11-digit phone number a couple times. But again in the Javascript I could see that the 11 digits it was looking for were based on domestic Chinese prefixes.
- They have a step requiring you to submit a photo holding your ID for identify validation. The form required you enter the ID number- and it would not accept my passport # or my California driver’s license number. I assume the number it wants is a Chinese domestic ID number. So I emailed Jenny my ugly mug shot haha.
This time Jenny said that I could allow them to go into my account and push the name for me. Of course I would never let anyone do this normally- but I didn’t see any other way. I was still half expecting that my $400 would be stolen. But it also didn’t make sense that they would stick with me this long if their intention was just steal my money. If they started needing more money for other things, then of course that would mean it was a scam. But that never happened. Jenny was also very patient/helpful- she responded to every one of my emails and had better English than most of the Chinese vendors I’ve dealt with.
Once I gave the approval, the domain quickly got “pushed” out of my account- I no longer owned the domain haha gulp. Its also telling that she could have gone into my account any time she wanted- but waited until I gave her explicit permission. This was building my confidence.
Now I initiated the transfer into my registrar, getting the auth code and other details. I sent that info to Jenny and she said they’d take care of the transfer and thanked me for my business.
This is supposed to take up to 7 days, and I waited 3 days plus a weekend. I was starting to get a little nervous when the transfer hadn’t yet completed. Last night (morning in China) I emailed Jenny to ask about the status. This morning I woke up and the transfer had been approved. The domain name is locked away securely in my registrar, and I never paid a nickel more than the price I was quoted plus reasonable bank fees.
Ename.com had surprisingly thorough (and friendly) customer service- given that the language barrier was large and their entire process is designed for domestic Chinese use. Not a single email from me went unanswered- and every response was prompt. I have to say I am impressed. But- if ename.com is going to do business with the west they will certainly need a translated, international-aware web site, payment options and processes. I would never take that risk with more significant dollar amounts. But it seems they can be trusted with legitimate business- even though the site may host some domain hijackers as well.
In this case, I’m a happy customer of ename.com.
Though you succeeded but i dont think i have that cool and patience in me.
