An 11-year-old computer whizzkid has embarrassed Waterford Crystal by taking thousands of inquiries for its luxury crystal goods after setting up a website using its name.
James Stell, of East Finchley, north London, set up the site - waterfordcrystal.com - on December 2nd. He claims that 500 people a day have visited the site since, attempting to place orders worth £40,000 a week.
A Waterford Crystal spokesman said the company had registered an exclusive right to the company domain on the Internet in March 1996. However, a number of new domain registration authorities have been formed since then and the Geneva-based Internet Council of Registrars, which registered the schoolboy's website, must not have been aware of the registration. There was no legal basis for anyone else using the domain name.
The spokesman said: "We applaud young James for his enterprise and his quite obvious entrepreneurial spirit.
"The company will be in contact with him in the near future to see how we can resolve this anomaly amicably."
Waterford Crystal's website address is waterford-us.com. A review of the site would now be undertaken, the spokesman said.