My experinence with scammers

[crang]

A few days ago I received an email from one guy who introduced himself as a president of a hosting company who started to invest in a good domain names. So far so good. He said that he wants to buy one of my domains and asked me if I'm willing to sell it. I said that this domain is not for sale right now. In the next email from him, he asked me if I would accept five figure offer for it. This was the first sign that something was not right. Imagine that you have no experience with sell/buy domains or low experience with the global web. You will go straight ahead and probably will burn with some amount of money. So I decided to investigate further (I always do that) who is this guy and his company. I checked the domain from his email account and saw that its redirecting to a hosting company (all his domains where from this type: keyword-keyword-keyword.tld and were registered a few months ago with close dates of registration. Scam flag 2). In the next email I replied that I've already ordered a domain appraisals for my domains and will contact him soon. He asked me if I'm a member of a domain forum communities and am I an experienced seller (scam flag 3). I replied, no, I'm not either. He said that its okay and nothing to worry about (scam flag 4), that he is not a newbie and will not accept any free or automated valuations and asked me to check a few "forum" posts. He gave me a link (the domain was from the same type described above) to his posts and a few replies from some "other" guys who recommend a domain market COMPANY (scam flag 5). Again, the "forum" domain redirected me (scam flag 6) to a real forum when I checked only the domain. I decided to see how further this guy will go and said that I already have my Sedo appraisals and I'm ready to accept his price (Sedo appraisal showed the REAL price of the domain. Scam flag 7). As a final, he replied that he will NOT accept this appraisal and recommended me appraisal from the company mentioned in the "forum" posts, because only they can do checking for trademark infringement – this was the final scam flag.

I think that this is a smart scam scheme to catch inexperienced people and to rip them off. Do you had similar experience?

If someone is interested I can send all my conversation with this "buyer" on pm. I have no direct proof, so I can't post conversation and links here.

 

[stewie]

:frusty: don't waste your time with emails like that... JMO

 

[vinsdomains.com]

Total appraisal scam. Happened to me in March of this year - see this thread - http://www.dnforum.com/f34/newbies-learn-first-dont-get-taken-old-appraisal-scam-thread-478946.html

 

[crang]

Total appraisal scam. Happened to me in March of this year - see this thread - http://www.dnforum.com/f34/newbies-learn-first-dont-get-taken-old-appraisal-scam-thread-478946.html

I think this is the same guy that tried to rip me off He sent me the same "blog" link

 

[Biggie]

these scams depend on the seller being desperate to make a domain sale.


and when one is anxious, they tend to forget about doing research

 

[Theo]

I've sold generic domains totaling $xx,xxx to a hosting company, but they never asked for an appraisal - who would? When you receive such emails, either ignore them or ask them to pay for the appraisal themselves and watch them disappear like thin air.

 

[Johnn]

Your email should have the "report as spam" or "delete" icons. Use them.

 

[katherine]

It's the famous domain appraisal scam. They have been running this scam for many years.

 

[crang]

It's the famous domain appraisal scam. They have been running this scam for many years.

For sure, I guess it works very well if they're still applying it

 

[DigiNames]

Can confirm...total scam.

 

[katherine]

For sure, I guess it works very well if they're still applying it

They seem to be targeting the new registrations. Perhaps they also focus on domains that are parked on PPC.
There is no shortage of newcomers to the industry