[scam] domain flippers caution

[dramtulla]

aright I'll start with: most of us on here can smell a rat a mile off but just in case you left your intuition at home:

you list your domain on sedo, and receive an email like this:

Hello,

I'm interested in your domain in the subject line.

Investing in domains is a profitable business. We are in real estate business. Sometimes we buy, sometimes we resell for making a profit.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,
Andrew Murphy
Vice President
Elite Investment Group

obviously you reply.....

follow up email is as follows or similar:

Sorry for delay with answer. Our family was celebrating newborn child of my sister.

Can you accept 5,000 USD?


Do you sell domain with a web site or just the name?

Domain without content is ok with me. Web site is not necessary.

Have you had your domain names evaluated in the past? I mean domain appraisals. Without valuation we cannot be sure in the sale price. It's very important for me in terms of reselling too. But we must engage a valuation company with REAL manual service. So I will only accept valuations from independent sources I and my partners trust.

To avoid mistakes I asked domain experts about reputable appraisal companies.

Please check this blog with suggestions from other sellers and buyers:
http://domainblog.007sites.com/587412.htm

If, for example, the valuation comes higher you can adjust your asking price accordingly. It will be fair. I also hope you can give me 12% - 15% discount.

After you send me the valuation via email (usually it takes 1-2 days to obtain it) we'll continue our negotiations.

What is your preferred payment method: Escrow.com, International wire transfer, PayPal.com or something else?

Hope we can come to an agreement fast.

Looking forward to your reply.

After this point I smelled the rat piss and laugh my ass off at the blatant scamming trying to push domain appraisals, yet on the opposite side I realised the opportunity to monetise this scam further, as this retard;
1. doesn't have a website for his company 2. decent forum usage or even 3. decent English.
So I'm warning on one hand and pointing out an opportunity on the other.
Respect Fellow BHW Members!

 

[antsaoo]

Well , indeed quite stupid not to have decent website also he doesn't sound very official at all. Well in other hand if you can find domain appraisal affiliate this could be quite easy i guess . I think some newbie webmaster shit in their pants when someone is offering such amounts for their sucky website which haven made penny in 4 months and rush to get appraisal o_0

 

[werrich]

that appraisal scam has been going around for a while. A couple years ago I got 2 of those emails (2 different domains) that were virtually identical letters. The person sending them out even used the same name/important sounding title in them. THe other domain forums showed a lot of people getting the same stupid email too.

 

[dramtulla]

or charge 2x the amount off trusted domain appraisal services and claim yours in a "REAL manual service" like this dude, I'm sure some people fall for it or I guess this guy wouldn't try so hard

 

[dramtulla]

that appraisal scam has been going around for a while. A couple years ago I got 2 of those emails (2 different domains) that were virtually identical letters. The person sending them out even used the same name/important sounding title in them. THe other domain forums showed a lot of people getting the same stupid email too.

Im sure it has been around a while, just saying 1st I heard off it in my 1.5 years flipping domains, there cant be a GREAT market as he cant afford a domain for his company + a decent sounding domain to make a "dummy" forum....so unless this noob is starting out and still pisses in a cardboard makeshift pot, I guess there aint many flippers who would fall for this scam as usually domain flippers aint stupid.

 

[tonlilaz]

rofl, yeah...classic scam

but reply and say you'll take his initial offer of 5k

 

[Tom]

Im sure it has been around a while, just saying 1st I heard off it in my 1.5 years flipping domains, there cant be a GREAT market as he cant afford a domain for his company + a decent sounding domain to make a "dummy" forum....so unless this noob is starting out and still pisses in a cardboard makeshift pot, I guess there aint many flippers who would fall for this scam as usually domain flippers aint stupid.

You're misreading the email. The claim is that the link is for a discussion board post, not in anyway affiliate with an appraisal company. IMHO, linking to a comment discussion with a URL like that looks far more legitimate then if linked to "somesite.com" and on it there was only 1 forum post.

Most importantly however, the landing page is hosted on a free host. Inside the landing page people recommend the real website (domainexplorer.org). So when his free hosting gets shutdown for spam he'll just move to a new one.

And yes, this has been going on for at least 5 years now.

 

[dramtulla]

yes I didn't misread it, I just mentally bypassed it lmao! As I say us savvy net users disregard such thing as much if not more than, adverts but Tommy u did highlight a good point it is easier to relocate and cheaper to use this the scam under feeehosting