website buying scam

Posted At : September 9, 2008 1:14 PM
Related Categories: Web Dev

I have been getting a LOT of emails lately from people supposedly interested in buying my domain name or web site. I am currently the email contact for hundreds of domains from old clients (long story).

Lately I have been getting an email like such:

subject: Domain Purchasing OR Website Selling OR Your Website

Hello,

I am interested in purchasing your website [removed].com and if you want to sell it, please give me your phone number, so I can call you! I have cash to buy today!

If you are interested, please reply to [removed] as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance

The body email is slightly different. It could be 'Browsing on the internet I came across...' or they may spell website 'web site'. The email address listed is different each time thus far.

It is the almost exact same email now for a number of unrelated sites. I can 100% guarantee they are not looking to buy these sites. If you find yourself getting an email like this be very suspicious.

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As a counter-argument, I successfully sold a domain name I was using as an email collector for a 4 figure sum several years ago. Like the emails you cite, this offer came out of the blue, but I checked it out and matched the buyer up to a PR firm in New York. The transaction was completed via PayPal and was completely legit. As with anything online, use your brain before giving up something of value to a total stranger.

# Posted By Peter Mularien | 9/9/08 1:29 PM

Quite true. I have had real offers before too, though none to completion of sale. Its the recent rash of them that has me concerned. :-)

# Posted By Joshua | 9/9/08 1:36 PM

I have gotten a half dozen of these e-mails. I responded to the first such message on September 8 by going to a Yahoo account and sending this message:

"Is your name Hadley Little? Or Cringle Arturo? Of Barbara Musante?

In my experience it isn't a very good use of my time to do business with people who can't provide their true identities. It is sort of a trust buster from the start.

If you even know who I am (that is, assuming you didn't just mass broadcast your bogus offer), you are free to get back to me with a firm offer price for the domain in question, your name, your address, your listed landline number and the name of the attorney at the US law firm that will be representing you on a sale. Then and only then will I consider responding to your so called offer."

As you can see from my response, I was suspicious of the presence of three different names in the header fields and body of the message all of which purported to relate to the sender. The same pattern appears to characterize the e-mails which have followed. Needless to say I never heard back from any of these three individuals although my response was sent to all three unique e-mail addresses.

These is no doubt that these offers are fraudulent; the more interesting question is what the perpetrators are doing. Perhaps they are trying to harvest e-mail addresses from the responses. Whatever the motivation, I would advise all to stay well clear of these messages. Indeed, I am going to change my contact e-mail at network solutions (and shut down the old contact address-- it helps to run your own mail server) to see if that solves the problem once and for all.

# Posted By Bill Wood | 9/11/08 3:30 PM

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