I get scam / spam email contacts all the time with "interest" in domain names I own and many include scammers trying to get you to do an appraisal. Rule # 1, never pay for an appraisal, no questions asked! Some people just have odd intentions and are hard to detect why they are contacting you but picking out contacts that can be harmful to you or simply waste your time is something easily avoided.
Example Email:
Email I got this morning from "QualityDomainInvestments.com"
Subject: Domain Name Offer
The subject a lone should be one clue. Domain name offer is very wide ranged term and when spammers / scammers send out emails… they do it in BULK, so seeing a subject like this should flag off the bat!
Dear Domain Owner,
They got your contact information some place (likely whois) and if it was via whois, they should know your Name or Company Name! Doing bulk look-up’s via whois is easier to just grab email address and not "your name". Dear Domain Owner should be flag number 2 that this a BS email contact! The majority of times, a real interested party will use your name or company name.
Digging A Little
The email address is often a free service (yahoo, gmail, hotmail, live etc) but in this case, it was an actual domain name. Doing a quick whois can easily lead to another flag and QualityDomainInvestments.com flops up flag # 3. Doing a whois search, the domain name was just registered on 3/7/2011 (8 days ago). Spammers switch domain names all the time because they have articles like this written about them, people report the domains they use etc. A newly registered domain name they are contacting you from should be a flag.
More Digging
Email headers. Right click on the email message in your inbox and select Properties. Look for a number like this 213.163.90.22 in the received section by the email address. This is the IP Address location of where the email came from. Use IP2Location.com and look up the GEO location of where it came from. In my case, the owner said t hey were from "Australia" but IP2Location tells me differently, NETHERLANDS. This could simply be because of the hosting company they use, but it can be helpful.
Typo’s
Spammers are in a hurry to screw you and in the hurry, they often make typo’s. They also fail to be consistent.
Format
Notice the spacing and location of the domain name below in the email that I got. Typical of an "insert here" style script for bulk emails.
Google It
Use the power of Google and search the main things in the email like:
- Name of person
- Email Address
- Domain Name used to contact you
- Phone Number
- Business Location (address)
Here is the full email that I got this morning.
"Dear domain owner,
I am interested in buying the domain.
r19.net
I would like to offer you 25 months multiple of its current revenue.
If you wish to discuss my offer further, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Best regards,
Marcus Rosenstein
Quality Domain Investments
26 Bayvview Crescent
Melbourne, Victoria 3193
Australia"
Clearly somebody coming out of the blue, offering "25 months multiples of it’s current revenue" instead of a price.. should be a flag. How do they know it isn’t making $25,000,000. Are they really going to pay 25x $25 Million? Nope!
I think in this case, the person is doing bulk whois checks on "short domains" and is simply contacting people to try and get a "sucker". If you send out thousands and thousands, you will likely find at least a couple.
Here are some more examples of spam / scam emails that I have covered
Spamming newly registered domains… trying to get you to purchase a "similar domain"! AddDomainNames.com Article on DotWeekly
TheNamePros.com domain name scam
TheDomainInvestors.com domain name appraisal scam
Trick Scam ~ ISP Renewal
The above are just a few examples and there are many different styles, so use the tips provided above to help detect them and save you time and potentially money!
BullS
Another scam here!!!! from china
(***************************************
“lawsuit@addleslawcenter.com”
Add sender to Contacts
March 16, 2011
Addles Law Center
2 Orchard Turn #04-05 ION
Orchard Singapore 238801
“lawsuit@addleslawcenter.com”
Add sender to Contacts
To Administrator
On the link below is a copy of the lawsuit that we filed against you in court on March 15, 2011.
Currently the Pretrail Conference is scheduled for March 21th, 2011 at 10:30 AM in courtroom #9.
The case number is 353180.The reason the lawsuit was filed was due to a completely inadequate response from your company for copyright
infringement that our client Low partner ltd is a victim of.
http://www.addleslawcenter.com/353180.doc
Low partner ltd has a proof of multiple Copyright Law violations that they wish to present in court on March 21th, 2011.
sincerely,
Addles Law Center
Addles Law Center LLC
************************who is***********
Domain name: addleslawcenter.com
Registrant Contact:
Whois Privacy Protection Service
Whois Agent tvjwipbwcc@whoisservices.cn
+86.05922577888 fax: +86.05922577111
No. 61 Wanghai Road, Xiamen Software Park
xiamen fujian 361008
cn
Feroz
Yes, i receive same email, i think 100% SPAM & SCAM.
Marcus Rosenstein
Dear Jamie,
I would like to assure you, that we are not another appraisal scam.
We are looking for revenue/traffic based deals on domains, that are monetized through parking.
If you provide us the stats for the domain you get inquiry for, we will come up with a real price (basically a multiple of revenue, if parked, if monetized otherwise, based on amount of traffic it gets).
We are also willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement first, if you think your stats are too sensitive.
For the transfer we want to use trustworthy service as Escrow.com or Moniker Escrow.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Regards,
Marcus
Jamie Zoch
@Marcus,
Why didn’t you reply to my email then that I sent you? Why didn’t you state in the email you were looking for “traffic/revenue domains” instead of just whois spamming random domains? Nothing indicates that the domain you used to contact me would have any traffic, so wouldn’t you think it is important to contact domains with traffic? Why didn’t you make an offer? If you were to visit the domain and click the for sale link, you would clearly see the offering price!
Marcus Rosenstein
Jamie,
thanks for your advices, we will update the mailing system to make the emails more clear.
Sorry for not answering your email, maybe it ended up in spam filter. I cant find any email signed as Jamie, Zoch or anything like that.
If you are interested in selling your names for the mentioned multiple (25M revenue), please simply send me an email (altogether with stats for last 3 months) so we can process the deal further.
Since you got multiple emails from us, I guess you are using domain privacy, since if we have multiple domains we are interested in wit the same email, we put them all together into one message so we dont spam the mailbox with multiple emails (if you have your email address listed with all the domains you got emailed about, please let us know, so we can fix our system).
Regards,
Marcus
Jamie Zoch
@Marcus,
I replied with the email address you had emailed me with. The one you got via whois, so no, privacy wasn’t on the domain. It would be funny if it went in your spam folder, when you were the one sending out (like hundreds) of emails doing bulk whois look ups to scrape email addresses.
Marcus Rosenstein
Jamie,
could you please resend the email and refer to this conversation, if you are interested?
We are contacting larger number of domain owners and I am not able to find this one particular email (although i tried).
Marcus
Erni
Subject: Domain names offer
From: marcus.rosenstein@qualitydomaininvestments.com
Dear domain owner,
I am interested in buying the following domain names.
aourceforge.net
fonduit.com
googgleusercontent.com
I would like to offer you 25 months multiple of its current revenue.
If you wish to discuss my offer further, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Best regards,
Marcus Rosenstein
Quality Domain Investments
26 Bayvview Crescent
Melbourne, Victoria 3193
Australia
Jamie Zoch
@Marcus,
Since it is clear that you are doing bulk, automated whois look-ups and obtaining domain name owners email address and contacting people with the data in an automated process via email, you should be aware of the following: “By submitting a Whois query, you agree to abide
by the following terms of use: You agree that you may use this Data only
for lawful purposes and that under no circumstances will you use this Data
to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail, telephone,
or facsimile; or (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes“
Marcus Rosenstein
I strongly disagree, since it is a seriously meant business offer.
Regards,
Marcus
Jamie Zoch
@Marcus,
How can you say it’s a “serious” business offer, when you are doing bulk whois scans to grab email address, but you do not even know if the domain name HAS TRAFFIC! Your only going to make an offer if somebody provides you stats. You don’t even have a clue if the domain owners are your contacting, if the domain even has any traffic. Get serious Marcus! At least contact domains that have TRAFFIC if you only intend to buy traffic/revenue producing domains!
Valery
Marcus, it post for case if your spam filter will drop my mail
.
Hi, Marcus.
This domain isn’t parked at the moment, so if you want to buy it, tell me price in USD what you want to pay for it.
Sat, 19 Mar 2011 06:45:14 +0000 (UTC) письмо от marcus.rosenstein@qualitydomaininvestments.com:
> Dear domain owner,
>
> I am interested in buying the domain.
>
> butauto.com
>
> I would like to offer you 25 months multiple of its current revenue.
> If you wish to discuss my offer further, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
>
> Best regards,
> Marcus Rosenstein
> Quality Domain Investments
> 26 Bayvview Crescent
> Melbourne, Victoria 3193
> Australia
Best regards.
Valery http://www.headtel.ru