Getting an email with "interest" in your domain name is nothing new, but I have seen this style of mass email appraisal scam many times that talks about a domain appraisal in the contact email.
If you reply with your offering price, they simply reply back trying to get you to pay for an appraisal from a site They Own and never truly held any intention to purchase your domain name in the first place.
This "new" email uses the name Kevin Hill in it, with the email address being 2kevinhill@gmail.com . UPDATE: Just got another similar email and now this time a different name and email address was used. Steven Harris with the email address sharrisgo@gmail.com .
The subject of the email will be: Offer for DOMAINNAMEHERE.com
The email that I got is the following:
We are interested to buy your domain name DOMAINHERE.COM and offer to buy it from you for 80% of the appraised market value.
As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:
- fleos.com
- sedo.comIf you already have an appraisal please forward it to us.
As soon as we have received your appraisal we will send you our payment (we use paypal for amounts less than $2,000 and escrow for amounts above $2,000) as well as further instructions on how to complete the transfer of the domain name.
We appreciate your business,
Yours truly,
Kevin Hill
They stick in their own appraisal service Fleos.com (avoid) along with Sedo.com who is a Real company. Fleos.com was just created this month (7-4-2009) and holds a location of Malaysia. The best thing to do is simply delete the email or any similar email in the future! It’s a BS contact and considered a domain appraisal scam!
You can read more about past similar appraisal scam emails to help prevent you from becoming a victim and losing out on some cash. Here as well and here.
JF Mayer
Yes, I have just received one today – indeed it seems suspicious, but much more clever than the usual appraisal scam. What is surprising is that they offer also to take into consideration Sedo appraisals. Maybe just a well-thought trick. I wonder what would happen if somebody would submit a Sedo appraisal. Probably they will get enough people willing to consider Fleos and to pay for an appraisal, due to trust inspired by the association with Sedo in the same list…
Daniel Spohn
I just received this email today, and thought to google it before responding (which brought me here). Thanks for saving me time and money.
Jamie Zoch
@JF,
I think they are just using Sedo in the email as it’s likely a company many have heard of. I can promise they will push for you to get an appraisal from a site they own or “they will not buy the domain”.
Jamie Zoch
@Daniel,
Glad you decided to Google it and glad Google delivered you to DotWeekly so quickly. It is always very wise to “search” the email address of the person contacting you, which is what you did.
Lundy
Thanks so much for posting here and getting indexed by Google…I got the same email and did a search using the guy’s email addy. I’ll just report the email in my Gmail acc’t as spam.
Thanks, Lundy
Domainer
Received the mail as well and googled it too. Here i am.
Cedrick Reese
I received an email like this a few months ago.
Jamie Zoch
@Domainer,
Welcome! Glad you googled it and arrived. I also just added an update with another similar email (exact email really) just a new name and different email address. Steven Harris and sharrisgo@gmail.com as the email address used in this one.
Jamie Zoch
@Lundy,
Glad I could be of some help. Please feel free to read around DotWeekly when you have some time. I’m sure you may find a couple interesting things that I write. I have also just added a new name they are using and email address.
Ronnie M
Hey I also just received this email today, and thought to google it before responding (which brought me here). Thank you very mch for saving me time and money!!
Jamie Zoch
@Ronnie,
Glad I could be of some help. I’m sure Hundreds if not Thousands got the email, so I hope plenty more come here and make comments like you did, Lundy, Domainer, Daniel and JF have.
Viqi
Kevin Hill also visted my Inbox. I had already read you post so he is already in the delete land
Thanks for the heads up Jamie.
Keith
Hrm… Should’ve read this earlier. He just got $23 over PayPal. I’m disputing it but not sure how it goes… As long as that’s all he gets I guess it’s a start, but hopefully the money will be returned.
RFW
Thanks for this post. Very helpful, indeed.
Erik
I replied to this guy with “No thanks. Go to http://www.dotweekly.com/2009/07/29/domain-appraisal-scam-kevin-hill/ ”
Thanks so much for this site!
Erik
Keith
Got my money back.
SAL
wow, i feel like a dumbass. i got an email on the 29th also. and got an appraisal from fleos.com today, which seemed higher than i expected. on the 29th i also did a quickie appraisal at godaddy because i had 7 credits for appraisals there. fleos was 4-5 higher. well i forwarded the appraisal i received to 2kevinhill@gmail a couple hours ago. he must be laughing now. sorry i didn’t google it at the time to get to this blog. guess i got excited someone was interested in one of my domains. i dont know if i can dispute this with paypal since they did deliver an appraisal which i ordered.
SAL
well i filed a dispute at paypal. the name that the funds were paid to is (express) at customers9@gmail.com .i also included a link to this blog. we’ll see what happens.
Jamie Zoch
@Sal,
Sorry to hear this but consider it a lesson learned. Always Google the email address and see what you come up with. I would give doing a charge back via Paypal as I am sure this “Kevin Hill” has had A Lot of charge backs done to him and PP may take your side.
SAL
well i got my money refunded, fast.
email from paypal;
express has agreed to grant a $22.99 USD refund to settle this dispute. It
may take up to 5 business days for the refund amount to appear in your
account. This dispute will be closed then.
———————————–
Transaction Details
———————————–
Seller’s Name: express
Seller’s Email: davidcoleman530@gmail.com
My account was credited immediately .
SO ANYONE ELSE TAKEN FOR A RIDE, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND DISPUTE IT.
fleos.com also posts a guarantee on main page if domain is not sold for appraised price within 6 months, they will buy it. lol.
David
Thanks Jaime, just got one today from Ben “Phillips.” Exactly like the example you posted but with 3 domain appraisal companies. The 1st and third were dead links and only the middle one worked. Most likely their site?
Great post!
SAL
JUST GOT A NEW ONE:
from Domain Resale
offer 65% of the appraised market value.
As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:
sedo.com
pddomains.com
accuratedomains.com
If you already have an appraisal please forward it to us.
As soon as we have received your appraisal we will send you our payment (we use Paypal for amounts less than $2,000 and escrow.com for amounts above $2,000) as well as further instructions on how to complete the transfer of the domain name.
BEWARE….
Sell Domain names
I received the same email as Sal did a few days ago. It’s good you are posting this info. Hopefully people enter text from the email into the SE and find out about the scam before they lose money.
NZ
Similar scam with macez.com, googled them up and landed on your post, thanks! Their email went as follows:
We are interested to buy your domain name fartingreindeer.com and offer to buy it from you for 70% of the appraised market value.
As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:
macez.com
sedo.com
If you already have an appraisal please forward it to us.
As soon as we have received your appraisal we will send you our payment (we use paypal for amounts less than $2,000 and escrow.com for amounts above $2,000) as well as further instructions on how to complete the transfer of the domain name.
We appreciate your business,
Yours truly,
Mark Allen
markallen38@gmail.com
leanback
Thanks for your site, great therapy and lessons learned..lol
Vagabond
Thanks you all for the new names. I’ve been tracking this particular scam since I received my own letter; check the link for my growing list. (There’s also a link at the top of that page to a post regarding the scam itself, but it’s not a whole lot that hasn’t already been said *nods*)