There is another new domain name appraisal scam being emailed to thousands of domain name owners. The email may first appear to be someone interested in buying your domain name but upon you replying, you will get a email that questions the valuation. This is where the scam comes into play, as they own the "appraisal" company and once they get you to pay for the appraisal you never hear from them again. They never truly held interest in purchasing the domain name.

The domain name used in this email is from TheDomainInvestors.com . The name used at the start often the email address varies but this time included hopkins@thedomaininvestors.com .

The initial email looks similar to this:

Hello,

We buy and sell domains and web pr®jects. What is your price for the domain?

If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,

Stephen Hopkins

Vice President

Intellectual Investment Strategies LLC

If you were to reply, the second email will look similar to this:

It’s a big risk to proceed without professional valuation. I already spoke
to industry experts and they prohibited me to do business without
valuation..

Without manual valuation nobody will buy. You’ll sit on your domain for
years in this case, paying renewal fees to your registrar. Just think about
it. So sooner or later, you’ll have to obtain an appraisal. Why waste time
now?

As a seller, you can use a valuation certificate to sell names to other
buyers. I cannot do the same because I don’t keep control over your domain.

I’m still interested in your domain. Hope you’ll change your position. I
simply don’t want to take additional risks.

Thank you for understanding. I’m looking forward to do business with you.

The email will include links to domain name appraisal services they own. Again, they are really not interested in your domain name, they simply want to get you to pay for a domain name appraisal and you will never hear from them again. NEVER pay for a domain name appraisal because somebody is interested in your domain name. Never! You can read more stories right here on DotWeekly.com about other domain appraisal scams that I have written about in the past. This will show you this is not something new and happens often.