Domain Appraisal Scam Migrates to TropicalNames.com

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Warning: avoid purchasing domain name appraisals from TropicalNames.com.

The domain name appraisal scam — which was reborn with a different tact last month — has changed its target domain name appraisal service. A new scam email requests a domain name appraisal from TropicalNames.com. TopicalNames.com was just registered on April 2.

Last month’s e-mails tried to get users to pay for domain name appraisals at a bogus outfit called Pozde.com.

The emails offer three different services to choose from; two of which are legitimate. But the scam offers a third service that is cheaper than the others. I know that some people were taken in by the scam last time, coughing up $22.95 for an appraisal from Pozde.com.

Here’s the full text of the email:

I am interested to buy your domain name domain.COM and offer to buy it from you for 65% of the appraised market value.

As of now I accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:

sed o.com
tropicalnames.com
accuratedomains.com

If you already have an appraisal please forward it to me.

As soon as I have received your appraisal I will send you my payment (I 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.

I appreciate your business,

Thank you,
K. Brown

If you respond to the email with an appraisal you will not hear back from the scammer.

Further Reading:

  1. Domain Name Appraisal Scam Now at NameOrange.com
  2. Domain Appraisal Scam is Reborn
  3. The Incredible Mutating Domain Appraisal Scam

Tags:

2 Comments » - Posted in Policy & Law by

Comments

  1. What is a Domain Appraisal Scam? | Elliot's Blog
    August 17th, 2009 | 11:14 am

    [...] Domain Name Wire [...]

  2. Attila
    January 14th, 2010 | 4:16 am

    Same here different players, friedman@thedomaininvestors.com emailed me wanting to buy domains. Even accepted $24,000 however need appraisal first. His emails all look template like and nothing personally written.

    Kept asking me to go to an article he found online, http://www.domainexplorer.org/Archive-09-2009/8137251.htm only to notice it was a thread he started…

    Posting this up here so it gets ranked good and high in the engines.

    DONT GET SCAMMED FELLOW DOMAINERS!!

    A true buyer will know what its worth and would never need an appraisal.

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