New domain purchase inquiry “form letter” making the rounds.
I got a suspicious domain name inquiry yesterday. It was suspicious for two reasons:
1. Whenever someone vaguely explains their reason for buying generic domain names, that’s a red flag.
2. I received an email from another domainer at the same time, who had received the same email.
It purports to be from some students/”small time entrepreneurs” in the UK looking to buy domain names. I’m not sure if it’s just someone mass mailing to try to buy domain names on the cheap because they’re supposedly students or if there’s something more at play. Here’s the email:
from Jonty Williams
date Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 2:11 AM
subject Purchase Interest – indirectobject.comhide details Jan 7 (1 day ago)
Hello !
The purpose of this email is to outline our interest in purchasing the domain name indirectobject.com.
We are a group of students/small-time entrepeneuers studying within the UK educational system.
I, Jonty Williams am representing this group in reaching out to you.We have an interest in investigating the potential associated with online business. At this current moment in time we have been testing the viability of making money from the development of in depth, information based, interactive websites.
It is seeming like an extremely viable market, with (in principle) easy access for anyone.From our research, we have been made aware of the significant benefits of owning a good domain name. Specifically the benefits of owning a domain name related to developmental subject matter, such that a visitor is getting what they want, and expect.
This is the reason for our contact, and interest.Of course, indirectobject.com is owned by you, and you have every right to do with it as you please. We do however hope that you will consider an offer of 1000 USD as sufficient compensation for exchange of ownership of said domain name.
We would be more than happy to discuss this proposition further, and welcome any questions/concerns.
Yours,
Jonty
Given that I have now received a couple of these myself and am getting reports of other people receiving them, I’d say these “students” have a large budget to buy domains.
In an effort to figure out the angle on this, I emailed them back yesterday to say I was interested. I haven’t received a response yet.
Acro says
I got the same email as well for a generic .com. Although I rarely respond to emails that automatically get classified as spam by my email client, this time I emailed them back asking for a scanned student id 😀 LOL
JS says
Are these guys sending 1 letter per domain or 1 letter per domainer ?
Andrew Allemann says
@ JS – the emails are domain specific
Skyway says
Yup, got the same thing this morning for interest from these “students” wanting to buy one of our domain names.
Obviously a scam!
BEWARE!
Belmassio says
I got a $1,200 offer yesterday from Jonty…LOL.
I also had an email about two week ago from some “U.S. Students” wanting to buy a domain.
They said it was for a class, but it was mid December. There’s no classes in mid-December much of anywhere I know of. 🙂
Andrew Allemann says
@ Belmassio – $1200? Wow, must have been a better name than mine 🙂
jp says
I got the same $1k offer on Foal.com
Mansour says
I got the same letter for 2 letter .net domain name $3000 he must know domain value.
Bob Fontaine says
“Investigating”, “seeming”, “our research”, … not too many students without a specific plan (and domain) in mind going to come out of the box with a xxxx offer without having 1st “investigated” or “researched” alternative domains that could be hand registered, in my opinion. Most non-domainers are apt to offer you $50 or something, not truly understanding the potential that many of us who dabble in names do.
Belmassio says
My initial belief is that they are simply trying to play like they are benign, non-commercial, interest which is simply doing some college ecommerce experiments…..and presenting it that way in order to gain some sympathy from domain registrants.
Domainer says
I received 12 of these stupid emails. One of the $1K offers was for a 7 figure name.
EM @ KING.NET says
I’m not alone. I received this approach last December, though we came up to close in Jan 15 with agreed price.
Well see.
@Acro
Next time, I will ask for scanned id 🙂
Cheers.
Marg says
There’s something about the tone of the language being used in “Jonty Williams” email that reads like it was composed from someone for whom English was not a first language…It begins to verge into the convoluted prose used by some of the 419 scammers.
Marg says
I meant “composed by” not “composed from”…some of this must be beginning to rub off on me too.
RW says
I received the same email yesterday (with the same offer of $1,000) for a DotNet name.
Steve M says
This is not a scam, but just someone (likely one your readers, Andrew) looking to buy nice names on the cheap.
Nothing wrong with that; and I gave them a counter on the one they offered on.
If we work something out, great. If not, oh well, welcome to the domain business.
Large-volume purchase inquires have of course been done before … and will be done again.
Andrew Allemann says
Steve – as long as they are representing themselves fairly, it’s not a scam.
Incidentally, I “accepted” their offer…so we’ll see if they follow through.
Andrew Allemann says
So here it is…received late last night:
Hello,
Sorry for the slow response.
We have had a massive response with regards to these emails, one which was completely unexpected. This has led to a number of deals being completed, as well as a few still in the pipeline.
Given that our funding is essentially our own funding combined with business grant funding we are on edge as to exactly how to invest.
We contacted owners of quality domains matching our development criterion expecting that we would only get a few acceptances.
We have however been left in a situation whereby we have to decide which are the best investments.
On that basis I ask that you accept our sincere apologies, but we would like to wait for a more complete response to our emails such that we can assess which domains have the most potential for future profitability.
Many Thanks
Jonty
DomainAngel says
HI
from the letters I have seen published, it looks like the students do have enough money, seeing as the domains shown are worth little more than reg fee.
What a waste of time publishing this article.
Bob says
DomainAngel I hope you are not that student!!
Eric Borgos says
They offered me $1000 a few days ago for my herbalist.net domain. I countered with $5000. I have not heard back from them.
npcomplete says
I received the same letter from jonty@who.net. So I looked up who.net (great name for .net), and it was owned by the owners of world.com (even better than who.net)… so naturally I responded with an offer to buy world.com for $1000! I then went on to say that if they wanted, I would be willing to trade my domain for world.com. No reply yet.
I just love giving snarky counter offers to lowball offers…
Domainer says
If a domainer accepts Jonty’s offer, Jonty will ignore the acceptance. Jonty is looking for people who have not figured out the value of certain domain names they own so he can buy them and flip them to domainers.
Sorry Andrew, you won’t be selling anything to Jonty. 🙂
Eric you are certainly out with a counter.
Domainer says
“We have had a massive response with regards to these emails, one which was completely unexpected. This has led to a number of deals being completed, as well as a few still in the pipeline.”
It’s odd Jonty would bring up his spamming. His original email does not mention anything about pursuing other names.
I think Jonty is reading this.
jp says
@npcomplete
cool handle!
Jb says
Thanks for posting that follow-up letter, when I received their letter the other day I was surprised they would only offer $1k for my generic domain. I was about to respond with a snarky comment of my own, but thought better of it since they might be related to phishers or scammers. Anyway, glad to have a better idea of what it was all about.
Andrew Rosener says
I received the same $1k offer for my domain Elaborately.com.
Haven’t decided whether to accept yet or not?
What do you think?
Domainer says
“I received the same $1k offer for my domain Elaborately.com.
Haven’t decided whether to accept yet or not?
What do you think?”
I think you own dictionary word that got hit by a script.
Rob Skelton says
My $1K offer was for respectably.com, which I think it worth perhaps half that, so I’ve sent them a “yes”.
Amol says
even i got the same kind of email , and once you reply this , they offer u good price for the domain name and they say to appraise the domain name , also they send some links of the domain appraisal providers.
In short , this is nothing but spam mails sent by fraud domain appraisal providers.
Domainer says
“In short , this is nothing but spam mails sent by fraud domain appraisal providers.”
Maybe the reason Andrew got the response he did is because Jonty ended up with some great deals he can’t close. $9.95/fraud appraisal does not add up to much. He is expecting Andrew or readers of this blog to offer to buy those extra deals.
Some might also try to buy “one which was completely unexpected”.
Sumit Bahl says
Seems like I do not have any domains that this student group likes, because so far nothing :(. LOL 🙂
france says
i too got one offer mail with 100$ 🙂
TrulyPeter says
I received an offer of $1,000 for the domain immaculately.com (I have parked as http://www.immaculately.com at my domain re-sale website http://www.selme.com).
AFter due consideration, I decided to accept. However, no reply, of course..
Reading the above posts, some names just aren’t in the same league!!
I see that Elaborately.com is one of a similar nature to mine.
After reading the posts, I feel that they may be ‘fishing’, sounding out different domainers to see what the rsponses are.
Maybe to get ‘quality’ domain names on the cheap, establishing current domain name values and to research the integrity of domain re-sale sites..
Emails sent are not on a ‘blanket’ basis and appear to be targetted to just a few domains/domainers..
They probably have got a response whereby some ‘quality’ domains can be purchased for $1,000
carledgar says
The strangled grammar is always a giveaway for me.
‘studying within the UK educational system’ – was that phrase written by a Google translator?
UK students or students in the UK would be more normal
know wha’a mean, guv?
carl
chandan says
i guess they are all domain PHD students 😀
George says
When they say “UK educational system” do you think that includes classes held in “correctional facilities”?
bernard says
They spammed the domainers with a dictionnary and whois bot, looking for financally desesperated domainers (must be plenty of these days :-).
For those responding with zero ground domains, polite bla bla answer to keep the domainer mob quiet.
bernard says
I guess it is time for proud domainers with “figure domains” to sell them if still possible.
Indeed, even for a rare generic domain in the greatest niche, the part of a business income related to the fact of a generic domain is difficult to estimate, and probably low.
1. Honestly, What would any of you say of the domain Google.com alone without the business?
Most would say: you lost the registration cost.
2. Why didn’t the guys at Google buy a domain like search.com (nearly 0 value website behind)?
Because it wouldn’t have been any significant difference in the development of the company. The money has certainly been spent in a very effective way, see the result.
Eric Borgos says
bernard – I am not sure I agree with you about the value of a great domain. Yes, Google has done fine with a made up domain, but it might have had a greater chance of success if it had used the domain Search.com. That killer domain along with their killer search results might have given them a better ability to monetize the site early on. It would have given them clout, which took them a while to get. In retrospect, spending $1 million or so 10 years ago to buy Search.com would have been a great investment.
Henry Tusco says
It could well be that they agree on buying the domain from you and wait until you have released the domain name lock and request a transfer as soon as they know.
One of my domains (GDEX.com) got stolen this way from me a couple of years ago by a company from HongKong. I tried everything to get it back but no luck. And I didn’t feel like jumping a plane for this domain.