Received yesterday…
Subject: Website Purchase Inquiry
Hi,
I am interested in setting up a new blogging website on your domain name.
My name is Adam and I located your contact information through a domain look up and I understand that you are the owner of DNW.com. I’ve been working in establishing a number of high quality websites for quite some time and think that your domain name fits in perfectly with the blog!
In my current situation, I would like to set up a new blogging site and conducted several site searches relating to my niche.
I decided to contact you after finding out that your domain is not one which is highly active at the moment. Obviously I would provide you some compensation for the exchange, so If you are willing to sell your domain name please let me know what sort of price range you would be willing to sell for and we can discuss further.
Furthermore since this is our first time to do business, I can easily set up an escrow service to ensure a safer business transaction for both of us if you would prefer.
Again, feel free to contact me through my email address if you would like to discuss.
Sincerely,
Adam Daniels
Zoom-IT
JP says
Lol, and I’m sure his/her name is really Adam Daniels.
This is obviously ridiculous and hilarious, but that aside I find as a rule of thumb if an inquiry is more than a paragraph (although a sentence is probably a better rule) it’s some scam like this guy.
Todd from LeadRefs.com says
Ask him for an appraisal first
Joe says
Reply with $100,000.
Donny says
I’ll go ahead and offer you $210 now since we know he will only offer you $200. I’ll even pay the escrow fees.
Andrew Allemann says
But it does tell me that the “DNW niche” is growing
🙂
FarmerJohn says
“I can easily set up an escrow service”
Sounds like a “set up” for an escrow scam (bogus escrow companies) which doesn’t surprise me though I only recently heard about
steve says
When you do that you risk making the owner mad so he puts you on ignore and doesn’t get your next emails even and refuses to sell to you. People have a set price in mind and if it is a premium why be stupid and waste your time. When I bought wordunscrambler.com my low offer was denied, but it was not as bad as this guys probably $200.
Richard Saperstein says
What ever he offers you I will quadruple it.
But first …I need you to pay for an appraisal because I don’t trust non appraised domains and we can use paypal or escrow for payment.
But you gotta get it appraised first and you gotta pay for it.
——–
Funny stuff!
Ace says
Andrew try beating this:
This was recent generous offer to help with a 3-letter domain
My name is Jason XXX and I was wondering if you’d be willing to part with the “XXX” domain name you have registered. I’ve noticed the website is undeveloped and probably isn’t making you any money, but I’d like to help you out and give you $10 for the domain name.
Regards,
chandan says
dont reply just send 500000$ invoice in escrow.com to that guy 😀
Seb says
Why would you post this up on your blog?
Alan says
Why is everyone so negative? Looks to me like
a large corporation trying to low-ball you for the name. Respond with your price if you are selling, you may be surprised.
Steve says
So what’s the big deal? He seems courteous to me. Not sure why you think this deserves to be posted on a blog. You feel it deserves ridicule or something? If you don’t want to sell, reply no or don’t reply.
Greg says
Seb and Alan and Steve (hopefully at least one of you is a real person) – if/when you have more domains you’ll figure it out
Richard says
I agree with the comments who say it’s unwise to ignore this email and it’s especially unwise to post it in the public domain like this.
The reason I say this, I would have thought was obvious.
The internet is a GLOBAL village and while something may sound a bit dodgy to someone who is fluent in English, you have no idea if this came from a serious buyer from a different country where this email would sound perfectly reasonable – people speak differently and do business differently in different cultures.
You should always give someone who is polite and courteous the benefit of the doubt. Also, as someone else mentioned, large corporations with plenty of money wouldn’t think twice about trying to trick a seller into thinking they’re just a small fry in order to get a bargain. Large corporations have done a lot worse in the past in order to get themselves a bargain.
While it most probably is some joker trying to offer you peanuts or some scammer trying to reel you in, the truth is, you don’t know for sure and if you start ignoring domain enquiries based on nothing but assumptions, I guarantee, you will miss out on plenty of genuine offers – not to mention, get a bad reputation.
A simple email reply is not going to cost you anything, but it will give you the peace of mind of finding out this persons real intentions.
Finally, it’s worth noting, you will NEVER see a successful brand ignoring email’s based on assumptions.
I’m surprised to have to write this, especially since I am only a novice domainer.
JP says
@Richard & others, I just want to make sure you all realize that the domain this email was making an offer to buy on “DNW.com” is the very blog you are commenting on right now. This blog isn’t just at DomainNameWire.com, but also accessible by DNW.com (the domain in question). So this email was an offer to buy the domain that runs Andrews entire business, you know because the guy sending the email thinks it would be a good for for his blog. It would be like someone emailing American Express telling them that they think the term AmericanExpress.com would make a neat website for a credit card company that they are trying to start.
Anyway I just wanted to make sure you and some of these other folks at least understood that and you are still of course entitled to your opinions.
And yes I thought the guy was very polite too. I still say it is an automated scam mail not worth the energy of a response, which would just validate that Andrew is checking this email address making his email address salable and open to more spam, wasting more time.. Real offers are between 1 sentence and a paragraph, but closer to a sentence. They also have usually at least tried going to the website they are making an offer on in their web browser.
FarmerJohn says
Rule #1: Serious buyers don’t tell you why they want your domain.
Rule #2: If they do, they’re lying through their teeth.
jayjay says
“I decided to contact you after finding out that your domain is not one which is highly active at the moment”
lol with an Alexa 22k ranking? 😉
Beach Vacations says
I just sold a two-character .tv to a company in France for $15K – the escrow company has received the bank wire and I’m just sent the auth code to the buyer this morning.
The emails the French people sent me were choppy and I thought it looked scammy until they called me and I discovered we just had a language barrier. I’d email this guy back and ask for his name, company name, phone number, etc. – then if he’s legit, start the negotiations.
BTW, my .tv sale will be reported to dnjournal once I receive the funds – probably sometime next week.
Alan says
@Greg:
Seb and Alan and Steve (hopefully at least one of you is a real person)
I’m for real……….are you?