Scam gets a new home.
The domain name appraisal scam seems to be mutating too quickly to follow, which means it may be time to create a web site dedicated specifically to it. The latest domain name to host the scam is PDdomains.com. Here’s an example e-mail being sent out. If you receive this email, hit the “report spam” button in your email client.
To be clear, Sedo and AccurateDomains are included in the e-mail as decoys for legitimacy. They are not part of the scam.
From: Domain Resale
Date: Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 5:59 PM
Subject: Domain name —-Dear Sir,
we are interested to buy your domain name — and 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.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.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,
Domain Resale
I got that email at the weekend, from a site I don’t even own!
Stupid Scammers!
Yea, they really need to get current Whois data, I’ve seen this a few times and it’s names that I sold or let drop years ago!
Not too bright, are they? LOL
Actually, I always respond with an old Sedo appraisal for some old name I don’t even own anymore – Why don’t I ever hear back? That name is a great deal at only 65% of it’s $100 value! 😉
We received this for a domain held by a company I work with. Luckily, the domain portfolio manager forwarded me the message for analysis before actually going forward with the bogus “appraise & dump” faux buy offer scam.
Sadly, many naive (or blindly greedy) domainers will be taken in by this ongoing scam.
Yes it’s time to dedicate a site to these shenanigans.I get these so regularly and delete them as soon as they arrive that the other day I accidentaly deleted a genuine offer on a doman from an end user, fortunately for me, he was persistant and emailed me again and I made an 8k sale.
The only thing to do is educate newbies and get the word out. Would be nice if a warning about this scam showed up as part of every domain registration confirmation and renewal notice etc,that would kill it in its tracks or at least stop it from perpetuating.Maybe also as part of whois searches too. While it may be legal its a scam in my book.
Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I’ve got some from the same email address, thanks to google gmail. My email is powered by Google Gmail, reported this email to Google.
EM @ KING.NET
I also received this email.
pddomains… was created three days ago!
Typo-wise, that’s worryingly close to my portfolio site, http://www.pfdomains.com. I wonder if that’s why they chose it – a dubious honour!
I am not affiliated with these people!!
Ironically, visitors to my domain newswire http://www.domaindizzy.com were up 500% yesterday from people searching for “Paulwhite47@gmail.com” to research this email.