They are straight forward about what they plan to do, they plan to put it just to resell to "earn on reselling".
Things that seem to stick out:
1) It was sent at 4:09AM my time (OK, they oculd be in a different country) but their website shows that they're on the east coast, USA (Mass to be more specific). OK, maybe they're an early bird.
2)The person who send it claims to be the CEO. OK, maybe it's a small company (very small?) just stating out.
3) Whois does show:
Registrar History: 2 registrars with 1 drop.
IP History: 1 change on 2 unique name servers over 2 years.
Whois History: 245 records have been archived since 2001-09-24
Reverse IP: 6 other sites hosted on this server.
(No contact information is coming up, maybe maintenance is being run though Psychic whois).
4) The email seems too templated (is that a word?). No mention of my name, email address, business, or the domain. The email itself is very generic. The only mention of the domian is in the subject line of the email.
5) A goodle search of this CEO's name shows up nothing, and the company in quotes has no relevant hits (most are in a language that looks like German, a few in Spanish), but the URL for the email's domain does show a relevant site.
6) The domain is a perfect keyword match for a product that does not exist but is needed. Most people here would never use the product, but people who help you with something most of you probabaly use evety day would use it a lot. With this product, some large companies in the world would save millions of dollars. To give an esample on keyword relevance, imagine someone registering hometheatre.com right before the first ones hit the market, so in the future this domain could be worth a lot more than what I'm debating selling it over now.
The issue is that I registered this domain for someone I work with who is devoloping the product that this domain *is* the keyword (keyword.com). But this was over six months ago and I haven't heard anything yet. I will have to contact him and talk to him and find out the status of this project and if he still wants me to hold onto the domain.
I plan on talking to my coworker today about this since I think I could get some good cash for the domain, but if he is going to devolop the product and wants me to make a site, then I may keep it (that will be hard though). The good news is that they want keyword.com and I also own keywords.com so I could sell one and use the other for devolopment. If he OK's the sale, I'll point the person who sent me the email to where I can put it up for sale.
Are there any other suggestions or pointers I should look out for?
Look at the full headers of the email message and see if the point of origin matches the domain of the company they claim to be from - most appraisal scams seem to originate from a russian (.ru) or norwegian (.no) dial-up account.
If they ask you to get an appraisal of the domain, run like the wind!
The issue is that I registered this domain for someone
Is it your's to sell in that case? Legally? Ethically?
If they ask you to get an appraisal of the domain, run like the wind!
A search on "appraisal scam" or "domain appraisal scam" should produce more details ...
Maybe "run like the wind" was overdramatic :), but if the buyer really wants an appraisal suggest they pay for it themselves. You can always offer to split or deduct the fee from the purchase price if they decide to buy ...
[edited by: MamaDawg at 8:13 pm (utc) on Aug. 20, 2007]
Search for their company domain name along with the word "scam".
Thank you for the tip, I did that and *many* hits from the first page said it was a scam, the posted emails were word for word idential. Thank you! Luckily, even if I did fall for it, I would have pointed them to Afternic for the sale (which I would like to think would be a lot safer, please correct me if I'm wrong in this!). :)
There are TONS of hits on it, the return email was from [example].net (I think this is OK to post this since this is reported as a scam and might protect other users here). If people want, and the mods OK it, I can post the email (against the TOS, but still a good warning) minus any sensitive information. I will wait for a post on this thread saying it is OK from at least a moderator on this forum before I post the email (again, minus any personal / sensitive information).
If they ask you to get an appraisal of the domain, run like the wind!
Apparently that is the next part of the scam.
Is it your's to sell in that case? Legally? Ethically?
Legally the domain is 100% mine. Ethically, that's another story, which is why I wanted to talk to the coworker today. He said it was OK to sell this one if the money was right (he gave me a number). We agreed to take the money, take out Uncle Sam's share and the fees for the sale, then split the rest 50/50.
Thank you all for the quick respopnses. I guess the bright side is that my coworker still has this domain available for when he "unveils" this product, I didn't fall for the scam, and someone out there thinks I'm worth attempting to scam. :)
(post mod-edit edit)
OK, I can't add in the email domains, so I'm assuming the email itself it out of the question. If anyone wants the email and return address, feel free to sticky me for it.
[edited by: buckworks at 12:23 am (utc) on Aug. 21, 2007]
