Is this email real or fake?

domain selling

[daway1am]

I've got an email from someone who want buy my domain.

So I send back reply mail with price that I considering and now I've got another mail from him <saying he wants me to get an appraisal>.

Is this a scam?

[edited by: Webwork at 1:17 pm (utc) on Sep. 14, 2007]
[edit reason] Sorry, no email quotes per WebmasterWorld TOS [/edit]

[jaynl]

I've got an identical email, same text, probably from the same source (Aug 2006). So it seems to be a standard template this person uses.

Thanks for sharing :)

[MamaDawg]

It's an Appraisal scam.

There have been several posts on the subject in the past - here's one: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: MamaDawg at 10:49 am (utc) on Sep. 14, 2007]

[jaynl]

That explains. Indeed, when I told this person to do the appraisal/investigation himself and that it was a fixed price, I heard nothing anymore.

[draggar]

As suggested to me before, do a search for the domain that the email came from.

+domain +scam

I've had a few now, the first one got me ambitious, then I realized it was a scam.

Also, looking up the whois for the domain can help, too (even though most of the time its private).

[RandomDot]

Everybody who wants to buy a domain name, and not come up with their own usually has some intentions with it. It can be to build a branded site, it can be to resell, it can be because, it's just a cool name.

If it's for a branded site, a major company or organization is usually behind it and can be tracked. They won't ask for appraisals or evaluations, they'll try to negotiate a deal.

If it's to resell somebody is just trying to make some easy money by buying it as cheap as possible and sell it as high as possible. They'll try to get a low estimate of its perceived value. Appraisal Warning.

If it's just a cool name, they'll just ask for a price, and get chocked when you want more than they ever thought it would be worth or cost them for their little epeen thing. I'm still saving up for my epeen domain :)

Sincerely and have fun,

[jecasc]

So I send back reply mail with price that I considering and now I've got another mail from him <saying he wants me to get an appraisal>.

Ask yourself the question - would this be the way you would act if you wanted to buy a domain? Surely not.

If you wanted to buy a domain you would probably ask the owner if its for sale and how much he wants. Then you would get an appraisal. And if the appraisal says the domain is worth more than the owner wants the last thing you would do is to let the owner know the true value of his domain.

And if someone wants to buy the domain to build his own website on it what would he want an appraisal for?