Buying Back Domain I Lost

third party broker typical?

[junobear]

Lost a domain I had for years due to a mixup, my bad. Didn't want to buy it out of Redemption, but still want it. I put word out to whoever was able to pick it up before I learned about bidding, etc.
They sent me email with link to buy it via dommerce.com.
Looks legit. Based in Netherlands. Assuming I decide to meet or counter the offer, is this a typical method to get it back? Or get a domain period? Thanks.

[cabbie]

I would say be wary.IMO better to tell them you will pay for it to be done through escrow.com
The other company maybe ok but if you don't know them stick with the industry leader.

[ddonahue]

I got a similar message just yesterday - this is a SCAM!

I (my customer) owns example.net, but .com was taken

We got an email the other day from somebody I assume is the same guy in the Netherlands (my first clue that it was a scam) saying he owns the example.com domain and will sell it to me for $95.

I go to his web site and it looks as legit as you described. He has a bunch of domains for sale and a "search our domains and bid" form.

You type in your domain and it says you can bid on it starting at $150... hmmm so i look it up at network solutions whois, its available (it must have just expired).

So i bought it through pSek (my hosting and registrar) and voila i have it now for $8.95 a year

They thought I wouldn't check to see if it was free before i paid.

My guess is that this guy has a daemon that continiously runs, checks to see what domains have expired and if so, if the .net and .org are owned, then sends messages to the other owners saying he owns it and will sell it to me. I assume if I paid, they'd buy it and resell/transfer it to me for a $141 profit... lol

Thats assuming he didn't just pocket the money and do nothing (a true scam).

It actually elegant for a spam model, and i did find use from it, i'd checked to see if it was available just the week before.

Thanks for the free domain experation notice Dommerce, now go away.

-David Donahue

[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 11:05 pm (utc) on May 7, 2004]
[edit reason] Exemplified URLs [/edit]

[DaveAtIFG]

Another voice in support of escrow.com, good service, reasonable rates, and reliable.

[ddonahue]

Escrow.com wouldn't have really helped.

After all, he very liekly would really have transfered the domain for $150 and escow.com would have said that it was done and transfered the money.

Proper pricing (where his scam resides) is the responsibilty of the buyer and seller and escrow.com only ensures that the agreement is held to, not that the buyer would have be an idiot to agree to this pricing.

Maybe, it's not really a scam "Per Say", lack of knowlage of an item's cheapest price is fundimental to most economic systems and most purchase transactions.

I just didn't want anyone else to to pay a 1600% markup on a domain when they didn't need to.

-David

p.s. Sorry about earlier mentioning my specific domain.

[junobear]

the happy news is that i got back the old one after all. just before plunking down with the netherlands, i determined it was wide open after all and re-gained it for $8 a year. Thanks for your help--I appreciate hearing others' experiences.