New Scam ...or Old Trick Domain Names on Offer

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1.6K followers

I was approached, by email, a while ago by a website offering me a .com domain of the domain name I own a .org of .. is that clear? They said that for the sum of $99.95 they would sell me that .com domain name. Well I did not have $99.95, so although I sort of would like to obtain the .com domain it was just not an option at the time. THEN a short while later I received a follow up email saying that they would be prepared to drop the price to $49.95, would I not be interested then? Well I was still sort of interested but I did not have $49.95 so I again ignored them. I did take a cursory glance at their website, and maybe that is what encouraged them to contact me the second time.

So then a few days ago out of pure idol curiousity I looked up the domain name in the 1and1 domain name search and found to my surprise that the .com domain name was now available for $8.99, so I bought it!

Just wondering if anyone else has had something like this happen and what is the best approach, if I had had the money I may well have bought the domain name when it was first offered, but obviously they where trying it on.


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Recent Comments

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Hi Joe, its been a while since you posted this, but thought I'd weigh in. Its another type of industry online. They look for domain names, to find where someone has one of the TLD names and another TLD is available, They then get the contact info, and email offering to sell the other TLD. If no response, not much lost. But if someone responds, they buy the name for 9 - 10 dollars, and then resell for the much higher price. Just another "service" industry taking advantage of the unaware.

I have seen these type of emails a lot, however, I have a sneaky suspicion they find our details then spam you, using the public information at the Whois database.... something expressly forbidden in the Whois rules. I also wonder if anybody at Whois would really bother, as a fairly basic email scraper could pick up all the email addresses of domain owners.

I know you have heard this many times but it is so valid. Be very careful about who you do business with. Good move!

that's the way to be a good shopper.

Good job you didn't shell out the money!

It happens to me everyday. I belong to some sites where I just pay $1.99 for the domain name. Now I belong to an organization that has the domain name with hosting all included for just $9.99. Both are great deals though.

Good thing you didn`t have the money in the first place :)

Every once in a while I'll get an email from someone asking if I would be interested in buying a domain. Usually their domain is related to a domain I already have or is in the same niche as me.

They could have registered the domain, not used it and tried to get some money before letting it expire....

No that's not happened to me. Glad you didn't get caught out!

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