how should i respond to an "I want to buy your domain" email

[riverbirch]

Hi,

I recieved this email the other day:

Hello,
Just let me know your price for (my domain).com. I regularly check domain auctions and your name has good potential. We are working on software market. So Internet names is just a part of our investment strategy. Reselling brings us some additional income. Looking forward to do business with you.

I responded with, "please visit my listing sedo.com and make an offer there, if I like it I'll simply accept". They're agreeable to working through sedo (which is a good sign) but they wanted me to get an appraisal which I thought was weird.

Any suggestions one what I should do next? I was thinking I'd just respond with "appraisals are subjective at best, a domain is worth what someone is willing to pay. If someone has a need for a certain name its worth something."

Thanks

[a53mp]

What I would do is know roughly how much I would want for the domain. A few things to think about, whether it is an active site, or you plan on using it.. did you buy it to resell later? I would tell them I am not actively looking or interested in selling the domain, but I would may consider it depending upon the offer. I would not give them any price at first but I would already know what I want to sell it for. If they come back and offer $200 for the domain, and I was originally wanting $500, I would either tell them, well I have already had an offer for $500.. or that I was looking more along the lines of $700, and see if they try to bargain with you so you do get the $500 you were wanting.

[cw1865]

The problem here is that neither side wants to mention the first price! In your head you should know a dollar figure that you would accept for it, so obviously if you respond with a price make sure you do add sufficient room to come down.

[imvain2]

River,
I'm not sure the exact wording you would want to give him, however I 100% agree with you on the apprasial being subjective. Apprasials are crazy, one place could tell you its worth $10k and the next tell you its worth $500.

You could always find someone who apprasises domain names high and tell him that it was appraised at $X, but you would be willing to sell it for $Y, where Y is much lower.

This is how car dealers in the US suck customers into buying cars, they trick customers with the whole Kelly Blue Book price, by telling the customer that their pricing is X under KBB or above it. When in fact banks use NADA for financing which has pricing so much lower then the KBB. So the car dealers know how much the car is actually worth, but use the inflated KBB as a ploy.

[wentzco]

It's an appraisal scam.... believe me - I absolutely guarantee it!

I've sold over 1000 domain names over the years and I have got "many many" emails saying they are interested in a name but first want an appraisal. Next thing they will recommend an appraisal company they trust (wink wink) and even may suggest a couple of legitimate higher cost appraisals companies hoping you will choose the cheapest route (their own company or the company they are scamming for on a commission basis). Appraisals are worthless and a waste of money..... always have been. Never ever pay for an appraisal even with a legitimate company IMO.

You did the right thing saying to make an offer via Sedo but I also suggest when people get similar emails (some from true legitimate potential buyers) is to point them at DNJournal.com Year to Date Domain Sales Charts for them to look at actual sales througout this year so far and then ask them to make their offer. When I receive $100 offers via Sedo (which happens) ... I often point them to that page and tell to be more realistic while making a counteroffer myself.

If you do get an offer via Sedo that you would probably accept.... let it go to auction with their 7 day format and hopefully you will get a higher bidder. If not ... you still sold the name.

DN Sale Price- Domain Name Sales Price and History is a website that keeps track of previously "published" sales which actually is a semi-fair appraisal tool when you think about. I put quotes around the word "published" because it is important for everyone to realize that many names change hands without anyone knowing about the sales ....often due to non-disclosure contracts. I've had those myself.

Again..... If they want an appraisal - it's a scam 99.99% of the time. Tell the other .01% of the people to pay for the apprasial themselves if they real need one.

Larry Wentz
Affiliate Network Directory

[activeco]

Originally Posted by wentzco

It's an appraisal scam.... believe me - I absolutely guarantee it!

Not bad for the first post on the forum!

I agree with wentzco. If they send you to a particular site(s) to make an appraisal, scam is almost certainly involved.
Some 5-6 years ago a scam band operating under many different names (
ELEVIEW INTERNATIONAL INC, EverydayIncome.com, AllForDomains.com, SoftForces.com, FastDomainSales.com, insanedomains.com, domainprofiles.com...) made huge money in that way.
They also operate gambling and dating services.

[riverbirch]

The first email sounded legit. Basically saying they were interested in my domain. The second one insisting I get it appraised seemed very shady.

Thanks for the input everybody.

[datetopia]

I found this domain name appraisal scam mentioned on multiple websites.
(i.e. Domain Name Wire » News » Anatomy of a domain name appraisal scam - The Domain Industry's News Source )

Make sure you don't send any money or private information to anybody before selling the domain.

[qh4dotcom]

Do nothing from this point. If the sender is really interested he'll go to sedo as you suggested.

[mediacurse]

It's definitely a scam - I received the same email, answered I'm selling the domain for $5000 - he asked for appraisal and of course, suggested a "professional appraisal site" as well - google didn't really give any results for it. And when I said that if he's interested in the site then he can get the appraisal himself and he can later pay the asking price minus the money he paid for the appraisal - well, I never ever get an answer from him anymore lol.

Cheers
Siim

[kns]

I just recently bought a domain name not to sell but was looking for names for my new company. I got an email from someone yesterday asking if I want to sell this name, although I hadnt thought much about reselling. Now that's someone's asking for it, I am wondering how much should I ask for it. His email was something like this:
"Hello
My name is **** *** and Im interested in buying your domain *** Are you are interested in selling it? If you are, do you have any idea how much you want for it? If you don't, let me know and I will make you an offer instead and we can take it from there.
Many thanks for your time"

Now how do you guys think I should reply to this email? My domain name is the same as his first name but he could have just made that up, right? Any advice.