Am I Being Scammed?

[orion]

Hello,

I recently put a domain for sale on Sedo and I received an email to my personal email address (rather than communication through Sedo) from someone who expressed interest in said domain.

I named my price and he got back to me with the message below,

"First of all we both need a valuation (appraisal of your domain made by independent experts). It will show me you are a legitimate seller and the price of your domain is reasonale based on the last market trends. Please don't worry, it will take only 1-2 minutes to get this verification.

Please note we need a good in depth analysis made by experts but not an automated free service. Without it we both can't be sure in the price.

It will include the trademark verification as well. Just a formality to be sure you have no problems with trademarks. Good companies offers this as a part of appraisal.

To avoid mistakes and wasting money on useless services I asked in the forum about reliable valuation/TM verification services.

Please read this information:
http://www.seven-forums.net/Archive/618947520.htm"

When I responded by saying that my price was my price, regardless of valuation (this is a PR6 domain yet pagerank doesn't seem to be taken into consideration in free evaluations at least). I then received this response.

"Let me explain my position. I'm not a novice on this market. It's a
standard practice to provide buyers with TM verification and appraisal.
Without it I take additional risks with no guarantee. Let's make the
business the professional way. Show me that you are a honest and legitimate
seller. It does not take too much time or money to order the appraisal."

This is the first domain I've tried to sell. Something doesn't seem legit to me about this buyer? Am I in the wrong here or do you think I'm correct?

 

[Alien]

Yeah, sounds like a well-used scam. Welcome to Acorn BTW!

PS: Put the first sentence in Google: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=F...rts)&aqs=chrome.0.57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[RobM]

Yes this is a common scam that's been going on for a few years. He's trying to get you to pay for an appraisal to his company. If you did pay for an appraisal he would disappear.

 

[tifosi]

Yes you're being scammed.

They will ask YOU to pay for the valuation, which no doubt will be worthless and irrelevent. They have NO intention of buying the domain off you.

If you tell them that they will have to pay for the valuation after which point you would consider their 'valuation' you'll never hear from them again...

 

[orion]

Yeah that's pretty much what I thought was going on.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[StudioVision]

It's a well known scam. Tell them to pay for the appraisal and that you'll then reduce the name by the price of the appraisal when they send payment

Craig

 

[Murray]

The only valuation that matters with a domain is yours.

If you don't want to sell for an amount, it doesn't sell, simples.

 

[bulkcorn]

Tell him he is welcome to carry out all the valuations he wants.

 

[mozzeratti]

I receive this and similar emails monthly - sometimes word-for-word.

Once in a while I will respond telling them to do their due diligence on their own dime/time and if satisfied they can get back to me at the price already provided or with an offer. I make it clear that under no circumstances will I be going out-of-pocket - this usually results in no further communication...till the next one.

 

[GotLiveChat]

Certainly an interesting (scammy) way to drum up business for an appraisal company. May be worth setting your domain details to private so the only way they would try to communicate is via Sedo.