Fake purchase offer - indication of genuine interest?

Ardant · Apr 6, 2016

Hi everyone, I received the following email and am wondering if this is a reason to renew a domain which I was going to drop next week when it expires. It is on Sedo so I'm guessing they saw it there.

From: [email protected]
Hello! Our client is interested in buying [domain].com. The buyer is an investor from Canada. I located your contact information in a domain name whois lookup and understand that you own the domain name. Are you still interested in selling? If you have more names I can help you to sell them.

Best Regards,

Fred Goldberg
Vice President
Intellectual Property Specialist
123 REG UK HOSTING

I don't for a second think this is genuine - do they just want to get access to my 123-reg.co.uk portfolio or is it likely they actually do want this specific name (in which case I should reply and say it's staying on Sedo)?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

martin-s · Apr 6, 2016

Interesting that the email address is 123-reg-co-uk.info

Bit of a giveaway even without all of the other warning signs!

Adam H · Apr 6, 2016

Since when would 123-reg , register a .info domain for domain brokering and register it with Godaddy

Scam

Sound · Apr 6, 2016

its the start of the old domain domain appraisal scam

bizzyboy · Apr 7, 2016

Yes, it's the old well-worn scam and I've seen it many times over the years, and very recently again too.
As soon as you reply to their email, expressing your interest in selling your domain, they will say that they need to get a domain valuation first so that their client will be happy to pay out the ridiculous price they claim their client is willing to pay for you domain. And strangely enough they know a company that can carry out the valuation. And the valuation will cost you around $50 from some crappy unknown company.
You pay for the appraisal and then go back to the original person who emailed you, and they will never reply to your emails. And you just got scammed out of $50.