Newbie from the Netherlands

[Jan]

Hello everybody,

My name is Jan and I'm from the Netherlands, therefore my English isn't perfect.

I've registered my first (and last for 9 years) domain, with the intention to sell it later, in 2008. It was a .in domain & I still have it. Between 2008 and a few week ago I've done nothing regarding domaining

The last few weeks I've registered more domains, predominantly .in (India) extensions and I've enlightened myself in the domain industry, including reading on this forum. I've learned a lot from you guys; thanks!

Believe it or not; this morning I received an email from Japan from a domain broker, asking if my domain is still available, because he has a client that wants to buy the domain I registered in 2008. He found me via public Whois.

I'm very excited because I might sell my first domain but also nervous because I asked him to send me an offer but I have no idea what a reasonable price is. Especially because only 400 million of 1.3 billion Indians have access to internet these days and it's expected it might be a billion in 2020. In other words: I don't want to sell it too cheap but also don't want to miss out on this deal for being to greedy.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Cheers from the Netherlands,
Jan

 

[Edwin]

Welcome!

I don’t participate there, but it seems there’s a forum specialising in .in domains: https://www.inforum.in/

You might find the answers you need in their archived posts.

 

[Jan]

Thanks a lot!

 

[lazarus]

Hi Jan,
Don't worry, your English is very good. In fact it's better than some natives I know of.

Welcome to the forum.

Laz

 

[Systreg]

Hi Jan,

Watch out for appraisal scams, a lot of them come from places such as China and Japan, Google "appraisal scams" for more insight.

The typical way in which such scams work is, you get an email saying someone wants to buy your domain, then you'll receive another email from them asking for the domain to be appraised to get a value, they'll give you the website of someone who does domain valuations, and this is a service you have to pay for.

You pay the appraisal fee and then never hear from the prospective buyer again, because they're the one who runs the appraisal site and they only want your money for the appraisal fee, and have no intention of buying your domain, so that's something to look out for as you've been out of domains for so long.

 

[Jan]

Thank you very much for this advice. I think you hit the nail on the head: I just received an (unbelievable) offer and they ask for a domain certificate in Japanese. They provide a link and it will cost me 250 dollar "with guaranteed money back if domain not sold"

 

[Jan]

 

[RobM]

Spam. No serious buyer has ever needed a 'certificate' - they know what the domain is worth to them. Tell him that if he wants to buy the certificate you'll refund him the cost when the sale goes through. He won't.

 

[RobM]

Also this is common. People set up fake 'official' looking forums - in this case google-answers.info which has nothing to do with google at all. They then post pretending to be a past customer and saying how good the service is. You can contact google and let them know that someone is using their mark fraudulently - I doubt they can do much though. Basically the rule is you should never have to pay anything before a sale. Anyone asking for money for anything beforehand is a con artist.

 

[Jan]

Aye, it's an obvious scam. I really thought the 1st mail I received was legit.
I checked the company etc. but didn't notice they used an altered url that was redirected to a real existing domain company.

Worthy lesson learned for free today

 

[domaininvest]

Jan, welcome to the forum.

I got one of those emails a few months ago. A definite scam!

Sadly these creeps just need to hook a very small proportion of domainers to purchase appraisal certificates and they've made a nice (crooked) profit.