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I never even realized that these existed, but they do. Not long after I had been talking with Crystal in the Fresh Wonders Chat Room, I was there talking to Tam about listing Domains on Sedo.com.
We were talking about how it looked like good site to sell Domain names on, then the next day I found myself registering eight new Domains based on “All This and More” then parking them and listing them on Sedo.com. Now before you say anything, I swear I do not have a problem… well, perhaps I am a bit impulsive at times!
So, back to the scam. About two days after listing my sites, I received and email addressed to the account I listed in my contact information. The person contacting me said that his company was interested in purchasing one of the Domain Names.
Our company invests in Internet projects and domain names. What is your price for the domain name?
I went to the domain listed as part of the sender’s email address and found a Blog type page with some general information about the value of Domain Names. Not a very compelling site, but no red flags so far.
The person also requested information on any other Domain Names that I may also be selling, so after waiting about a day, I sent back the list of eight related Domain Names listing my price for a single one, but that I was open to selling them in a package deal.
Within six minutes, I received a response. He didn’t agree to the price, and didn’t suggest any counter offer, just repeated the price I quoted and said “ok”, then he launched into this whole spiel about appraisals and evaluations by a reputable appraisal company.
He also sent me a link to a message board saying that he had asked “domain experts” about reputable appraisal companies. He called the message board a “blog” and the link led me to something set up on 007sites. Another site I had never heard of before.
The first thing that struck me as odd was the lack of dates in regards to the posts. They also appeared to be a snippet of an ongoing conversation, but lacked any reference to anything that came before, or after. It was pretty obvious that this was faked, and set up with the sole purpose of making the reader focus on their point.
The posts make a huge deal about manual verses automatic appraisals, which sort of made sense, but what was truly ridiculous was how they bashed some big name companies while recommending an overpriced unknown company!
They didn’t count on me being very skilled in seeing through scams and tracking down the real truth, like I did with my article about Cash Gifting Scams!
I copied a sentence from the message board, and searched for it on Google which led me to this thread on the Sitepoint Forums. The name was different, but the emails were almost completely identical. The phony forum web address was different, but it’s content was generally the same as the phony ones listed in the Sitepoint thread. Interesting that in pretty much every case, the scammers appear to be using 007sites to set up the phony message boards.
The Scam Appraisal Site I was being directed to was different than the three listed in the Sitepoint Thread, but there was a post indicating that they were being shut down due to complaints.
Needless to say, I didn’t respond to the last email. I did do a little bit more digging, and found the same scam mentioned as far back as 2005 in this Thread on Webdomain Talk.
I think that the bottom line is that if someone wants to buy your Domain Name, they should have an idea of what it is worth to them. If they want to have it evaluated, then they can pay for it. If you want to know the value of your Domain Name, do the research for yourself, and don’t let the “buyer” steer you to the information!
Now, what am I going to do with these sixteen Domains, if I don’t sell them? “What was I thinking?!” 
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