You really think I'm that paranoid about a low-mid $xxx sale?
Failure 1: You strategize on an open forum.
Does GD read these forums? 100% yes they do, so your thoughts have been open-booked to your counter party.
Failure 2: You're seeking council from a crowd of people who, mostly, suck at this just as bad as you apparently do.
Failure 3: Subsequent to the HIGHLY unusual occurance of being contacted by a registrar to re-acquire a name you recently purchased from them (suggesting some pretty significant leverage in your favor), you dismissively write it off as a "low-mid XXX sale", because that's what they initially offered you?
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.
Your actions here could be Chapter 1 of "How To Completely Fail At Cold Inquiry Negotiations".
If you want to know how to handle this, I'll be more than happy to tell you, just so the criticism is constructive.
First off, you ignore their inquiry.
Secondly, you immediately identify the ownership history of that domain. There's a very good chance the last owner is impelling this process on the basis of a registrar/registrant breach of contract (early deletion or pre-release transfer)
Next, you contact that owner to see what's up. It's actually perfectly OK if you piss off, annoy or otherwise agitate them because their anger comes out of the Registrar's ass, not yours. Feel them out. Is this mistake causing them financial loss? Are they prepared to sue? Hopefully, the answer is yes and whatever you can do to facilitate their rancor is in your favor.
Presuming this is a f'up on the registrars part and they transferred a domain to you in breach of an existing registrant agreement, the formula to calculate how much this domain is worth to that registrar (and in turn, you) is this.
(Their Lawsuit Costs) + (The Clients Demonstrable Loss) -25% = Your haul.