Dynadot

Domain appraisal scam from [email protected]

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SHHK888

Established Member
Impact
22
This scammer asks you to get an appraisal from one of his "trusted" appraisal websites before he buys your domain for $XX,XXX figures and after you order the appraisal he disappears. He is sending the emails from a godaddy email hosting account, if you have the means to contact godaddy about this the senders IP address is 72.167.234.238

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Hello!

I represent an investor who is going to buy ********.com

Are you interested in selling?

Based on whois lookup I understand that you own the domain name.

Are you a beginner or an experienced seller?

I help my clients to buy and sell intellectual properties.

If you have more names I can help you to sell them.

Best Regards,

Sarah Norshtein

SMC

Intellectual Property Lawyer

CH-4051 Basel

Switzerland
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Follow up email from the scammer, email hosting IP is now 173.201.192.108

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Your buyer is an investor from Belgium.

Our commission is 5 %. It's paid after you receive the funds.

The buyer offers $15,000.

Do you have a certificate?

My buyer needs it for tax and accounting purposes.

If you don't have it's not a problem. You can order it online. Please note he cannot accept it from any agency. He needs a manual service with some additional verifications.

If you are new to certifications or domain sales, I can send you step by step instructions. I will also help you during the whole sale process. You will be able to contact me at any time.

The sale process is easy:

1. You go to the certificate agency site my buyer trusts and order a certificate. Just submit your domains and let them know you have a buyer with $XX,XXX offer. It will help you to get a better valuation.

2. Send it to me and we will start the sale process. As soon as he receives your certificate he will buy your domain via a third-party escrow service of his choice. The escrow service will be able to pay you via Paypal, Wire, Western Union or any other method you prefer. If you don't want to use escrow because there are fees involved, he may send you the funds by check.

Of course, he wants to ensure the safe delivery of the funds to you. Furthermore, since this is our first time conducting any business, I believe that using a third-party escrow service can provide a safe, well defined process.
 
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Common scam mate..........there loads of them doing their rounds :)
 
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The scammer's IP address and browser information:

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Browser: Samsung Internet 3.3
IP Address: 118.98.66.234
Operating System: Android
Location: Indonesia
Resolution: 360x640
ISP: Pt Telkom Indonesia
 
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Email headers from latest email:

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Return-path:
<[email protected]>
Delivery-date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 01:32:49 -0600
Received: from p3plsmtpa06-07.prod.phx3.secureserver.net ([173.201.192.108]:34834)
(envelope-from [email protected] )
Subject: Re: Offer to purchase *********.com
From: Lawyer <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:34:52 +0400
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.3.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0
X-Spam-Score: 0
X-Spam-Bar: /
 
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Appraisal scam..Did you order from them ?
 
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I did not fall for it because i read about it here on namepros before.
 
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Just had email scam from Maria at the same. Writes she is a member of the swiss bar association. Guess they might have an issue with that.
 
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Just had this happen as well, although my fee was only 3%. Simple grammar issues raised flags immediately, and the ambiguous writing always makes me suspicious. Like any domain seller, I proceeded with my due diligence. I had called the actual law office they are pretending to be, only to realize that it was after midnight in Switzerland. I then forwarded all correspondence to my rep at GoDaddy, along with the information associated with the re-directing website which lands on an actual law office. They take these types of luring scams seriously, especially when they're hosted with GoDaddy! The Admin contact information for the website is: Michael Seidel, Steinenvorstadt 12, Basel 4051 CH. Phone: 41.612686829.

I forwarded the email to the actual law office they pretended to be, as well as the Swiss Bar Association. Hope this helps anyone who was tempted to pay these morons.
 
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This scammer was sent the same email to me 7 days ago

Offer to purchase xxxx.com
Hello!

I represent an investor who is interested in acquisition of xxxx.com

Are you interested in selling?

Based on whois lookup I understand that you own the domain name.

Are you a beginner or an experienced seller?

I help my clients to buy and sell intellectual properties.

If you have more names I can help you to sell them.

Best Regards,

Anna Silber

Lawyer

Swiss Lawyers Association

European Law Society

20 rue du Marche

Geneve, Switzerland

-Me: How much is your offer ?
-Scammer:
The buyer is a well known investor in Belgium. He has five figures budget for several names.

Our commission is 3 %. It's paid after you receive the funds.

The buyer offers $15,000.

How do you want to get paid: Check, Wire, Western Union ? If my buyer does not support your preferred method he can send you the funds via an escrow service that supports it.

Do you have a certificate?

My buyer needs it for tax and accounting purposes.

If you don't have it's not a problem. You can order it online.

Please note he cannot accept it from any agency. He needs a manual service.

The certification must include the following:

1. Independent valuation of the market price. It will show your domain name is not overpriced. On the other hand if the valuation comes higher, he will increase the price accordingly. In the domain name industry, there are many appraisal tools that people use to estimate the value of a domain name. My client does not want to risk and doesn't accept services that use scripts. If you are unsure about some service feel free to ask me.

2. Trademark infringement verification. It proves your domain has no trademark problems. He would like this verification to be included in the appraisal report. It's not a problem because some companies include the TM verification for free.

I’m also interested in a good estimate of the market price because you will pays me % on each sale.

You can read about certification agencies at http://answersgoogle.org/answers/threadview/id/50814729.htm (“Domain Broker” is my nickname).

The process is very easy:

1. Go to the certificate agency site and order a certificate. Just submit your domains and let them know you have a buyer with $XX,XXX offer. It will help you to get a better valuation.

2. Send it to me and we will start the sale process. As soon as he receives your certificate he will buy your domain via an escrow service of his choice.

If the appraisal comes higher he will make a better offer. His final offer will only depend on the appraisal results.

If you are new to the certification process, I can help you with the step by step instructions.
-Me: what's your website?
Scammer:
I'm a private lawyer from Switzerland. I don't need a site. I work with my clients personally or va email.
-Me: so how much is your offer for my domain?
-Scammer:
He will pay you the appraised value. The appraisal certificate must be issued by an independent third party agency (not your broker). He must know and trusts this agency.
-Me:
Dont make me mad and curse you
bye then
 
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Thanks for letting us know. Sorry to see this is still a problem in the name industry.
 
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It happens weekly for me, it's always going to be a problem
 
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Oh, pleeeeze! Such primitive scam, asking the seller to do an appraisal on behalf of the buyer. No due diligence neccessary here. Simply revert to the agent telling them they are free to appraise whatever, whenever and whereever they or the buyer deem neccessary. Looking forward to getting back to this subject matter when finished with their due diligence ;)
 
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Common scam mate..........there loads of them doing their rounds :)

But the people that are being scammed don't get that info tho

its a big like chess

(the ip changes but almost has to change eg it can't be the same and there will be frequency of ipod change and frequency of email which will if tracked back reveal the email list worked from creating patterns and the patterns will tell the level of success of the scams etceg it can't not lol
 
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Hello!

I represent an investor who is going to buy ***********.com for a new online project.

Are you still interested in selling?

The buyer offers a price in $XX,XXX - $XX,XXX range (based on your certified appraisal).

Please get back to me and I will help you to finish the deal.

Best Regards,

Nicole Aronowitz

Lawyer

VPS Hosting

23 rue du Marche

Geneva

Switzerland


Got this shit mail today.....
 
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Sounds as if I should look for a domain name for an appraisal site. That way I can suggest they pay me for the appraisal.
 
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there should be a site even a thread on here that lists al spam emails and people offering website design SEO and logo services Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz the odd one is ok but the odd million spam emails er aren't lol
 
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Or even a thread that where domainers list the email address used in the spam email

eg - spam email address - name used
Date and time and type of spam eg appraisal etc or logo or SEO or website design etc
 
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Got the same today! LOL! I though i was going to spend like a queen this Christmas! Then I did a little research and voila! Dreams crushed! I think I will just play with them for a minute. waste their time for making me dream of getting a new wardrobe.
 
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Well I can see I should have googled these people earlier. I got the same letter from Nicole in Geneva a couple days ago after posting a domain on Flippa. We emailed and she sounded legit. Although I thought it odd that she only wanted a 3% commission, most brokers charge 15%. I submitted my name for appraisal, but I haven't paid yet, so I lucked out. She said to tell the appraiser that I had a committed buyer for $15-30K, and then he would give me a good appraisal. I argued with the stupid appraiser she recommended, they only take PAPER CHECKS sent by snail mail -- why in the world?? Nobody uses checks anymore. And she didn't seem to know that it would be so hard to pay (I assumed they would take credit cards, you know, and I complained to her when they didn't). This is when the red flag went up, when she didn't seem to know how that appraiser wanted to be paid. I'm sure glad I googled this tonight, thank you all for your assistance. I am going to email Flippa about this. It's broken my heart, I thought I would be getting all this money and having a fabulous Christmas. <sigh> Do any of you know a really good broker? I want to retire soon and would like to reduce my portfolio ..... thanks! Goldey
 
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they changed the domain for their e-mails - its swiss-legal.info now
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Are you still interested in selling?

The buyer offers a price in $25,000 - $35,000 range (based on your certified appraisal).

Please get back to me and I will help you to finish the deal.

Best Regards,

Rebecca Schulman

Lawyer

NetFirms CA
..............
 
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certified-appraisal.com is available for registration. :)
 
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Just got one as well. The red flags for me were a company name of VPS hosting (really....?) and the fact that according to Google Street View, there is no number 27 on Rue du Marche.

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X-Originating-IP: [72.167.234.245]
domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=swiss-legal.info; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO p3nlsmtp20.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net) (72.167.234.245)
by xxxxxxxxx with SMTPS; Tue, 15 Nov 2016 21:18:14 +0000
Received: from P3NWVPWEB150 ([50.62.169.11])
by : HOSTING RELAY : with SMTP
id 6kz3cyU11ZkDz6kz3cE5Dr; Tue, 15 Nov 2016 14:09:42 -0700
thread-index: AdI/hJJ3rxRJGIrYQUa6+J+vV4wAHg==
Thread-Topic: Offer to purchase **********.com
From: <[email protected]>

Hello!

I represent an investor who is going to buy xxxxx.com for a new online project.
Are you still interested in selling?
The buyer offers a price in $30,000 - $35,000 range (based on your certified appraisal).
Please get back to me and I will help you to finish the deal.

Best Regards,

Victoria Schulman
Lawyer

VPS Hosting
27 rue du Marche
Geneva
Switzerland
 
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