I get a lot of PM's from members asking me to purchase domains.... and I mean a lot.
I have bought quite a few and it's no secret that I am willing to pony up the dough if the domain appeals to me.
However, I am noticing a little trent here and it's the third time this has happened to me.
A member will send me a message asking me if I am interested in a half dozen or so premium domains. Of course I assume the member has ownership of these domains and I begin discussing the possibility of 1-2 acquisitions. The problem is on a couple of occasions the members I'm dealing with don't actually own the domains. I waste a lot of time and then find out there is a different owner. So if they negotiate 5k with me then they try to get it for 2.5k from the owner. I guess I am at fault because 5k is my magic bidding number and people know that.
So today I get a PM from a member asking me to negotiate on a half dozen premium domain names and coincidentally I was just conversing with the real owner on three of the domains.
I asked the guy if he had ownership and of course I already knew he did not. I reported him to namepros and the real owner of the domains.
Turns out he read my post on namepros where I said I will pay 5k for one word .ca domains if they meet my criteria as a positive meaning, singular, dictionary term.
So to give an example, he knew I paid good money for red.ca so he substituted another color, contacted the owner, asked him how much and then marked it up by 5k and contacted me.
Problem here is the real owner had no idea and he made no mention to me that he was not the owner of the domains.
I reported him to namepros but in retrospect he will probably get off scott free because he will claim he was just trying to broker the sales.
So the question I have is can you really broker a sale when neither the buyer or seller has any idea that someone is trying to broker the domain?