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A couple days ago I received both an email and a phone call (I was out, came home to message) from 'Joel' at BrokerageFirm dot com.
Both were regarding the domain XLA dot com. Both were saying he had a client interested in purchasing it, was I still selling it, and that it looks like XLA dot com was already well-branded so he doubted I would sell it but he was still checking because his client really wanted it.
Here's the thing: I've never even remotely had anything to do with XLA dot com. Never owned it, never brokered for it (I do broker and do deal with some 3-letter dot coms). In case there was some wacky mix-up, I checked the whois of that xla domain; nope, none of my info in there. I checked the xla website; nope, my name (or that of someone else with the same name) is not anywhere on their site or related to them in any way.
To make matters more interesting... Joel of BrokerageFirm actually called my home number. In my Godaddy account where I have almost all of my 'for sale' domains, I use my cell phone number for all whois. But for my few personal domains that I have developed sites on, or am keeping to develop in the future, I use Namecheap (Enom) as the registrar and I use my home landline phone in the whois. I have very few domains there, just the personal ones.
So this Joel obviously mined my email and phone number from one of my personal domains' whois. And none of those domains has anything to do with, or even approaches any similarity, to XLA dot com, the domain he was contacting me to ask about buying.
After checking all things out and not seeing any way Joel could have associated me with the XLA domain, I emailed him to ask how he associated my info with that domain. I didn't use the 'reply' button on his original email just in case it was cloaked somehow, rather I went to his website at BrokerageFirm dot com, found his email addy, and sent a new email to him. It's two days later and I haven't had a response from him. The phone number he left in both email and message is the same one listed on his website, but I didn't call the number.
It all smells very scammy to me.
In case BrokerageFirm is truly legit and someone is somehow cloaking things so their email and phone call to me just appear to be from Joel's site, I'm not posting this in the Warnings area yet. Since Joel has not responded to my email, I thought I'd ask if any NP'ers have had good or bad dealings with BrokerageFirm.
Because if it's a scam... I just can't make out what the intent was, him asking me about a 3-letter domain that I have no association with...
Thanks for any input.
Both were regarding the domain XLA dot com. Both were saying he had a client interested in purchasing it, was I still selling it, and that it looks like XLA dot com was already well-branded so he doubted I would sell it but he was still checking because his client really wanted it.
Here's the thing: I've never even remotely had anything to do with XLA dot com. Never owned it, never brokered for it (I do broker and do deal with some 3-letter dot coms). In case there was some wacky mix-up, I checked the whois of that xla domain; nope, none of my info in there. I checked the xla website; nope, my name (or that of someone else with the same name) is not anywhere on their site or related to them in any way.
To make matters more interesting... Joel of BrokerageFirm actually called my home number. In my Godaddy account where I have almost all of my 'for sale' domains, I use my cell phone number for all whois. But for my few personal domains that I have developed sites on, or am keeping to develop in the future, I use Namecheap (Enom) as the registrar and I use my home landline phone in the whois. I have very few domains there, just the personal ones.
So this Joel obviously mined my email and phone number from one of my personal domains' whois. And none of those domains has anything to do with, or even approaches any similarity, to XLA dot com, the domain he was contacting me to ask about buying.
After checking all things out and not seeing any way Joel could have associated me with the XLA domain, I emailed him to ask how he associated my info with that domain. I didn't use the 'reply' button on his original email just in case it was cloaked somehow, rather I went to his website at BrokerageFirm dot com, found his email addy, and sent a new email to him. It's two days later and I haven't had a response from him. The phone number he left in both email and message is the same one listed on his website, but I didn't call the number.
It all smells very scammy to me.
In case BrokerageFirm is truly legit and someone is somehow cloaking things so their email and phone call to me just appear to be from Joel's site, I'm not posting this in the Warnings area yet. Since Joel has not responded to my email, I thought I'd ask if any NP'ers have had good or bad dealings with BrokerageFirm.
Because if it's a scam... I just can't make out what the intent was, him asking me about a 3-letter domain that I have no association with...
Thanks for any input.
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