offers Google just offered me $300K! ?

[EbookLover]

Hi,

Now, before you start thinking "GREAT!!!!", not so fast.

Here is my dilemma.

I regged an AdSense-related .COM domain about 6 months ago. I am not willing to divulge the domain right now, but it's a pretty damn good one.

I bought it and parked it at Fabulous in my account.

About 2 months ago, I got an offer through Fabulous for $100 by some random person named Mike (no last name given) who had a Gmail email account. I refused the offer as it is worth more than that to me, even though it's undeveloped. I'd rather just keep it an never get an offer for it to be honest with you rather than let it go for that little.

So anyway, tonight I got home and checked my email. Fabulous sent me notice that I go another offer for the domain. This is the info they gave me...

Offer Details
Domain: XXXXXXXX.com
Name: Rose Hagan
Email: [email protected]
Offering Price: $300000.00
Additional Comments: Google Inc.

Now at first, I thought, hey, it's obviously a bogus offer. I mean, not only is the price way too high but it seems odd that Google would want to buy a domain for so much money and contact me through Fabulous instead of by a more legit means like US mail.

But I thought that maybe Google did make me an offer for it but added too many zeros by accident. Maybe they meant to input 3000 or 300.

I checked out the email address ([email protected]) and it is the email address that Google uses in their whois for some domains they own. So it is in fact a Google email address.

My newest thought, though, is that some wise-a$$ decided to cause some trouble hoping that I would contact Google at the email address and then possibly get into legal trouble with them for attempting to accept an offer for an AdSense domain. Who knows? Could be. I did a search for Rose Hagan and found that she is the senior trademark counsel at Google.

As you may or may not know, Google owns the SM for AdSense but I don't think that they own full SM or TM for it since Adsense.com (an advertising agency) has been around way before Google AdSense was even publicly released. Whether I am right or wrong, I have no clue, just my speculation. If I am right, then they cannot easily bully the domain away from me as I could have registered it in relation to AdSense.com advertising agency, not Google's AdSense. I could be sorely mistaken, though.

So, if this were you, what would you do? Would you ignore it? Why?

Would you follow through and send the email to Rose Hagan at [email protected] even though it i smost likely not her direct email address? Why?

I just don't know what to do. While I know the price is unbelievable, something is telling me that I'd be a fool to follow through. However, the other part of me is saying I'd be a fool to NOT follow through. Hoping that some here might be able to help me figure out what I should do. The more I think about it, the more confused I get as what to do.

The more I think about it now, the more I think FOGEDDABOUDIT! but I would still like to hear from others on this for some good conversation if for nothing else.

Thanks.

 

[wasistdas]

I would send a letter with the following content:

Dear M Hagan,

Would you please condifrm if you sent me an email on October 29 through one of the internet public services. Thank you and sorry for disturbing if it was not your letter.

 

[cvxdes]

Probably some punk trying to mess with you...

But i would look into it if i were you.

 

[slaughterbeck]

Reply to the letter but disguise the domain name as you did in this thread. If the offer is real they’ll distinguish who you are and what the domain name is, if not, Google will not be alerted to the name and will have no idea it may have included any of their registered marks.

Just my 2¢


-Kimberly Marie

 

[mole]

Trick or treat?

 

[gazzip]

Accept the offer via Fabulous and see what happens. Ask Mike at Fab to act as intermediary - what have you got to lose?

This sounds like the best idea to me, I would contact mike at Fab to discuss this - BEFORE you accept the offer, I think for his slice of a possible $300K deal he will be more than willing to advise you on how best to proceed.

He may aslo check the IP before going any further

Good Luck

 

[touchring]

It's a scam that plays on your greed. No one will offer 300k for a domain. People will always offer a lower price. I do not believe Google hires stupid people??? In any event, you can ask them to send you an option to buy, e.g. 1% of the purchase price, and let's see if they will do that.

 

[Ixix]

Besides, if the first offer they made is 300K then that means that is the lowest they are willing to pay. I highly doubt it is legit for this and many other reasons posted in this thread by me and others. ANd like the other post stated, they would just file a UDRP or whatever and take it from me and save themselves XXX,XXX.XX I doubt that Google stock holders would like it if Google was buying domains with their own TM in it for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

i might email google and explain that you own the adsense domain for your personal use. then explain that you got an offer for the domain and that you're afraid it might be spam/phishing/scam email....so you reported it to them.... kinda like dipping your toe in the water, you're checking if it's a valid offer without saying yes, no, or maybe....and if it is a scam, you're alerting google of it....

 

[mole]

maybe its a honeypot trap to get you to admit you're a cybersquatter?

 

[slaughterbeck]

maybe its a honeypot trap to get you to admit you're a cybersquatter?

Is curiosity in financial gain actual acknowledgement to cyber squatting?

 

[gazzip]

maybe its a honeypot trap to get you to admit you're a cybersquatter?

It could well be, lot's of free advertising of the adsense programme aswell by making the news headlines - maybe !!

That's why I think he should go through Mike at Fabulous - Let him earn his big fat commision if it is a genuine sale !! :lol:

(No offense Mike, I'm sure you work really hard)

 

[TheWatcher]

It could well be, lot's of free advertising of the adsense programme aswell by making the news headlines - maybe !!

That's why I think he should go through Mike at Fabulous - Let him earn his big fat commision if it is a genuine sale !! :lol:

(No offense Mike, I'm sure you work really hard)

This your way to go ... let the commission fee work for you.
Cheers and goodluck.

em

 

[Zeeble]

Hmm, why not just accept the offer and take it from there? It's not like your going to lose money from it.

 

[Premium]

Hmmm......good luck with whatever you do or decide to do

 

[Gene]

It sounds to me like they're trying to trap you into revealing that you are indeed willing to profit from their trademark. As soon as you accept an offer for this name, they will have all the proof they need in a court of law to show you are using their trademark to make money. DON'T ACCEPT the offer, and DON'T even attempt to ask them about it. Remember, if it really IS Google making an offer of $300,000, it means one of two things:
1) They're trying to trap you.
2) They REALLY want the name.
If it's number 2, then they will keep contacting you though any means to get the name. You will hear from them repeatedly. So there is NO NEED to respond to this offer, as tempting as it may be. Wait.

 

[Zeeble]

2) They REALLY want the name.
If it's number 2, then they will keep contacting you though any means to get the name. You will hear from them repeatedly. So there is NO NEED to respond to this offer, as tempting as it may be. Wait.

That is a very good point...

 

[dgridley]

One extremely possible scenario, but why offer 300k? Why not 10k then?

It sounds to me like they're trying to trap you into revealing that you are indeed willing to profit from their trademark. As soon as you accept an offer for this name, they will have all the proof they need in a court of law to show you are using their trademark to make money. DON'T ACCEPT the offer, and DON'T even attempt to ask them about it. Remember, if it really IS Google making an offer of $300,000, it means one of two things:
1) They're trying to trap you.
2) They REALLY want the name.
If it's number 2, then they will keep contacting you though any means to get the name. You will hear from them repeatedly. So there is NO NEED to respond to this offer, as tempting as it may be. Wait.

 

[wow!]

I dont understand why you are thinking alot in this case...
If the payments going in escrow of Fabulous.
accept it and see whats happening.
I wish you good luck and remember your friends in Namepros...

 

[TT]

April fools day early. Google does not offer to buy any domains they would rather spend the 300k in legal fee's to UDRP the domain and they will get it no matter what anyone here says.

 

[EbookLover]

My thoughts exactly. If they want the name that bad that they are willing to pay 300K and that is the very first offer they made, then they will contact me again if they do not hear from me.

But I really would like to see about developing it as I originally intended.

i never intended ot sell it to anyone, let alonea large company for a large sum.

 

[rome2ng]

maybe it's happy halloween treat from google ?

haha, jk anyway i think we can end this topic. lets wait till mr ebooklover get a reply.

 

[EbookLover]

Boo!

 

[MCDomains]

Sounds fake to me, but accept it. It's worth a shot.

 

[combs84]

I'm not sure why this is even a question, just contact them and confirm the offer is legit. Don't give them the domain name off the bat. IMO you can throw the option about Google trying to contact you, to get you to agree, just to sue you out the window. That's something a shady company would do, they have better things to do then mess with you over a parked domain name.

Does the domain in question re-direct to Namepros?

 

[btrader]

Fab may be able to tell you about the IP address that the bid came from - and then you can do a reverse look-up.

I would say it is 1 in 1000 that this is a legit offer - but best of luck with it.

 

[slaughterbeck]

It’s not likely to be real as a small Idaho based company named Data Docket handles these types of acquisitions for Google.

Data Docket employed a small Burbank company to handle the actual negotiations for gMail.com as well as gCalendar.com for Google last year.