Have you ever looked back at one of your sales and found that the website they have built was potentially used for a scam?

[KTC]

I was going through my server to delete some of the landing pages and was curious about a few domains to see what has happened to them after they were no longer in my possession. Some of them I had regrets and should have kept longer(I dropped some during my break from domaining), some were successful sales that I have had over the past year or so, and some I should have never bought at all.

There was one sale in particular that stuck out to me because I had mispriced it on Sedo(a two word hyphenated domain), so I decided to take a look what happened after the buyer was smart enough to snag it. It originally had a website built up and everything within a day of purchase, so it was nice to see that it was being used.

Fast forward until today and noticed the website was down. When I originally was typing the domain name in the browser, I noticed it had the domain name + reviews in the search bar, so I had the chance to dive a bit to see how it was doing before the website. Turns out on Trustpilot and Sitejabber, the reviews were pretty horrid. Just taking the money from their customers and disappearing. It was a good sale though for me, but it made me really think about letting my domains have a lease-to-own option in the case that something like this would happen.

So, it makes me wonder NP's take on this. If you saw a domain name that was used for a scam, but it still had potential for another end user, would you buy it again if it dropped? Or would you pass over it if you saw it again? And seeing this has happened, do you feel confident in leasing to own your domain names in the case that you would have someone that could try to run a scam?

Disclaimer: The domain hasn't dropped, but I've got it saved on my watchlist just in case.

 

[AEProgram]

If a domain was used as a scam and you buy it and sell to someone else without telling them, you became the scammer.

 

[accuname]

I find no ethical issues with it. It's the buyer's responsibility to research a domain's previous use. What you could do if you feel the domain has good value on its own is try and rehab it as best you can. Not sure how best to do that but some clean development would be in order first. Let that simmer and then see if you can get it removed from blacklists. By doing that you would be adding value.

As far as leasing domain, if it is done through a platform like Dan, TOS does not allow use for any scam activity. If you are doing it yourself you can create your own TOS for the contract.

 

[KTC]

If a domain was used as a scam and you buy it and sell to someone else without telling them, you became the scammer.

While I do understand what you're saying, I don't think it's as cut and dry like that. If I had bought the website/service to keep running it, I'd wholeheartedly agree that it would be very scammer. Not so much with the domain name itself.

I find no ethical issues with it. It's the buyer's responsibility to research a domain's previous use. What you could do if you feel the domain has good value on its own is try and rehab it as best you can. Not sure how best to do that but some clean development would be in order first. Let that simmer and then see if you can get it removed from blacklists. By doing that you would be adding value.

As far as leasing domain, if it is done through a platform like Dan, TOS does not allow use for any scam activity. If you are doing it yourself you can create your own TOS for the contract.

Yeah, this would be a rehabbing kind of activity from a branding prospective since the previous owner would have tarnished the domain name itself with what the service that it provided(or didn't provide in this case.) I'd have to agree that it would fall on a buyer to do its due diligence as well.

For leasing purposes though, I can see how that could go awry, especially if the domain itself had some great backlinks and value beforehand. Been a few times where I've seen expired domain names with great SEO value(and not so much a great domain name in my eyes for resale) get obliterated since the new owner just used it for spam backlinks, PLR articles, etc. Would be an easy out if someone leased a domain, did their damage behind the scenes with improper off-site SEO, and then returned it back before the next payment.

 

[comRaid]

Curious to see more replies on this topic. If a leased domain is used for some serious criminal activity, how badly it can effect the domainer? Does this Terms and conditions save us from being dragged to courts?

 

[KTC]

Curious to see more replies on this topic. If a leased domain is used for some serious criminal activity, how badly it can effect the domainer? Does this Terms and conditions save us from being dragged to courts?

I thought it was a good topic to discuss for sure. I'd lean on T&Cs to help protect us from such liabilities, but T&C's never stopped anyone from bringing legal representation anyways. But, I'm not a lawyer or understand law, so there's that.