🎯 Check before sending domain sales emails…
I receive a fair amount of weekly emails from people across the world attempting to sell me on their greatest gem of a domain and how it’ll change my life forever.
Not too often, one of these emails will be legit. Most recently, the email offers have been hyphenated, multi-word, wrong tense, wrong order if any order domains.
Case in point, the following emails just today and yesterday:
- Furniturez.biz
- Downloadz-empire.net
- Downloader-manger.org
- SafeCab.net
- Villerealestate.com
- TheTermInsurance.com
- ACarRepair.com
Most of these reach the spam bin if not already in there to begin with. But then there are a few legitimate domain sales emails that catch my eye.
The one I’m referencing today that caught my did for a number of reasons.
First, the domain was the subject line. I knew I had encountered this domain in the last 2-3 months, but couldn’t place it. I couldn’t even place the sender of this suspicious looking email.
It took a me few hours, but it finally hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been contacted a few months ago about a domain name I won sniped in auction with only a few minutes remaining.
It was the losing bidder than sent me the original email requesting that I sell him the domain for dirt cheap since I won it dirt cheap in auction. Who does this?
I requested the gent to make his best offer only to receive a follow up email asking me to consider trading one domain name for nearly 20 useless names. To be fair, the domains are likely useful to someone, just not me!
Not only were the names useless to me, but they were way out of scope for my domain portfolio. After all, if you’re going to offer someone something, at least do so with their definition of value and domain portfolio in mind.
Nevertheless, there was one domain that did catch my eye although I never made mention of it. As usual, I whois’ed the domain to check the expiration date on it. I saw it was expiring in a couple of months.
Well, fast forward and here I am receiving an email from another gent (not the original) stating the domain is for sale at roughly $1K.
So, as I normally do, I typed the domain into a browser. And to my surprise, the same domain valued at $1000 is listed in GoDaddy’s closeout auction at $5 with only a few hours remaining.
It took me a few minutes to sort all of this nonsense out. I thought I may have misspelled the domain, but no, I spelled it correctly.
Me being me, I decided to have a bit of fun. I wrote back stating that I might be interested. Nevertheless, the so called “broker” ups the price which I politely decline.
I’m not certain if the “broker” knew the domain had expired and was in auction. Either way, keep your eyes peeled for this type of nonsense that hits your email inbox.
Truthfully, I’m waiting for this domain to deleted so that I may hand reg it and use it as a forwarding domain.
There are many lessons to be learned, but make sure you adhere to the following:
- Check your names weekly and monthly (Yes, I know it can be time consuming)
- That you intend for a domain to expire
- Fervently use and ensue expiration notification emails are enabled
- Keep your credit card info updated
- Always who.is the name before buying
- Use DomainIQ.com to research domain should things seem suspicious (good habit regardless)
Although this email involved an expired domain in auction, I’ve been the recipient of some quick flip domain names where I was able to hand reg the supposed domain that was up for sale.
No joke. A person that thinks they own the domain sends me an email attempting to sell me the domain. Most of the times, the domain is trash.
However, there have been at least 5-6 times the domain was gem of flip, and I was grateful for their careless email. I guess I can only end this to say: One man’s careless email, is likely another man’s email treasure.
Or said another way: be sure you own the name before you try to sell it, and check the domain registration before you buy it. 😉
