TD trademark & appraisal

Hi

I got an email from a broker, who says he is a lawyer, willng to pay 55.000 for one domain and interested in another. He wants me to give him this:

1. Independent manual valuation of the market price. My client does not trust automated valuations. The expert evaluation will help to determine the true value of your domain's worth so you can maximize profits during the sale.

2. Trademark infringement verification. It proves your domain has no trademark problems.

3. Verification of restrictions. It proves you are a legitimate owner and your domain has no any obligations and restrictions.

I thought scam first time but then he says we can split fees for the TD and appraisal. If someone can help me out here I can pay10% of the transaction(s) amounts.

 

A manual eval of the domain might be hard to do - first thing is of course to check the domain-name: is it marketable, is the potential for the domain name itself worth money? Second you can look at what the site is bringing in today (if anything) - ad-revenue, donations, whatever brings in cash. Deduct the running-costs (hosting, bandwidth, everything taking away from profits) and you have a current value (pr month or year). Giving a proper evaluation of potential value for just a domain is very hard, and mostly hinges on what the buyer intends to do with the site, and what business plan s/he has.

Trademark infringement verification - this you can usually get via official channels - you submit a request for an evaluation of content, branding etc. for your site with whatever governs trademarks in your country.

The last part doesn't really make much sense - if you're the sole owner of the site, and you can prove that you registered the site, and is currently paying the bills, that should be more than enough (of course, you might also have to provide a statement that there are no external interests - no loans, no legal issues).

 

Hi OK, if you could talk to him and fix this i can pay 10%

 

It is 100% a scam.

 

oh ok thx

 

Split fees? Sounds like a scam. If he is willing to pay an amount for it, an appraisal is unnecessary because he is willing to pay that amount. If he wants an appraisal to adjust his offer price, he can obtain one on his own. You need to be no part of that and certainly do not have to pay for it.

A lawyer will know how to check government trademark databases to look for any trademark issues. Right there that shows that he probably is not a lawyer.

As for "verification of restrictions", that sounds like a title search to a home and I have no idea how that would be conducted with a domain name. You have your credit card receipt, the registrar can verify you paid for it.

I imagine the scam would work something like you send him half the amount of appraisal and research and whatever and you would never hear from him again.

 

Probably, yes. One more thing to consider is the actual value of the domain (what do you get out of it today) or the potential marketability - if it's nowhere close to $55k, then why would someone offer that amount - noone wants to pay more than they have to, hence you start low, and build upwards (unless that IS a low price, but then you have a rather successfull domain, why would you sell it).

 

this is totally a scam, they make you pay their appraiser, and thats where they get your money