Appraisal Scam Alert!

Hey guys

I've recently been involved in a domain appraisal scam. Apparently this is quite common in the domain industry but as a new member in the domain industry, I wasn't aware of this scam and thus, I am posting this to ensure that other uninformed, new domain sellers like me do not get scammed!

Few weeks ago, I was contacted through an email by a person named Aaron Anderson who posed as the CEO of live-host.org

He said he was interested in one of my domains and was willing to pay a high price for it! Few emails went back and forth and the last email, he wanted me to get a domain appraisal to make sure that the value he was offering was the market price. He insisted that I use the website icaan.info for domain appraisal because it does free "Trademark Infringement" test.

I am new to the domain selling industry and I was naive enough to believe when he said it is the industry norm to give accredited domain appraisal to the buyer

I took his words and got the domain appraisal service. Afterwards, however, I felt a bit fishy about all this and decided to search him and his company and this was what I found:

http://i.hao8.asia/news.php?url=bG10aC55YWQtZW5vLW5pLXNsaWFtZS0yLW1hY3MtbGFzaWFycHBhLXRyZWxhLXJlbW1hY3MvZ29sYi9tb2Muc2VtYW50bnQud3d3Ly9BMyVwdHRo

The email content outlined in the above site was exactly (word-for-word) what I received from him in my email.

http://www.webutation.net/go/review/icaan.info

Here's the review about icaan.info. If you look at the two bad comments, they talk about how their appraisal service is used by scammers. I am not sure if this site is owned or works with the scammers. However, it seems certain that their appraisal service is being used by the domain appraisal scammers.

I realized I was scammed and contacted icaan.info and Visa to dispute my payment. I ended up getting a refund and was able to save my money from getting into the hands of scammer(s).

I am posting this to make sure that no one loses their hard-earned money by these scammers.

 

Thanks for your news good luck to all

 

thanks dear

 

yeah this happens all the time - i got the following message from a similar scammer:

The address this scammer is using is and he later asked to order the fake appraisal at
http://www.cnet-forum.biz/Archive/94127038653.htm

Don't fall for these guys and report messages from them as Spam as well as Scam, which I both did. Also - by getting the refund through your Visa (aka chargeback) you will get these guys in trouble as their payment provider will not tolerate too many chargebacks before cutting them off.

 

This makes no sense:

- "He said he was interested in one of my domains and was willing to pay a high price for it!"
- "I ended up getting a refund and was able to save my money from getting into the hands of scammer(s).
"

So who was paying who for what?
.

 

In these scams the seller (aka. you) are asked to pay for appraisal upfront to a shady website. Anyone seriously wanting to buy a website will be solely responsible for the appraisal themselves.

 

yes

i got a smilar email. he will offer a great amount for any of our domain

i think he gets email from whois info


and he told, he is ready to offer any amount which is appraised by this website

but this is a scam, he wont pay

its a spam msg to make us to pay for that appraisal

be alert

 

Same thing happened to me, except the buyer who offered ridiculous amounts for my domains called himself Hetzner and the link to the scam was http://www.icann-certificates.org/
I points the the same site as http://www.icaan.info
When you look around you find a fair bit of info on this scam, mostly using different domains pointing to the same site.

 

Agree. Yesterday I received similar email.
It took me some time and 2 emails to understand.
They offer big $$$ for not great domain names,
and finally have fake link in email ( certificates.icann.org points to www.icann-certificates.org ))).

My friend advised me to inform their registrator (GoDaddy) against them.
What do you think?

 

I was approached today by similar / same guys.

They refer to a page pretending to be from Google at http://archive-google.com/ but is not Google's.
The page includes fake link with weblink pretending to point to certificate.icann.org but in reality pointing to certificate.icannaccredited.org .

There want you to pay for worthless domain appraisal and even more worthless certificate.

Avoid this scam.

 

i am a new seller in domain too, in few day ago i listed my domain Lintas Berita and today i get email offer from email username : Domainer
but in the end he want me to pay some money to get domain authority appraisal from http://authority.icann.org i think it's scam and he will go after we pay.

 

I'm also fairly new to domain market, I almost got scamed but decided to look up the appraisal site in Google and found this thread + that the site is only 40 days old...
My scamer was even more crafty, I post my e-mail history below:

 

1st e-mail:

Hello!
I'm a broker of an investor from Edmonton (Canada). He wants to buy "MY DOMAIN NAME"
My client has $496,000 budget for 40-45 domains. Please specify your asking price in the subject of your message.
Our company is in a web hosting business. We also provide brokerage services for domain buyers.
If you have other domains please email me the list with prices. I may offer your domains for sale to my clients.
How can we transfer money to you (escrow, wire, Paypal or Western Union)?
I can also help you with the transfer process.

Best Regards,
Mark Herman
Vice President | Web Information Solutions
Switzerland
Basel
Centralbahnstrasse 63
Phone: 061 219 58 471


My answer:

Hello Mark, "MY DOMAIN NAME" is for sale on Sedo.com at 549 USD.
I don't have any other global domains that you could be interested in.
Best Regards,

 

2nd e-mail:

2014-07-11 11:42 GMT+02:00 Domainer <>:
I'm unhappy with your low price. It does not allow me to earn a good commission on this sale. Please note I don't buy your domain. I'm a representative. I buy your domain for my client. So I'm very motivated to finish this deal. I'm ready to help you with the process, transfer and any other things.
I'm not interested in sales under 1000 usd. I suggest you to change your price to $5000. Of course, the budget of my client is not unlimited but he can afford this sum. Ok?
What country are you from? Do you sell a domain or a web site? Web site is not necessary. My client is more interested in the domain name only.

He is also interested in purchasing gambling, accounting, insurance and adult names.


How can we pay you (PayPal, Western Union, escrow.com etc.)? If this is your first time domain sale I may help you with the sale/transfer process.

Are you a member of domain seller communities/forums? Probably, we know each other under some nicknames?


My answer:
I DECIDED TO NOT INCLUDE IT
...but I admit I was quite happy and as I am a little over honest I thanked him and talked a little about me and karma... yes, karma

 

3rd e-mail:

2014-07-12 6:00 GMT+02:00 Domainer <>:
4999 - Ok. Great! Before we proceed my investor needs only one thing from you:

As you may know all major domain brokers does not allow listing above $1000 or higher if you don't have an official appraisal. Since the sale price is not low in our case, my client needs an official certificate of price (appraisal). He also needs to know you have no trademark problems. It won't be a problem since I know an official appraiser that offers this option (trademark infringement verification) for free as a part of the appraisal service.

I'm also interested in a good valuation and a high sale price because my client pays me a commission (10-15% of the sale price) on every domain purchase. So I'm not interested in low sales too.

Of course, you should not use a free automated service like Estibot or similar services. My client won't accept them. I was working for Estibot and knew they were using automated scripts for free appraisals. In our case we need a real manual valuation.


To avoid mistakes and wasting money on useless automated services I asked in the forum about reliable manual valuation/TM verification services. Please read this: http://answers.archive-google.com/answers/threadview19302586.htm

("Domainer" is my nickname).

The process is very easy:

1. Go to the appraisal site and order the valuation with the TM verification. Submit your domains to them and let them know you have a buyer with $X,XXX offer so you need the appraisal near this value. After several hours you will get the results.

2. Then send these results via email and we'll proceed with the deal.

If you are new to the appraisal process I can help you with a step by step instructions.


My answer:
NO ANSWER
When I got the 3rd e-mail I got a little suspicious, but I didn't notice that the link that he provides in the mail below isn't really Google's until I read another post in this thread about fake Google site.

I was impressed how he hid it in plain site:
- no fake links,
- no mentioning about Google,
- no asking for exact appraisal company in the e-mail.

Human brain likes to do short-cuts that most people aren't even aware of, and he used exactly this. I must admit I'm impressed how close it was for this scam to be successful. If only he didn't place so obvious hint that you can influence the appraisal saying that you have buyer for the domain for $ XXXX, then I might have fall for it.

Hope it helps some of you that got themselves in similar situations but still wandering if their case is different.
Good luck :]

 

@op, sorry you got scammed, but there are many other threads on here as well for this same type of email scam. When I get these types of letters, I always tell them that they are welcome to buy it at my price, and if they still want a valuation done that they are welcome to do so themselves. I mean really, they represent big time clients that have million dollar budgets to snap up domains, but cannot afford a few dollars for a valuation themselves? it doesnt happen.
In my letters though, I like to make it a personal insult, throw in a comment such as "hey, its only $xx for a valuation, unless you are a begger / scammer / shithead you can pay for this yourself and add it to the final price that your client has to pay." -> if the guy speaks the truth, then this is correct, the guys client would be happy to pay for the fees. But as we know its all BS, its a great way to add in a great insult without making it obvious that you know its a scam.

You have to admit, its a great scam, and hey, noone forces you to pay for appraisals, but yes, this is how those websites get clients. I would suspect the messages are sent using scripts to all domains they find on specific sites for sale, and they only manually reply to the people that reply back. So for some, even those that dont fall for the scam, might end up trying the valuation just for themselves The thing is, this scam is like really obvious, or at least it was to me. If you are having trouble with this scam, then I have to say that perhaps you should not spend so much time online.

I have had people write to me demanding compensation for images / content on my website(s) that I had legal right to use, again, this was just a scam but others have fallen for it. Scams are everywhere and you just have to realise that alot of the money made on the internet is from scams, and or from dishonesty.

You know, there is a saying that a sucker is born every minute. The alternate to this truth is that if you dont know who the suckers are, then odds are, its you.

 

I am facing the same scenario currently.

I am asked to get the certificate from http://domainswanted.net/

Link provided to me as a part of their discussion is http://answers.archive-google.com/archive/threadview5841962.htm

I didn't give any negative answer, but I told them that I dont trust this website and asked for a genuine and authenticated service from where I can certify my domains. Now lets see from where they bring this genuine and authenticated service.

 

Below is the mail I received.

Hello!

I'm a representative of an investor from Birmingham (UK). He wants to purchase afterhsc.com.

My client has $530,000 budget for 40-50 domains. Please specify your asking price in the subject of your message.

Our company is in a web hosting business. We also provide brokerage services for domain buyers.

If you have other domains please email me the list with prices. I may offer your domains for sale to my clients.

How can we transfer money to you (escrow, wire, Paypal or Western Union)?

Best Regards,

Ralph Garman

Vice President | VPSpace Hosting Solutions

Switzerland
Basel
Viaduktstrasse 7
Phone: 061 852 46 612

 

I had got similar scam offer before & asked me to do a domain appraisal. But I insisted in that he should do domain appraisal himself if he is interested to buy. Then after one or two emails he stopped sending emails.
So don't get into someones trap. Everytime they are with a new type trap. So always do some research & think the real possibility.
e.g. Some guys over internet promise job, but they want a fee before that. I have met some guys got scammed by this dirty trick.

 

Price what they offered was much more than what I expected..