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Is this person really interested in buying my domain?

I got the following email message this evening, but something about it seems wrong: "Hello, I am interested in buying your domain xxxx.com If you are interested in selling it, please reply how much would you want for it? We can make the domain transfer operations safely, over escrow.com. I can pay for the cost of domain transfer operations. Thank you in advance for your time. Techweb System Co. LTD." Is it legit, or not?

Dave's Answer:

You're right to be skeptical. I got one of these too, and a colleague of mine who owns hundreds of domains has received about twenty of them this evening alone.

They aren't legit, but they're more nefarious than you may imagine!

The people sending these messages are harvesting email addresses. They aren't interested in buying your domain, I'm sorry to report, but just want to see if you respond or not.

Then they'll start spamming you, claiming that you "opted in" to their mailings by... surprise! responding to this domain name sales query.

Pretty bogus, eh? This is one message to delete without any further thought.

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Categorized: Business and Management (Article 3811)
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Comments

Anyone who receives an email like Dave describes should report it to the sender's mail host. I just received one from techweb@gmail.com. I immediately reported it to gmail-abuse@google.com in the hopes that Google will shut down the spammer's account.

In the absence of a definite abuse address like the one for gmail, send a report to "abuse" at whatever mail domain is being used by the spammer, e.g. abuse@HOST.com

Posted by: Ian at December 17, 2004 3:10 PM

> I immediately reported it to gmail-abuse@google.com in the hopes that Google will shut down the spammer's account.

Give up your hopes.
gmail-abuse@google.com is a robot that only sends you a baked reply, nothing ever happens with your message.

Best is to refuse all mail from gmail.com until they fix that.

Posted by: Rob at September 15, 2005 7:34 AM

Our company Hog Advertising jusy got a similar solicitation about one of our domain names.

What these folks are doing is mining the WhoIs and sending spam to find live email addresses. When you repond, then they know they have a live address, and they spam you even more.

So, be wary of cold solicitations to buy your domain.

Posted by: Hog Advertising at February 10, 2006 1:04 PM

https://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_security2

Posted by: Gonzalo at June 7, 2006 12:04 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!