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?
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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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