domain names how to value - and a potential scam

greg posted this at 09:24 — 13th March 2007.

Joined: Nov 2005

recently i have been buying a few domain names to hopefully cash in on
dont get me wrong, i dont expect to pay the £6.50 reg fee and make a quick £10,000 (although this does happen)

how does one go about evaluating domain names?

I have tried leapfish, which isn't really very good, for example it deems "ghgjgn.com" to be worth $70. hmm, why would that be worth more than the reg fee??
according to their results, it has had no search engine results at all, so i presume they rate it well because of the number of letters in the name

anyway i have about 25 domain names now, a few of the 'better' ones are adult names.

I have parked them on Sedo to allow them to be seen in the auctions, but the only bite i have had so far was from

Tim Elsker
CEO
DBT Technologies
business@superelsker. com

the only thing i can find on these people is they are scammers (of course, they may not be)
I replied to their email to test the water saying "sure, make me your best offer"
their response was "I need to know the lowest price you can accept: $5,000 or even $10,000 USD?"
seems like two high figures. surely they would have said $500 or something similiar!

any comments or information on domain valuing and the above company would be appreciated

thanks

Busy posted this at 20:01 — 13th March 2007.

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

Scammers are everywhere, but in saying that there are a lot of people who dont know any better (like my g/f who paid $40 for something I can get down the road for $10).

Scam wise, watch the english, if the english becomes broken go into caution mode.
A big scam is over paying - money laundrying, you say you want $1000 and they will "accidently" send you $5000 and ask for the access to be sent back to them - usually done via stolen credit cards and usually based in Nigera.
Another thing to watch out for is payment option, western union seems to be a scammers friend but can be other crowds as well, the scammer will say they have paid and may even quote a reference number (of course they don't pay) and talk you into sending the item.

On the offer you got, say $6000, you may get lucky but use common sense and keep the thought of it being a scam in the back of your mind. don't sign anything over and send anything (certs etc) without having the money first.

greg posted this at 22:47 — 13th March 2007.

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

thanks for the reply, some decent tips there
(mostly of course use common sense)

i have since found out that the people who sent me the email are scammers
I found a section on Sedo that lists all the scammers and how they work
These are listed there and they basically ask you to get appraisal for your domain name, then you dont hear from them again
obviously they own the appraisal company they specify you to use, or they get a % form each appraisal.

i have played with them a bit, replied i want $15,000 for the domain name (its not worth anywhere near that) and their reply was "$15,000 ok"
obviously even without finding anything out from Sedo, at this point i would have been extremely suspicious anyway

if they were a huge coperate company (like warner brothers etc) then i perhaps may have thought my lucky day had come
but just like the letters i get saying MR ** you have won £10,000 yeah sure
the thing with thsoe, like these domain name scammers, i like to delve and try to find out the loop holes
obviously i will be reporting them

so after the waffle, any ideas on how to get a decent valuation on a domain name?
like someone who actually deals with name auctions and would know roughly the sort of prices certain things go for and would look at the actual name/wording
rather than the automated ones that can only value them from search engine/amount of letters/numbers etc.

thanks

DomainMD posted this at 03:26 — 27th March 2007.

They have: 1 posts

Joined: Mar 2007

There are a lot of people making it their living in selling domain names. Imyself am trying to do it as well (but goin to be a bit longer for me)

That same scam came my way as well. There are a few ways to keep from getting scammed.

The most important thing to remember is reserarch...reserarch...reserarch...o yea and RESEARCH. Most people who will buy from you are domain resellers where its their business to buy domains all day long. Those are ones that will be less in price then if a end user was looking for that domain name.

There are several domain name fourms on the net that is worth MILLIONS in information. I wish you the best in your ventures and just keep your eyes open and the offers (legit) will come.