If you receive an unsolicited email offering to sell you a domain name that grabs your interest, read on as this tip might just save you hundreds of dollars.
Reports are popping up around the web about a domain registration “scam” of sorts. It’s not really a scam, but appears to works on the premise the target will overlook carrying out a simple check before parting withDeutscher chat their money.
The email starts off by asking if the recipient would be interested in a particular name. Sometimes the name will be in a sector related to the recipient’s own domain or line of business in order to make the offer more appealing.
The note then mentions acquiring the name could help in terms of search engine optimisation. It will at times state the number of searches carried out on keywords in the name on certain search engines.
The person then goes on to say he/she will be offering the name to a number of related sites and companies for $500 (or another amount) and the domain will go to the first company that registers its interest in acquiring it.
While $500 isn’t all that much to pay for a good domain name when you consider that many will pay thousands, the catch is the name isn’t even registered.
If you do express an interest in the name, the person/parties behind this campaign register the name for a fraction of that amount; then sell it to you at the greatly inflated price. For the approaching party, it’s a transaction and business with very little risk and outlay.
Some people wouldn’t think to run a domain name search first to check out the domain’s registration status and no doubt some will fall for the ploy; paying hundreds more for a domain name they could have registered themselves with just a few clicks and in just a couple of minutes.