As the owner of a few Internet domain names, I have become accustomed to getting domain-related scam mail.  These scam mailings are crafted to look like invoices, but are in fact merely a ploy to get you to sign up for their “search engine optimization” service.  Like most of my junk mail, this stuff gets ripped up and tossed in the recycle bin.

Earlier this year, I received a new but similarly misleading set of emails.  The emails were related to a couple of my domain names (we’ll call them example.org and example.net).  The messages seemed to be crafted to imply that the sender was the owner of the example.com domain and that the domain was for sale.  Here’s an example:

Domain Sale Notice:

example.com is coming available for sale in a few days.

Since you own the domain example.net, we thought you’d be interested in example.com.

If you do have interest in acquiring example.com, please fill up priority notice form availble

here: <LINK REMOVED>

and we will contact you as soon as the domain is available for purchase.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Kind regards,

John Timmers
InTrust Domains
4845 A Pearl East Circle
Boulder, CO 80301

No more please: http://<DomainRemoved>/store/unsub/<etc…>

[NOTE:  Above text edited for privacy and readability only.]

My initial reaction was one of excitement.  “It would be nice,” I thought, “to have the whole matched set of domain names.”  A few days later, though, I received the following email:

Our company specializes in acquiring expired domain names to help individuals and businesses protect their brand online.

The domain name EXAMPLE.COM expired recently and we were able to secure it.

We noticed that you own EXAMPLE.ORG and felt that you may be interested in acquiring the .COM version of your existing domain name.

It is available for a one-time fee of only $49.00 USD.

To purchase or learn more, please visit http://<DomainRemoved>/buy.php?domain=example.com

–
Trader Domains, LLC
sales@<DomainRemoved>

I was not pleased about the prospect of spending $50 on a domain.  But wait a minute…  how can two different parties be offering me the same domain name?

A few days later, I received yet another email from Trader Domains.  It was identical to the first except that the price was lowered from $50 to $30.

It turns out that neither company owned the “example.com” domain.  I was able to register it directly from a reputable domain registrar.  That being the case, we can come to the following conclusions

  • InTrust Domain’s statement that the domain would be available for purchase “in a few days” was false.
  • Trader Domain’s implication that they had “secured” (or procured) the domain name was false.

The claims made by these companies are crafted to mislead consumers.  Buyer beware.