The appraisal scammers are back - AGAIN

[JuniperPark]

They're back.

I got an email from Martin Ruck [martin@villafund.net] asking if the domain was for sale.

villafund.net was registered HOURS ago, btw,

Then I get the email below, pitching "Praisal.com", a domain registered weeks ago.
----
Dear TheNameStore.com / DesmoPorsche.com

Thank you contacting us, I hereby confirm we have received your interest in selling the requested domain.
We find your asking price interesting and are open for a negotiation.

As an industry standard with all domain transitions, we require 2 things in order to initiate a purchase:

1. A proof that you are the legitimate owner of the domain.
This can either be:
- A screenshot from your domain registant; you may blank out all infomation, except the domain.
- An url to your domain with a custom message proving you are the legitimate owner of the domain.

2. An officially certified domain appraisal, not older than 3 months.
The domain valuation determine a fair selling price based on accurate valuation analysis.
If you haven't made a certified appraisal for this domain yet, we recommend Praisal, as the most trusted and cheapest domain appraiser in the domain broker industry. Get your appraisal here

When you have both things, please forward them to me and we start the transition process.

Looking forward hearing from you again.

Sincerely
Martin Ruck

[snicksnack]

people must fall for this, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of these scams

[shags38]

I didn't know my brother-in-law was out of prison. I wish him a rot of ruck.

[Maxwell]

people must fall for this, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of these scams

This is why they do it for handregged names. They know that the domainer just paid $10 for it... and someone giving off a vibe of an $xxx or $x,xxx offer makes a ~$30 appraisal fee seem like nothing.

Whois details can be automatically harvested so it's of little effort to the scammer. Do 20 of these a day at $30 each and you're taking in $600 a day or over $200,000 a year.

That is, until you get caught...

[nielsencl]

I posted abou this on another domainer forum and also on one thread here. The posts help because some users search and then find the posts and are warned. You can report these emails as spam and that helps to shut down their sites, that's what I have been doing.