domainagents.com

[linkdomain]

does anyone know this site:

domainagents.com

got an offer email from them, but you have to register first to see it. which makes me think its BS.

 

[DigiNames]

Never heard of it, but if it is a serious offer why make you sign up to see? I think your BS detector is functioning correctly...Let us know if you find out any more about it.

 

[NameYourself]

Also received offers from there but never followed up on them. If the offer or interest is legitimate, you shouldn't have to sign up and join a random site just to see the offer amount (though GoDaddy brokerage works this way but they are a well-established site). They could be legitimate offers you are getting, but if the "client" making the offer is legitimately and solely interested in it for buying that particular name, they will email or contact you directly.

 

[JuniperPark]

I now have TWO "offers" from them, but as the previous posters have said, this smells like a scam because they don't say what the offer is, but want my personal info up front.

But it looks like they have tried to up the "bait"... on one of them, I received an offer of 1/2 of my asking price directly from a buyer with a gmail account, then started getting these emails a day later from "DomainAgents". Now the "buyer" doesn't respond to emails at all -- which strongly suggests to me that this is a scam.

 

[Smith]

Hey Guys,

I'm the co-founder and CEO of DomainAgents.

We're a small team at the moment of 3 full time and 2 part time members and are based just outside of Toronto. We're growing pretty rapidly these days and hope to start sending people to the domaining events in an official capacity as our budgets allow. We will be at ICANN in Toronto this year for anyone who would like to meet.

As some time has passed since this thread began, by now you may have now seen us on sites like iWhois or DomainTools, or you may have seen domains we're representing the owners of in Elliot's brokered domains posts. So while there may be less question of 'if we're real' now, we'll come out and say to anyone that receives an offer via our service the good news is, yes, it is legitimate and it's a real offer.

We also compensate domain owners for their time. When you receive an offer via DomainAgents, we'll pay you $10 by Paypal, give you DomainAgents credit, or allow you to request we donate $10 to a selected charity of your choice just for entering into negotiations with the buyer.

Now as mentioned. the process to review the offer does require signing up, but the process has been streamlined and literally all that is required to review the offer is creating a password. The site is secure, but we always would advise people to use unique passwords for everything they do online.

JuniperPark, no idea what the 'bait' is that you're referring to. The 2 names are pretty descent, it's possible that it was a coincidence and the offer could have been from a different person. Missed out on $20 from us if you entered into negotiations on the 2 names . . . and a potential sale I'm afraid.

We're a startup and running lean, there are bound to be hiccups along the way, but if anyone has any problems or questions please do not hesitate to contact me directly or via DomainAgents

And one last thing, make sure to sign up for our newsletter, it goes out 2 times a month at the moment: DomainAgents Sales Newsletter

Phil [at]domainagents.com

 

[JuniperPark]

Nonsense.

The "offers" were indeed fake "bait offers", since the originating party did not respond to repeated direct contact. There is no way that all of the sudden a buyer would "only" work through some agency that nobody has even heard of.

 

[Smith]

As I said in the first post, I believe that it's simply a coincidence that you received an offer via our service around the same time, most likely from a different person.

We wouldn't risk our reputation by doing something as stupid or as pointless as what you call "baiting".

 

[DigiNames]

Hi Phil,

Thank you for introducing yourself and clearing up the confusion. I am sure you can understand why people will be suspicious when they were told they have an offer waiting but have to sign up to a website to get it; This is one of the challenges you will need to overcome with a service like this, and it appears that you are working to get the word out.

It looks like a good concept and is actually pretty reasonably priced. Best of luck with it!

 

[Smith]

Hi Phil,

Thank you for introducing yourself and clearing up the confusion. I am sure you can understand why people will be suspicious when they were told they have an offer waiting but have to sign up to a website to get it; This is one of the challenges you will need to overcome with a service like this, and it appears that you are working to get the word out.

It looks like a good concept and is actually pretty reasonably priced. Best of luck with it!

Thanks for the comments DigiNames.

Absolutely understand the confusion and barriers we have as ongoing challenges, especially the ones we had with really early versions of the site. One of the biggest areas of focus has been the optimization of the service to ensure that owners and sellers have a positive and productive experience. Never ending process really.

The process to review an offer is now literally streamlined to selecting a password, we even pre-populate the email address in most cases. And as an extra layer of security, every single page of the site is covered with SSL.

Many of the clients who make offers via our site I suspect have had no success reaching the domain owners, or lack the technical skills to do so. For some we are a last resort to try and buy a domain they really want. After personally working online for over 10 years it's easy to forget how many people have absolutely no idea how things work. Hand holding is a important aspect of our service.

Domainers may not ultimately receive too many inquiries from us, they tend to be heavily sales focused and responsive. However, we do want to be known within the community and awareness is something that we're definitely working towards. Just by the sheer numbers we're going to be sending domainers offers on a somewhat regular basis. In part this is why we added the domain owner payout aspect of the site. Time is money right. $10 isn't a huge amount, but it does add up. We've seen some users use our service to qualify inbound leads and have done reasonably well in terms of payouts and closed sales.

For those who aren't interested in $10 personally, there is always the option of requesting that we donate it to the Red Cross, WaterSchool.com, or Oxfam.

We have a results based model, after costs we basically make nothing on the initial amount paid by the client unless the sale closes. We're not content to sit back and let orders come in hoping for a sale to occur, we would starve if we did that

 

[JuniperPark]

Hi Phil,

Thank you for introducing yourself and clearing up the confusion. I am sure you can understand why people will be suspicious when they were told they have an offer waiting but have to sign up to a website to get it; This is one of the challenges you will need to overcome with a service like this, and it appears that you are working to get the word out.

It looks like a good concept and is actually pretty reasonably priced. Best of luck with it!

That's not what happened.

What happened was I got a DIRECT buy inquiry from a buyer, then a few days later was the message from domainagents.com (red flag #1) and the "buyer" stopped responding to emails (red flag #2). Then just a couple of days later, there is suddenly an offer on a different domain (red flag #3).

No way this is coincidence.

 

[DigiNames]

That's not what happened.

What happened was I got a DIRECT buy inquiry from a buyer, then a few days later was the message from domainagents.com (red flag #1) and the "buyer" stopped responding to emails (red flag #2). Then just a couple of days later, there is suddenly an offer on a different domain (red flag #3).

No way this is coincidence.

I see what you are saying, but what would DomainAgents have to gain by "baiting" you? Did they ask you for money, or to get an appraisal on the name? I don't claim to know what happened, but Phil is here addressing questions and concerns (& has an established DNF account), and it seems to me that they have more to gain by facilitating and completing real transactions than trying to scam people.

I wouldn't necessarily give them my credit card and social security #, but after hearing him out, I see little harm in signing up and working with them from a sellers perspective. They make money helping the buyer and I get sale of my domain... It looks like a win-win.

 

[JuniperPark]

Well, let's see - in order to do anything, they want my personal contact information, my banking info, and IP address. Then, let me guess: The buyer will "evaporate" or the offer will be revealed to be $10, and they can they do what they want with my personal info and banking info.

If you think giving your personal info to people who pull crap like this, go ahead.

 

[DigiNames]

Well, let's see - in order to do anything, they want my personal contact information, my banking info, and IP address. Then, let me guess: The buyer will "evaporate" or the offer will be revealed to be $10, and they can they do what they want with my personal info and banking info.

If you think giving your personal info to people who pull crap like this, go ahead.

So when you went to sign up for an account it actually asked you for your bank account and routing number? Did they offer any explanation of why they needed this information?

From what I can see on the site now it says they use PayPal to receive payment for services and Escrow to complete the actual transaction. Giving them my contact info isn't a huge concern for me since they can get my name, address, and phone number all over the Internet including the whois of the domain, and what exactly are they going to do with my IP address?

I understand being cautious dealing with anyone on the Internet, and if you don't feel good about them then don't use them. If they contact me I will work with them while being careful, just like I am with anyone else I run into doing business on the Internet every day.

 

[JuniperPark]

Yes, a legitimate broker WILL have to pay you, and that requires payment information.

DNF has plenty of threads about "domain brokers" that turn about to be con artists, even when they didn't start out that way. If you think it's a good idea to give your personal info (and possibly your domains) to someone you've already been warned about, go right ahead.

So when you went to sign up for an account it actually asked you for your bank account and routing number? Did they offer any explanation of why they needed this information?

From what I can see on the site now it says they use PayPal to receive payment for services and Escrow to complete the actual transaction. Giving them my contact info isn't a huge concern for me since they can get my name, address, and phone number all over the Internet including the whois of the domain, and what exactly are they going to do with my IP address?

I understand being cautious dealing with anyone on the Internet, and if you don't feel good about them then don't use them. If they contact me I will work with them while being careful, just like I am with anyone else I run into doing business on the Internet every day.

 

[Smith]

To set the record straight.

We have never asked for banking information on site. Ever.

Payments almost exclusively conducted via Escrow.com or Paypal.

The process for domain owners to view an offer has been streamlined to only require an email address and password.

For people who want to register prior to receiving an offer the process has not changed. You can see on this page the full extent of the information we've ever asked for here: https://domainagents.com/register.php

Once registered there is the option to include your paypal email address and escrow.com email address, but both are optional.

We have minimum offers of $100, buyers are not able to offer less. In fact, the average final transaction value is in the x,xxx area.

We have never 'baited' as has been implied, and quite frankly can't even begin to see any reason why we ever would want to.



Some other fun facts.

We comply with CANSPAM. Our postal address is in all of our transitional emails.

Are a registered incorporated company.

We use a comodo SSL certificate that required identity verification.

JuniperPark will never have to worry about receiving an offer via our service again.

We tend to be more of a dog company than cat company.



Questions?

 

[JuniperPark]

Oh, OK -- so you pay via PayPal (a BANK!) without obtaining the account ID. It's done through magic, apparently.

To set the record straight.

We have never asked for banking information on site. Ever.

Payments almost exclusively conducted via Escrow.com or Paypal.

 

[TLDN]

Oh, OK -- so you pay via PayPal (a BANK!) without obtaining the account ID. It's done through magic, apparently.

DomainAgents never asked me for a bank account or ss# or anything like that. Contact email address, phone number is all.

PayPal is not a bank.
From wiki; In the United States, PayPal is licensed as a money transmitter on a state-by-state basis.[55] PayPal is not classified as a bank in the United States, though the company is subject to some of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry including Regulation E consumer protections and the USA PATRIOT Act.[56]

Giving them a Paypal email doesn't do anything to jeopardize account security, and I would guess that wouldn't matter if didn't want to accept the offer or $ they are giving you.

 

[daddybat]

Well, let's see - in order to do anything, they want my personal contact information, my banking info, and IP address. Then, let me guess: The buyer will "evaporate" or the offer will be revealed to be $10, and they can they do what they want with my personal info and banking info.

If you think giving your personal info to people who pull crap like this, go ahead.

Your comments seem very ignorant of the facts. At the expense of breaking one of my foundational rules of Interweb communication (DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!), I'm going to clarify a few things for you:

1) I know both of the individuals, and trust them explicitly and implicitly. Their integrity is beyond reproach, and I would not hesitate to use any service that either of them were involved with.

2) Sometimes what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG). Their service is WAY simpler than you make it out to be! And yes, they do 'rebate' part of the BUYER PAID fee to domain owners to incentivize them to engage in a discussion with the inquirer. OR you can give it to a charity. VERY cool setup IMHO! NO requirement to sell!

3) They only require an email address and a USER GENERATED password. Nothing else!

4) It's very possible that your earlier offer and the DomainAgents inquiry are from 2 different parties. It happens all the time.

5) PayPal - for ANYBODY to pay you at PP - you need to give them your PP email that you use. Pretty straightforward.

6) Relax - realize that you just might be wrong on most of this, and go take some quiet time.

7) When you finally realize that you ARE wrong - man up and apologize! THAT would be the respectful thing to do!

 

[Biggie]

i read thru the thread as well and if i were JP and "didn't know DA", and along with the timing that these emails arrived, it would raise skeptisim.

However, i too know the guys behind the scenes of this operation and will vouch that that wouldn't take such risks to get clients.

That said, can we move on

 

[vikrantjain22]

I now have TWO "offers" from them, but as the previous posters have said, this smells like a scam because they don't say what the offer is, but want my personal info up front.

But it looks like they have tried to up the "bait"... on one of them, I received an offer of 1/2 of my asking price directly from a buyer with a gmail account, then started getting these emails a day later from "DomainAgents". Now the "buyer" doesn't respond to emails at all -- which strongly suggests to me that this is a scam.

Whats the probability that 2 different people sent you 2 different offers for the same domain name in a short span of time, one directly and one via a service provider.
I can show you multiple instances when I have received simultaneous offers directly and via sedo for the same name and I DID NOT assume they were the same people people. The logic for that being that one who sends me a offer by Sedo or any other service would NOT like to come in the forefront and reveal his identity, in that case why would he send you me a direct offer, seems contradictory.

In this situation instead of DomainAgents it could have been Sedo, would you blame them too as scammers. These guys are doing a novel thing and I think you should atleast give them benefit of doubt and try out once and then if you have any grievances against them, certainly air them here at the forums.

Since you are an old member here, you would be definitely aware that random posts like this create a wrong impression against DomainAgents in the minds of potential users and reputation is all we have and care for, to succeed in this competitive industry.

For the records, I have not used the services of DomainAgents but I do know the people behind the service and they are well respected in the industry for their professional integrity and honesty.

Cheers