Thank You Spammer For Trying To Sell Me Expiring Domain Name!

LarryWentz · Mar 11, 2015

Well I'm sure I'm not the only one getting spam emails from various gmail/yahoo accounts asking if I'm interested a similar name to one of my names. Sometimes they quote a price & sometimes not. Usually it is a crappy name. By checking the whois you can see that the name is expiring & about to be available any day. They are trying to get a name sold & catch it for a profit but they make it seem like they are the current owner.

Now every once in a while it is a good name & last month I got an email quoting a $199 price for the 1st person that commits to buy the name. It was a .net name. I own the .org, .biz & us versions plus had either a $3500 or $3900 offer years back on the .org name. So I see that the domain indeed is going to be available shortly. I was pretty convinced a drop service would catch it but I thought I would give it a try catching it myself. A couple days later I caught it & then also saw the .info was available (I assume the same person dropped both names).

So anyway I actually appreciated that bogus spam email though I indeed am annoyed by these scammers.

NameYourself · Mar 11, 2015

The funniest is when they try to sell me my own names when I choose to drop them, just because I own it in other extensions. It's annoying. What's not annoying is when these FRAUDSTERS purport to own something they have no ownership of, and then offer to sell it to unsuspecting victims, such as the famous $199 offering. WebNameSolution has been pulling this scam for years, why has no one shut them down yet?

lotk.com · Mar 12, 2015

I actually don't mind the emails. They are usually targetted and half the time the domain is available to hand reg.

NameYourself · Mar 12, 2015

Yes, but they also send out emails for names that are NOT dropped or expired that people have listed for sale. One of my own auctions, I received an email from them stating that THEY were the owners of MY domain and that they were willing to sell it for $199 to whoever buys it first. Bidding was already higher than what they were offering it at which means their primary aim is fraud. Rick posted about them back in 2013... this has been going on for years yet they continue operating under the same name, webnamesolution.com:

http://www.ricksblog.com/2013/09/webnamesolution-com-featured-hallofshame-com/