For a couple of months now, I’ve been getting spam messages that offer to sell me .COM versions of domain names that I own. I imagine these guys scan the drop lists for .COM domains that already registered in other TLDs, register these domains, and email the owners of the domain name in other TLDs. They most certainly scan the WHOIS records to check and retrieve the email addresses of the owners of the other TLDs. Then, they spam them.
At first, I didn’t mind because I thought that these guys are just trying to make some money. And then more and more “offers” started arriving for other domain names that I own. And it started getting annoying.
Here’s the email that they send:
We are selling the domain name {your-domain-name}.com. Since you own {your-domain-name}.org if you would also like the more desirable .com we are making it available. The cost is $99.97. That includes a year of registration and transfer of ownership to you. To purchase or to learn more go to:
http://www.{theirwebsite}.com/checkout.php?domain={your-domain-name}.com
If you pass on this opportunity someone else could purchase this domain and it may not be available again. For questions contact us or go to:
http://www.{theirwebsite}.com/faq.html
If you are not interested there is no need to respond. We will not contact you again regarding this domain.
Almost a hundred bucks for a domain name that they registered for $7.00. They use the email address domains@dcinchq.com to send this spam offer.
So what do you do?
- If you don’t have time in your hands, just mark the message as spam and add the sender to your blocked list.
- If you are bored and you want some entertainment, write back to them and ask for information that answer bots are unlikely to answer. For example, ask for details like how to pay, how long is the registration for, how will the domain name be transferred, how you can be assured that they will indeed transfer the domain name, etc. Ask short questions but demand long answers. The objective is to waste their time and have fun. You won’t be wasting yours because you’re bored and have nothing better to do, remember?
I used to do this to Nigerian 419 scammers, back when I had nothing else to do. I’d actually get them to send me documents like scanned copies of their passport, driver’s license, etc. as proof that they are legitimate individuals that I can “do business with”. Sure, those documents were probably fake, but that’s not the point. The point is they spent some time to prepare those documents. And for what? N-O-T-H-I-N-G. I was hoping that f they get nothing from their scamming efforts, they’d do something else, something honest.
I think the same thing goes for these spam offers. If you have time to kill, have fun with these spammers!
