Scammers warning update: when the scammer is the seller
It does not matter how much I warn people, there are still too many domainers falling for pretty easy scams. The last one was this guy selling a nice LLLL.com such OALO.com yestarday on DNForum for just $70……imagine…….it was just sold on NameJet for nearly $2,000 but yet some even expert domainer was buying the story yelling around about such bargain just missed. It took me 5 minutes to find out what it was going on…..or let`s say I think I found the truth but let`s call it possible scenario.
The seller got his NamePros account banned just few days earlier, he`s selling LLLL at bargain prices few days after he got them………still no bells ringing? Then keep reading.
In the first days of February I had 3 LLLL.com listed for sale at TDNAM (first time I used TDNAM as seller) and they were bought all within minutes from someone in Lithuania (keep in mind they claimed to be from Lithuania but I can`t be sure about that)
TDNAM reversed the transaction and banned the buyer because of fraud.
I listed them again and same story with another buyer again claiming to be from Lithuania.
After 3 weeks I got my domains back. It was a push to the buyer`s account so I did not fear to lose my domains but I knew that it could be a waste of time like it ended to be.
Other people where not that lucky: I am aware of other people transferring out their domains but not recovering because the names left GoDaddy so these scammers bought names and then chargebacked TDNAM, so basically got LLLL.com for free, then they go around selling at lower prices to cash in quickly (sort of money laundering).
Scammers have hijacked Digital point ,PayPal , NP and DNF accounts , got credit card numbers and they are making a mess, do your homework or you`ll be the next victim!
If I was you , I`d ask where the name is coming from and double check with an email to the past owner.
This member was earlier selling 7 domains, why don`t you ask to the past owners if they got the money?
The story this time ended with him claiming his brother put for sale that domain without his permission. OK, let`s believe that. Let`s see where OALO.com will go next because one thing for sure is: I`m not going to quit the chase. The leechs think that we are all dumb….and that there are too many LLLL.com to track them all……oh dear…..you`re so wrong because there are only 456,976 of them and I can track them all and I can track much more than that so if I was one of this leechs I`d start to be very careful to my steps because I`m hunting for you , 24 hours a day , 7 days a week……that`s all I do.
On the other note , while these scammers try to fool domainers, they seems to have much more confidence now that they can fool the big guys soit seems they are starting to buy domains straight from POOL , Snapnames, NameJet, TDNAM, etc., then they sell them possibly at bargain prices but (they may get smarter than that and sell them at no-so-bargain-price to look like nothing is wrong in the near future) and they have lots of time to chargeback……..did you know that? My Visa allows me to chargeback even 75 days later as MINIMUN!!
And do you know what happen if you buy a name from them and then they chargeback? I`m not sure yet but it may happen that you lose both money and domain so these days you got to be very careful: buy and sell only with people that you know or ask questions on how they got the domain and check. If the deal sounds to good to be true, it probably is so just go and buy names from people you know or from reputable websites like SEDO,Snapnames, NameJet,etc.
If you really want to proceed with a private deal but you are not so sure if it`s legit or not, you may contact me ( preferably by Private Message at NamePros.com ) and with a small fee (depending on how complicated the research will be) I will make sure that you don`t get scammed. I may also buy the name for you so I`ll take the risk myself if you prefer (insurance fee applies).
Regarding the rest and the old warnings, it seems that scammers keep choosing Western Union and E-gold as their payment preference when receiving money and PayPal when paying to chargeback.
So, as adviced few days ago, I keep inviting you to join Moneybookers. You can do it by using my referral link if you like, just click on this link:
https://www.moneybookers.com/app/?rid=4854387
Then join , it`s free and much safer than PayPal.
But if you really don`t want or can`t quit to use PayPal, these are my 2 best advices to improve the security of your transactions:
in PayPal , there are 2 ways a payment can be reversed:
1) chargeback (which was the topic of this thread and I`d love to hear the terms from someone else) and it seems it can be avoided by asking to pay only with PayPal balance if we really really really need to use PayPal
2) PayPal dispute and it seems that if buyer pay by Mass Pay and choose service , PayPal will protect seller in this scenario. I won`t rely on that, so the other way as someone suggested is to ask to the buyer to open a dispute and then close it before to proceed as it seems a dispute can`t be opened twice for the same transaction.
I hope this help, but surely it will help more if you can forward this page and this website to all your friends and/or relative so that they learn how to protect themselfes from scammers.
Now an advice from one of my readers:
Stephen Watts from Digital Points :
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I have a few helpful tips:
Scammers are targeting LLLL.com’s mostly due to there popularity and the fact that users usually sell them in bulk amounts. To avoid being scammed it is a good idea to do research on the buyer before committing to a transaction, this could include asking him if he has better trader rating on different forums (Then following through via a PM) as well as realizing a to good to be true offer for example:
Buyer: I will offer 80$ for any LLLL.com
(this is a sure fire scam as 1 he/she is rushing in to buying a domain without any care for its value and 2 he/she is offering way over the market value.)
Another questionable situation would be where a buyer might instantly BIN all domains a seller is selling, which only proves again that the buyer just wants a quick sale and then to move on to its next prey.
An average scammer is not overly intelligent, all scams can be countered with knowhow and common sense. Scammers will always be on the agenda however what is important is to work together to help users that are unaware of scams and evolved scams.
Accepting payments via PayPal is a risk in its own rite, even after a transaction has taken place I was still scammed out of my money through the following scam process:
User gets scammed > Scammer sells domain (sometimes the domain can move hands through multiple buyers) > Domain is not returned/Domain is returned to original owner > (In my case the domain was taken out of my Godaddy account and I lost 134$)
Best Regards
Stephen Watts.
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All the best!
Good post! It’s about time to make those suckers/scammers scared and LLLL owners informed.
I am not planning to sell any of my LLLL.com less than $250. I will wait until the minimum price reaches that range. Then i will use escrow. Its $25 for $250 so worth it. split the fee.
I am the owner of a design consulting firm here in San Diego and have been waiting upon the domain name ‘mconcepts.com’ to come available. We are a small business trying to establish a name for ourselves.
We’ve been doing business using a non-profit domain name and with the domain expiring we did not see the need to enforce a domain copyright dispute.
After the domain was unpaid by the previous owner, network solutions took the luxury of putting the domain name up for an auction with their ‘preferred’ backordering provider ‘NameJet’ putting my backorder placed last year with Godaddy as irrelevant.
After placing a bid for the domain on namejet’s site I realized that this was exactly the bait and hook tactic that they were using to encourage other users to place a bid.
They now have the domain in a ‘private auction’ without ever giving godaddy a chance to have backordered it.
It appears that the first person to backorder it is not given precedence over the business relationship between namejet and network solutions.
Various individuals at network solutions were rude about the situation and insisted that their business relationship with name jet was more important than the right to ownership over the domain name.
I don’t feel it is right for me to have to bid on an auction that should never have taken place to begin with.
I’ve attached out brochure and a screenshot of the bid history of namejet’s auction.
I don’t have the kind of funds I need to enforce legal action. Please help!!
Contact at Network solutions:
John (employee code 070)
Network solutions ticket# 1-334955194
Contact at Godaddy:
justine (team name: quarrel)
Dear Michael,
the kind of experience that you reported here is unfortunately quite common in this industry and the fact that you placed a backorder with GoDaddy is yes “irrelevant” because Godaddy could (but the results of its backorder service is something I would not define as brilliant…) catch that domain ONLY ONCE THE NAME was deleted by the .com Registry (Verisign) and in this case instead the domain did not even really start the deleting process since Network Solutions renews some domains just to auction them later at NameJet. There are a lot of people that are currently extremely unhappy about Network Solutions and what they do but I think that only Verisign or the ICANN could change the way things are going.
My real wonder is: do they want to change it?
Best regards,
Lorenzo (aka ItalianDragon)
Michael
I experienced the same with Godaddy’s back order with a name that was expiring on godaddy.
Even when you place a back order with them and the name is registered with them, the name goes up for auction at TDNAM. This doesn’t make sense to me.
I asked them what is the point of me backordering it if it will go to auction anyway. They were silent when I asked this.
They did a courtesy of starting the auction at $10.00 (me) and I lost the auction because I forgot about the auction end time. The way godaddy promoted the backordering to me was if you place a back order and no one else places a back order for that domain, then I automatically get the name. Not true.
Looks like you did get the name you wanted in the end. Congrats