The other day I received an email inquiry from a person with a long, antiquated name, and an even longer, pompous signature.
He wanted me to price my single word .com domain – if it were for sale, of course.
At the bottom of it all, Mr. Samuel Washington had signed with his address, in the nation’s Capital. A Sam Washington living in DC, hardly unique, I thought.
In my short reply, I asked for a phone number to discuss this further; his listing of an address would not make me hop on a car trip to DC.
While awaiting some sort of response, I decided to punch his address into Google Earth. I wasn’t shocked when the images showed a large and busy under construction site, with the street number clearly stuck onto a chain-link fence.
Then I noticed that the images were taken in 2009, according to Google Earth; repeating the same task in Bing yielded nothing new: the bird’s eye view was more or less the same, and I could even see a construction crane hovering nearby.
Since the location of Mr. Samuel Washington was in DC, I decided to contact domain investor and harpist extraordinaire, Nadia a.k.a. @domainsushi.
She offered to take an investigative trip to downtown Washington DC, armed with a GPS and her loyal dog, Izzy.
Nadia came back several hours later, excited about her findings:
“I took off the highway, and I ended up passing through Chinatown. For the sake of intrigue, I was kind of hoping the address would turn out to be a rickety apartment above a Chinese supermarket – but alas, I was a few turns away. Once I hit Massachusetts Ave., the “under construction” part made sense – the area between Mass Ave. and NY is a hot and up-and-coming part of town with a lot of new buildings. Every corner I passed had a lot with bulldozers and “coming soon” signs.”
Was Nadia about to make a remarkable discovery? Part 2 of the adventure.
I got many emails from this Samuel Whasington these past days/weeks for my best names.
He is simply a “domainer” spamming without shame in high scale.
FWIW – I also received an inquiry from him for a single word .com earlier this week. I responded to him, but alas have not gotten a response either.
Domaining gets more intriguing…
Did the letter look like this?
Hello,
I am representing a company that is looking to purchase a suitable domain name. Your domain, *********.com, is one of the possibilities we are considering.
If you would like your domain to be considered, please reply promptly and include an asking price. Replies that do not include an asking price will not be considered. We will follow up with you if based on your reply we are interested in entering into purchase negotiations.
Regards,
—
Sam Washington
443 New York Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20001
sam@samuelwashington.com
I recieved the same email refrance a one word domain I own rabbi com from sam@samwashington.com and when I check whois it is name protected.
I replied “god gave me two ears and one mouth so I like listen twice as much as I speak” when he asked me how much the name was…
Have not heard back from him yet
Bruce
I got an email from him as well. I figured out what is now at the address he gave me. However, he didn’t give me a unit number. As I usually do, I sent him an open ended email reply and have yet to hear back from him.
I’ve had the same thing from ‘Samuel Washington’ twice – re different, high-value domains – over the past few months….He never responds to the price answer on the domain.
‘Samuel Washington’ doesn’t exist, of course….I thought he may be a ‘blind’ identity broker from Mark Monitor, or someone, shopping for a client within a budget, but, he doesn’t converse on the domain.
Waste of space as a decent buyer, imo….Probably a bargain-hunting domainer looking for a steal on good domains
Damn you, Theo, I can’t wait…
I received an email from the same person with same info inquiring about one of my one word .com domains.
the following was the email content:
Hello,
I noticed you don’t have a web site on ……..com. Would you be interested in selling the domain, and if so, what price range would you be looking for?
Sam Washington
XXX New York Avenue LL
Washington, LL XXXXX
I responded back:
Hey Samuel,
The domain name ……..com is not one am ready to part with; however, if the offer is compelling am willing to consider.
And I never heard back…
So, whts the deal with this guy?!! Am Concerned…
Thank you for all the comments. Part 2 was just posted. Enjoy!