I hold domains as “hostages“, “not allowing people who want them to use them.”
This moronic allegation came in an email, from some French guy named “Guillaume Sibelle” from Paris, France. Twice he placed a lowball offer of 60 euro for a domain I own, and twice I had to slap him back to reality with my very reasonable counter-offers, eventually canceling his bids at Sedo.
After he could not start an offer for the 3rd time as I set a minimum price, Guillaume Sibelle emailed me saying that I “block people for years that want to use a domain name.” I am not sure how I am doing that, since I paid to acquire that domain. I can do whatever I want with it. In fact, I don’t have to set up a web site, I can use it as a mail-only domain or a private network. I can put a picture of my cat on it.
Or a picture of Guillaume Sibelle next to the word “idiot”.
Where do these people come from?
Guillaume Sibelle appears to be a student of architecture. Should people in France trust Guillaume Sibelle with the design and building of their residences, parks or museums?
Guillaume Sibelle did not even have the foresight to register his name as a .com and he got upset because I asked to be compensated for my investment in a domain name, registered five years ago. What do I tell this moron, other than to piss off in French?
During the exchange of a few short emails, he told me my business model of selling domains for profit will soon vanish. At that point I provided him with links to various domain sales trackers, such as DNJournal to see for himself that my business model works just fine.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of such morons on the Internet, just like Guillaume Sibelle. When the Internet became commercial, they were still too young to be involved in the market and right now all the good domains are gone.
It’s not my fault Guillaume Sibelle’s mom didn’t pop him out a decade earlier.
Also this week, some lady from San Francisco emailed me about her domain that she lost by not renewing it. It was her first name in .com. Network Solutions auctioned it off via NameJet and I ended up buying it for $950. The domain has traffic, backlinks and it’s 12 years old; to me the price was justified. To her astonishment, that $950 represented “95 years of renewal fees” and she questioned my minimum asking price, offering $75 instead.
I told her to go ahead and register her full name, which was still available. She didn’t email me back after this. Four days later, her full name is still available as a .com
Some people just don’t get it, no matter how clear you present the facts to them.
Now, I am not sure who is more dangerous: an idiot that is uninformed about how things work and is obsessing about me keeping domains “hostage”, or an angry ignoramus that attempts to justify their own lack of action for a property that they let lapse. Shame, as her resume shows she worked for a few good “dot com” companies in the 90’s.
I would have given her the domain for as little as 25% profit, to justify a few parameters: my credit card fees, my taxation premium and the fact that I spent time researching a list of pre-released domains.
But I simply dislike people with attitude that want a hand-out and don’t want to do anything to earn it.
I agree… This guy who emails trying to get the domain is an idiot because he doesn’t realize how naive and selfish he is.
When he says, “block people for years that want to use a domain name”, how come he doesn’t consider the fact that you are one of those people that bought it and are doing exactly what he wants, and everyone wants to do.
What a F’n waste of time. – loser people, stay away from them.
Haha! The line “Twice he placed a lowball offer of 60 euro for a domain I own, and twice I had to slap him back to reality” had me in stitches.
Well done. If all domainers did this we would not only weed out a few unwanted offers, but also add more credibility to the domain aftermarket/industry.
I “slapped” one back to reality just today as well on Sedo. He/she cancelled the negotiations immediately!
It’s not the lowball offers that triggered this post, not even the fact that once I canceled the first one he started a new offer at Sedo. It was his obsessive statement that somehow I have no rightful interest in the domain because I park it at Sedo. His definition of fair use must have been something else.
Somehow, some people feel that the Internet should be a free-for-all, socialist platform. Sorry folks, everything has a price tag.
To hepamatic@yahoo.com aka “Johnny” whose post I deleted: if I were acting child-like as you said, I would have registered his name but I’m not an asshole so I won’t do that. Some people simply don’t understand. By the way, if you don’t like my blog please go away.
Nice keyword density 🙂
Thanks Jeff. It serves its purpose, I suppose 😉 Nice, clean, well-organized content on your blog. I added it to my blogroll.
Just like the people that feel they deserve to have some of my keyword domains since I have them parked.
Amazing. I give them credit for trying… and of course, entertaining me.
Yo Acro,
Man, do we all have stories of morons like this. I had one guy following me around for a “fullname.com” domain, and he had his family harass me by email for two years. Finally, when I ignored him, he sent one more tearful email explaining his financial situation, but offering what I asked for the domain 2 years earlier.
I accepted his offer and finally sold it to him. However, in that two years, he promoted his prodserv which brought me significant traffic, where I made a few hundred dollars in the two years he DIDN’T just buy the domain for the cheap price I first offered him. Just like 90% of most businesses and consumers who “don’t get it”, this goofball lost his branding, his potential sales, his positioning, FOR TWO YEARS, because he was too proud to pay the price to recover a domain name he failed to renew.
I feel the frustration of the Acro (monius) regarding domain names that should be easy sales conversions… especially when you consider the IQ factor in understanding the power of the domain name for the buyer. However, some people think $500 is more important to whine over, while they take out $2000 ads in newspapers that last for three days, when just owning their branded domain is the FIRST STEP to online success for their company.
In most of my “arguments” with the mighty unwashed, I think I’m fair in my pricing – I’m not a “make a million per domain” kind of guy. However, only a small percentage of these people “get it” and finally come around.
Time to implement a nonprofit website that fully defines domain values, and to have all the PS landing pages feature a link to that website at the bottom of each page.
Final Note: Acro, you mentioned this frenchie’s name… do you think he’ll come back after you for libeling him?
Nice replies from your side though 🙂 It really pisses one off when this kind of low ball offers are received.
Ugh I knew exactly what you were talking about as soon as I read the tittle. lol
This is so irritating and amusing at the same time, but I guess their lack of knowledge in the industry leads to a poor perception of how much a domain name is really worth.
Dan
Sorry for the double post – I bumped the enter key early….
Check out my, “How I Responded to the Squatter Accusation”. Linked via my name above. Feel free to edit and use it.
Mark
This happens to me on Sedo often. I set all my minimum offers to $100 just “in case” and while I don’t mind getting the initial low ball bid I think it’s funny how most never up their bids not even a little. I got one the other day for $110 and I sent back an extremely reasonable offer, several times lower than what I feel the real value is. Instead of raising his bid I get back the canned response to “justify my asking price”. Sedo should remove this from the options. I don’t HAVE to “justify” my price! My price is my price. Period!
I too had a similar situation with someone trying to lowball me for toohuge.com
Someone created a wordpress on the domain but stupid fool did not register .com.
Now he wants the dot com.
What a fool!!
I told him bodohland.wordpress.com and bodohland.com is different…oh well, I get all his traffic.
I feel the frustration shared by a lot of you. In this case, I forgot to mention that in fact this French guy started an offer three times, not just two. As much as I prefer to keep my options open by not defining a minimum asking price, I got tired of his repeated 60 euro offers as soon as I canceled them. And that’s the only positive thing I can think of Sedo’s new “More about the buyer” link; all three offers came from the same person.
Jeremy, you hit the nail on the head. Your asking price is your price and if they don’t like it they can go away. You don’t have to justify it; one of the most moronic one liners at Sedo’s system!
Stephen, too bad that this post is now #1 in Google when searching for the French guy’s name. I mentioned the facts so there is nothing libelous about it.
Mark, thank you for your response link.
I just want to mention that i do get this low offers through sedo too.I don’t like it but I think something positive is comming out of this low ball offers.
It shows up on the domain name, that in fact there where some offers made.
This might be useful when other buyers search for the domain. They see that there was already interest in that domain.
So let them low ball you.They are only helping you out in the long run.And they don’t know it!
Just my thinking!
Jurgen, the purpose of this post is not to complain about lowball offers. It’s about how people that want a domain name for a small fee perceive our business: taking domains hostage, locking, undeveloped, waste etc. These are comments from people that are ignorant and unwilling to be educated.
I had to laugh when I came across this topic since I own AmericanMoron.com 🙂
Robert
“I get all his traffic.” chris
“… In that two years, he promoted his prodserv which brought me significant traffic, where I made a few hundred dollars in the two years he DIDN’T just buy the domain for the cheap price I first offered him … this goofball lost his branding, his potential sales, his positioning, FOR TWO YEARS, because he was too proud to pay the price to recover a domain name he failed to renew.” stephen douglas
This is exactly why “domainers” get a bad rap. This needs to be looked at and understood by both sides. It’s one’s right to monetize traffic and sell a domain name that is picked up legitimately from a drop services. Yet, if this name is still someone’s company, brand or “full name” with prior usage then you also need to understand their necessity to protect that brand or themselves from any arguable level of infringement; even if it was their fault for not renewing the domain name.
Because of that, the other party cannot simply comply and pay any asking price. Once they do that, they would concede any right to claims that would have standing. This is why you see companies turning down a reasonable sale offer and instead spending thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Both sides have reasoned arguments.
Ken, your definition of “picked up legitimately” is based on ethics, not on law or business practices. And ethics might be good overall in life but when it interferes with business it becomes less important to single out.
In the same way that – as you say – the former owner cannot comply to pay the asking price, the seller/new owner does not have to comply in order to sell.
Your quotation of companies resorting to legal action holds water only in cases of trademark infringement. That’s not what we have here.
A dropped/expired domain is like a job in Florida from which you’ve been AWOL for 3 days: you’re automatically laid off.
“Ken, your definition of “picked up legitimately” is based on ethics, not on law or business practices.” Acro
– I never defined it, you did. Show me where I ever wrote that. The only thing that means is that a domain name wasn’t stolen.
Business practices and ethics are relative to each other.
“And ETHICS might be good overall in life but when it interferes with business it becomes LESS IMPORTANT to single out.” Acro
– But now I see why you don’t draw that clear distinction.
“… seller/new owner does not have to comply in order to sell.” Acro
– Exactly, agreed.
“… companies resorting to legal action holds water ONLY in cases of trademark infringement.” Acro
– This is entirely inaccurate. Ever heard of “Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act”. It’s also a Florida statute. That’s just one example.
“A dropped/expired domain is like a job in Florida from which you’ve been AWOL for 3 days: you’re automatically laid off.” Acro
What?? I could pick this one apart all day.
“That’s not what we have here” Acro
– I never once mentioned your situation or your article. I quoted two of your guests. You were just in your situations but it was a bit heavy handed calling them “A French idiot and an American moron.”
Ken, unless you are a lawyer please don’t simply play devil’s advocate, or the role of the “compassionate domainer”. And yes, by commenting on other’s comments you are opening yourself to further commentary.
So define for me what you perceive “legitimate picking” of domains to be. Any dropped domain, any expired domain that is picked by someone else through a process defined by ICANN is a legitimate claim to it – that’s what I say.
What do you say Ken?
well i had some guy offer me $80 yes $80 for a 2 letter domain.
lol @ tag: moron
Well, I guess he’ll gladly give his house and lot to whoever complains to him of being blocked for years from wanting to use it. Ah yes, such emotional morons indeed exist.
So…you managed to eventually sell those domain names? 🙂