A post by Elliot Silver yesterday raised again the issue of unscrupulous and unethical practices in domaining.
As I’ve said in the past, various new-comers, shooting stars or even seasoned domainers engage in unethical games for profit.
While I agree that it’s a “dog eat dog” world out there, these practices should both be exposed and condemned by the domaining community.
Front-running, the practice of offering for sale domains before they are acquired at an auction or sale is one such practice.
The twist of offering to bid on behalf of individuals or companies, alleging that it’s a service against “squatting” tops the list of scum domainers.
Fake brokers – individuals that practice front-running, offering to sell domains without the explicit authorization of their legitimate owners – is yet another variation of domainer scum.
Finally, lowballers that allege to be students, stay-at home mothers, start-ups with no funds etc. are at the bottom of the domainer scum pyramid.
Exposing those that engage in such practices helps cleaning up the domaining community.
“Lowballers” ?
Isn’t that just perception….
Naturally every domainer worth their salt will offer less than the value of the domain.
Why should every single offer made on a domain exceed it’s value or the owners expectation?
Lowballers that would count 99.9% of domainers on all the forums and most of all domainers including the so called big hitters,it’s simple they all want something for nothing.
I have only got a decent price from an enduser never from another domainer.
How about ‘fakers’?
Similar to lowballers in that they concoct a story to try and loosen you up into selling a strong domain.
I got en email approach recently from what I suspect to be a ‘faker’, wanting to buy what I believe to be my strongest future potential domain.
I told him it wasn’t for sale because it would be far more valuable in the future but he persisted. He then claimed that he was starting a business with the same name as my domain in the country he was from. I suppose that could be true so I gave him the benefit of the doubt at this point. However I told him that since my domain was a generic 2 word .com that I registered in 2000, I had no obligation to sell it to him.
His next tactic was to claim that his brother was a professor who specialises in the technology that my domain refers to, and that we were still many years away from realising the technology which would make the domain worth a fortune.
So that’s when the ‘faker’ alarm bells really started to ring.
My next response was simply to say that there are countless different opinions and claims relating to this technology, so why would I just take the claims of his ‘professor’ brother at face value?
Matt – The difference lies between making an offer close to the fair market value of a domain and making a substantially lower offer. E.g. if I offered $1k for LLL .coms that’d be me lowballing.
Stu – That’s not accurate, this number is imaginary.
Gypsum – Fakers, yes; that’s a good name and I fully agree: when you hear a sad, sappy story it’s most likely fake.
TGIF!
Acro – There’s no such thing as a fair market price. I keep coming across the Internet people talking about Fair Market Price, Under-Pricing and Over-Pricing. Totally unscientific rather emotional statements, based mainly upon personal or company ideas about what parameters to choose and how to interpret them. Nobody knows why somebody wants to sell or buy a domain, so nobody knows what budget is available and how far the person will go.
And appraisers should make clear not only what parameters are chosen, but also why and how the data is used to come to a conclusion.
Value is in between the ears.
Allroundguy – Actually, there is fair market price and it’s determined by examining similar sales. Not every domainer pulls prices out of their ass 🙂
“lowballers that allege to be students, stay-at home mothers, start-ups with no funds etc. are at the bottom of the domainer scum pyramid.”
Good post but disagree on this one. I don’t do this but all is fair when negotiating for something you want to buy. It is completely standard in every industry. Used cars you say the paint is bad and you are broke to get the price lower etc.
If you are susceptible to manipulation from people with a nice story just learn to completely ignore whatever story they give you and stick to your price…
William – Actually, this is not only unfair but unlawful in some cases. Example: lawyer places lowball offer on behalf of client, alleging the domain will be used for his blog. Upon refusal by the owner to sell, a UDRP is filed. At the WIPO, the email exchanged is revealed and leads to the denial of the domain transfer to the complainant 🙂
“these practices should both be exposed and condemned by the domaining community.”
Hear hear!!!!
Lots of misinformation in here. Just because someone lowballs you and comes across as a “student” or whatever should not mean jack shit. You either like the offer or not. Move on.. Now, I definitely agree with those trying to sell domains they still have yet to acquire via drop or auction to be a bit shady. I’ve had some of my domains offered to me for sale by those expecting to catch them in a drop and when asked about it, they simply state it was a “mistake”. That’s a practice that should be stopped.
Jon – What exactly is “misinformation”? The fact that lowballing is a practice among domainers with an end-user disguise? The fact that sob stories are used to request or even demand a lower selling price? And how come you only call the front-runners “a bit shady”? It’s not only unethical, it’s scummy. TGIF!
90 % of domain forums supported and earned their living by working with lowballers
Picas – Provide some proof for that number please 🙂
Frankly,
EVERYONE involved in ransoming domains for cash is SCUM. You are the bottom feeders of the technology world. You offer nothing because you have nothing to offer except that you were sitting somewhere first..
Useles, pointless parasites… all of you bar none.
James – Sorry to hear that because you missed out on the domain you wanted, you turned into an angry little man.