Domain offers : A twist on the proverbial “poor student” inquiry

The practice of making offers for domain names, under the guise of being someone else, isn’t new.

Domain investing presents opportunities that can be exceptionally rewarding. There is competition in the market, and there are only so many good names available.

In the mid 2000’s, many LLL .com domains were sold to investors willing to play the “poor student” card.

While not every such inquiry succeeded, in many of these cases the “poor student” eventually put enough money on the table, to entice the other party enough so that they did sell their domains.

More than 10 years later, the practice isn’t dead by any means. But I’ve identified a twist to it: real students being used to acquire domains.

If you’re a domain portfolio holder, you probably have already done a proper evaluation of your domain assets. You have dropped the weeds, and fed the prospective ones. You also have defined a selling range for your domains, that shields you from having to be caught unguarded when the student offer arrives.

Real students are being utilized by third parties, in a cunning attempt to cloak the actual buyer who makes the offer. Whether they are directly involved in the project or not, that’s irrelevant. What matters, is that they are used as soft proxies, a hard proxy buyer being a professional domain broker.

Why are real students – no quotation marks – a vessel of preference for domain inquiries?

The old variant depends on the real person’s abilities to consummate an acquisition, all while he assumes the role of a “student” which they aren’t. It’s very easy to uncover the real intent of those offers; there is no real person attached to them.

In the new version, however, a real person – a real student – is instructed to establish a connection playing none other than themselves. The only asset that isn’t theirs, is the money provided by the real party that backs the effort to acquire the domain.

The bottom line: If you are approached by a student for one of your domains, and can confirm their identity as such, be aware of this nice little twist to the “poor student” offer, and adjust your asking price upwards.