We received this email yesterday:
My name is Mark Vierra and my design firm owns BocaRatonPlasticSurgeon.com, a domain name that we acquired for a plastic surgeon in Boca Raton way back in 1994 for whom we were building a webpage.
The Surgeon never paid for this web site, nor the domain name, and was sent to collections.
Since we are not plastic surgeons, and the name is of no use to my firm, we have decided to let it go for what we paid for it in 1994, which was $4,100.00.
The owner of this name will “own” the internet and whatever website this domain name is pointed too will be swamped with quality,targeted leads.
BocaRatonPlasticSurgeon.com would rank #1 on Google results for anyone in the world looking for a plastic surgeon in Boca Raton and you will never have to pay anyone for advertisements again.
The domain name will organically attract customers looking for a Plastic Surgeon in Boca Raton to your services.
These key words Boca Raton Plastic Surgeon are typed in 1043 times a month from people all over the world looking for a plastic surgeon in Boca Raton.
To pay Google for those key words would cost you $39.90 a click to be one of the ads at the top.Only 12% of consumers ever click on those ads while 88% of the people searching for surgeons click on the 1st ,2nd or 3rd spots of the search results.
All I am asking is what we paid for the name in 1994 which was $4100.00.
I realize that the names are worth far in excess of what we are asking, but to be honest I would be happy to break even.
Our offices are in Seattle, Washington and can fax over a simple buy sell agreement and have no problem transferring ownership of the domain name over to you prior to getting paid.
This is a onetime email, and I will not email you again and I apologize for the intrusion. My full name, address, and phone number are below.
Yours,
Mark Vierra
Seattlesoftwaredevelopers.com
14150 ne 20th Street
Bellevue, Washington 98005
425-256-2815
Ok so first of all this domain was not registered in 1994.
“”All I am asking is what we paid for the name in 1994 which was $4100.00. I realize that the names are worth far in excess of what we are asking, but to be honest I would be happy to break even.”
Obviously back in 1994 if the domain sold for $4,100 it would have been one of the highest domain name sales at that time.
Of course back in 1994 domain names were free so they didn’t cost anything to register.
The oldest record DomainTools.com has for this domain shows it being registered for the first time in 2006 and back then the domain was registered to a Davinderpal Bhatia of Massapequa, New York.
There is a screenshot.com record going back as far as 2005.
The domain was not owned by the Seattle Company represented in the email until at least December 2012 when is was registered to Seattle Software which has an address of 14150 NE 20th Street, in Bellevue, Washington. but the email is from seattlesoftwaredevelopers.com, which is registered to an address at 73 Greentree Drive, Seattle.
The domain name SeattleSoftwareDevelopers.com was not even registered until 2010.
The email goes on to state:
“BocaRatonPlasticSurgeon.com would rank #1 on Google results for anyone in the world looking for a plastic surgeon in Boca Raton and you will never have to pay anyone for advertisements again.”
As we know a site built out on the domain could rank well on Google, but #1, forever? We all know it takes a lot of content and SEO work to get a domain ranked number 1, and Google policy regarding the importance of Exact Match Domains have changed many times over the years.
So while this domain has a good chance of ranking if a proper site was done and owned by a plasrtic curgeon who had an office in Boca Raton but the statement is in inaccurate at best.
Why I’m I writing about this?
Because when people outside of the domain space get emails like this it hurts the credibility of other company’s that are trying to sell their domains and gives domainers or domain investors a black eye.
I reached out to the sender of the email yesterday but did not receive a response.
