pddomains.com scam

This is part of a long-running scam where you receive an unsolicited offer for a domain name.. the scam is that you are offered a choice of three appraisal services, the cheapest of which is controlled by the scammer. Once you have paid for your appraisal, the offer to buy the domain mysteriously dries up.

Subject: Offer to buy [redacted]
From: "Resale Domain" <resaledomain@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, August 9, 2009 6:00 am

Dear Sir,

we are interested to buy your domain name [redacted] and offer 65% of the appraised market value.
As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:

sedo.com
pddomains.com
accuratedomains.com

If you already have an appraisal please forward it to us.

As soon as we have received your appraisal we will send you our payment (we use Paypal for amounts less than $2,000 and escrow.com for amounts above $2,000) as well as further instructions on how to complete the transfer of the domain name.

We appreciate your business,

Thank you,

B. Phillips
Resale Domain

The site looks professional enough, but it's a cookie-cutter design that has been used for previous frauds here, here, here and here although sometimes the same crew use this design.

Email originates from 64.186.128.191 in the US and points to a domain on 124.217.231.209 in Malaysia. WHOIS details are anonymised and the domain was only registered on 7th August, nontheless the most likely perpetrator is detailed here.

If you have paid for an appraisal, then you should start a PayPal dispute to get a refund. Hopefully, that will also get the fraudster's account shut down.