If you receive an unsolicited email listing either of these two companies as appraisal outfits, then it's a scam. More information here.
Update: there's also topnameappraisal.com which is another domain doing exactly the same thing.
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
Subject: Domain Dispute and Registration
From: "Sunny"
Date: Thu, July 2, 2009 4:07 am
To whom it may concern: 2009-7-2
We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,
Last week we received a formal application submited by Justin Lin who wanted to use the keyword "REDACTED" to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/ .asia/ domain names.
After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren¡¯t sure whether you have any relation with him. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down his registration, but if we do not get your company¡¯s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his company's application
In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely
Sunny
Checking Department
Tel: 86 513 8532 1087
Fax: 86 513 8532 2065
Email:Sunny@ntwifinetwork.com
Website: www.js-wifi.cn
Our File No.:2272363
We are interested to buy your domain name [redacted] and offer to buy it from you for 65% of the appraised market value.Out of these three "appraisal" companies, flyappraisals.com is the cheapest. So, naturally a lot of people will part with some money for an appraisal. Of course, the offer to buy the domain name never comes through and the domain name owner is out of pocket.
As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:
sedo.com
flyappraisals.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,
From: Joy [mailto:Joy@ntwifinetwork.com]
Sent: 10 April 2009 07:47
To: [redacted]
Subject: Notice of Intellectual Property Protection
Dear Sir/Madam: 2009-4-10
We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,
Last week we received a formal application submited by “Yadu Investment Co., Ltd.” Which wanted to use the keyword " [redacted]" to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/ .asia/ domain names.
After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren’t sure whether you have any relation with this company. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down this registration, but if we do not get your company’s an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his application
In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely
Joy
Checking Department
Tel: 86 513 8532 2060
Fax: 86 513 8532 2065
Email :Joy@ntwifinetwork.com
Website: www.ntwifinetwork.com
Mail No.: [redacted]
Subject: Domain Issues for "[redacted]"
From: "Ramon zhang"
Date: Fri, March 27, 2009 9:20 am
If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward to the right person/department. Thank you)
Dear CEO,
We , a registrar organization in China, have something to check with you. We received an application today One South Korea company called " Sopper Investment Co. LTD" is applying for "[redacted]" as internet brand and following Asian/.CN domain names to use.
[redacted].com.tw
[redacted].hk
[redacted].in
[redacted].net.cn
[redacted].org.cn
[redacted].tw
After our initial checking, we found the internet brand and keyword of these domain names are as same as your company¡¯s.Because of it involves your company's intellectual property, so we need to check this with your company. If the aforesaid company is your subsidiary company or your business partner, please DO NOT reply us, we will approve the application automatically. If you have no any relationship with this company, please contact us within 7 workdays. If out of the deadline, we will approve the application submitted by "Sopper Investment Co. LTD" unconditionally.
Look forwarding to hearing from you.Thanks.
Best Regards,
Ramon Zhang
Leader Checker
Shanghai QiPeng Network Information Technology Co.,Ltd
Tel£Âº +86-21-6992-9440 Fax£Âº +86-21-6992-9447
Postal Code£Âº 200063
website:http://www.qipeng.org.cn
Shanghai QPNIC Web Property Solutions Limited is a comprehensive company engaged in the Internet intellectual property services that mainly provides network-based service, network intellectual property service.
Company objective: The good faith first, the customer is supreme.
Dear sir,Pozde.com is the fake appraisal site, and because it is cheaper than the others (which are legitimate) there's a chance you will try to use it. Although this time they have remembered to give you a box to specify your domain (they didn't with the old version), you should be under no doubt that this is an attempt to defraud.
we are interested to buy your domain name [REDACTED] and offer to buy it from you for 70% of the appraised market value.
As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:
sedo.com
pozde.com
moniker.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,
Thanks,
P. Jackson
Registrant:In fact, it is actually registered to:
Richard Smith
563 queen st
bruckberg, er 54767
Iceland
Domain Name: POZDE.COM
Created on: 19-Nov-08
Expires on: 19-Nov-09
Last Updated on: 20-Mar-09
Administrative Contact:
Smith, Richard admin@bizing.biz
563 queen st
bruckberg, er 54767
Iceland
+1.9024312570 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Smith, Richard admin@bizing.biz
563 queen st
bruckberg, er 54767
Iceland
+1.9024312570 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.IPNAMES.NET
NS2.IPNAMES.NET
Registrant:You should also consider the domains tysoo.com (recently bought by Manuel Fichter) and dexpay.com as suspect, because it seems that there is a pattern emerging here.
Manuel Fichter
38 Matthew Drive
Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T8
Canada
Domain Name: POZDE.COM
Created on: 19-Nov-08
Expires on: 19-Nov-09
Last Updated on: 05-Mar-09
Administrative Contact:
Fichter, Manuel admin@bizing.biz
38 Matthew Drive
Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T8
Canada
9024312570 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Fichter, Manuel admin@bizing.biz
38 Matthew Drive
Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T8
Canada
9024312570 Fax --
For reference, the relevant mail headers are:
Subject: Regarding your domain [REDACTED].COM
From: "James Johnson" j.johnson98@rocketmail.com
Hello,
I came across your domain name [REDACTED]COM and I would be interested in buying it from you.
Here is my offer, you have to send me a professional appraisal from one of the following companies. and I will pay you 85% of the appraised price.
For payments under $2000 I prefer to use paypal. And for larger amounts of money I prefer if we used escrow.com
I accept appraisals from any of these companies:
-sedo.com
-pedma.com
-accuratedomains.com
If you already have an appraisal from one of those companies please forward it to me, and we will do business.
Regards,
James Johnson
Received: from eatfire.nexcess.net (208.69.122.200)Well, my spidey sense started to tingle. The domain in question is not great and I'm really holding it for a future project that I haven't gotten around to. So I have certainly never had it professionally appraised.
by [redacted] with SMTP; 17 Mar 2009 10:07:22 -0000
Received: (qmail 10697 invoked by uid 108); 17 Mar 2009 10:06:16 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO LYNKSIS) (admin@1nb0x.com@174.133.179.205)
by eatfire.nexcess.net with ESMTPA; 17 Mar 2009 10:06:16 -0000
From: "James Johnson"
Subject: Regarding your domain [redacted]
To: [redacted]
Registrant:It's hard to say if the details are genuine or not, but it certainly isn't an obvious fake. But a few days ago, pedma.com was registered to someone else:
Billy McDOW
366 Kingswood Dr
Bedford, Nova Scotia B4B 1T8
Canada
Domain Name: PEDMA.COM
Created on: 01-Jul-08
Expires on: 01-Jul-09
Last Updated on: 12-Mar-09
Administrative Contact:
McDOW, Billy support@pedma.com
366 Kingswood Dr
Bedford, Nova Scotia B4B 1T8
Canada
9024950112 Fax --
Technical Contact:
McDOW, Billy support@pedma.com
366 Kingswood Dr
Bedford, Nova Scotia B4B 1T8
Canada
9024950112 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1501.HOSTGATOR.COM
NS1502.HOSTGATOR.COM
Registrant:About the same time, the IP address of pedma.com changed from 208.69.122.200 to 174.132.194.58. Now, the 208.x.x.x address was mentioned a few days ago on another blog for questionable domain practices, so you might suggest that this is not a coincidence.
Manuel Fichter
38 Matthew Drive
Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T8
Canada
Domain Name: PEDMA.COM
Created on: 01-Jul-08
Expires on: 01-Jul-09
Last Updated on: 05-Mar-09
Administrative Contact:
Fichter, Manuel admin@bizing.biz
38 Matthew Drive
Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T8
Canada
9024950112 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Fichter, Manuel admin@bizing.biz
38 Matthew Drive
Hammonds Plains, NS B4B 1T8
Canada
9024950112 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
DNS53-1.NEXCESS.NET
DNS53-2.NEXCESS.NET
20 Crawford StreetIt looks like this may be an accommodation address or perhaps a virtual office of some sort, probably located above a shop [sorry, IE required]. Definitely not Canada. (Update: it looks like a branch of Mail Boxes Etc thanks to Google's new UK streetview.)
London
W1H 1PJ
United Kingdom
Email: support@pedma.com
How much is your domain really worth? An expert evaluation of a domain name's value is critical intelligence for domain buyers and sellers looking to determine a fair market price. An appraisal is your first step to making a great sale!In fact, the majority of this text is stolen directly from Sedo and Moniker - it's a straight copy-and-paste job.
Every appraisal individually researched by domain industry pros, because no software is a substitute for real-world experience.
Your domain name could be worth thousands of dollars and may even be tax deductible!
Join many others who discovered what their domains were worth using our Domain Name Appraisal Service! Your domain will be appraised based on a number of separate factors including marketability, brand recognition, unique type in traffic, and comparison with other domain name sales. In addition to the following criteria:
* TLD Value
* Length
* Hyphen
* Web Frequency
* Search Frequency
* Industry Value
After you make your first purchase we will email you your Pedma Account log in information. Once you are logged in, you will find all your domain appraisals neatly organized (including appraisal reports, and appraisal banners). We make it easy to keep track of all your appraisals!
Owner Contact:
Willy Fichter
Immo-World24 Limited
Am Soeldnermoos 17
Hallbergmoos, 85399, DE
Punycode Name: fastbooster.com
Unicode Name: fastbooster.com
Admin Contact
Willy Fichter
willyfichter@googlemail.com
Am Soeldnermoos 17
Hallbergmoos, 85399, DE
phone: +49 89381684552
Technical Contact
Hostmaster Strato Rechenzentrum
Cronon AG Professional IT-Services
hostmaster@cronon-isp.net
Emmy-Noether-Str. 10
Karlsruhe, D-76131, DE
phone: +49 72166320305
Zone Contact
Hostmaster Strato Rechenzentrum
Cronon AG Professional IT-Services
hostmaster@cronon-isp.net
Emmy-Noether-Str. 10
Karlsruhe, D-76131, DE
phone: +49 72166320305
Record expires on: 2009-05-04 20:35:24
Domain servers in listed order:
shades02.rzone.de
docks18.rzone.de
Subject: Dynamoo Domain name and Internet keyword Registration
From: "tom.xu"
Dec 19, 2008
Dynamoo
Domain name & Internet keyword
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are Beijing AUG Networks Technology Co., Ltd which is the domain name and internet keyword registration service company in China. We received a formal application from a company who is applying to register " dynamoo " as their domain name and Internet keyword on Dec 16, 2008.Since through our investigation we found that this word has been in use by your company, and this may involve your company name or trade mark so we inform you in no time. If you consider the domain name and internet keyword are important to your company and it is necessary to protect them by registering them first, contact us soon.
Kind Regards,
Tom Xu
Registration Comissioner
Tel/fax: +86-10-82797446
Email: tom.xu@augnetworks.cn
Website: www.augnetworks.cn
Name: Vivids Media GmbHThat indicates that Vivid Media GmbH is related to klikdomains.com and therefore klikvip.com which are part of another company that claims to be in Berlin, Klik Media GmbH (some of the alleged goings on of this company are mentioned here). A short step away from Klik are a whole set of domains registered via Estdomains (a familiar name to many) and things start to get seedy from there.
Email Address: support@klikdomains.com
Address: Leege-Gr str. 41
City: Berlin
Zip: 13055
Country : Germany
Tel No.: +49.3094413291
Subject: selling-domain: ------.cn
From: ljp013@vip.163.com
Date: Thu, June 5, 2008 1:13 am
Hello
We have ------.cn and think it is useful for you to made a China Website and
to explore China market.
We are pleased to inform you that we are now engage an activity by which you
can purchase this domain only with $1000 USD. If you are interested in it
,please reply to us and discuss the domain tranfer matters.
We could finish the transaction through www.sedo.com which is a international
Domain trade agency.Then,sedo.com will help you transferred the domain.
China is the biggest market in the world £¡Dot.cn domains is a symbol of
enterprises in China£¡10,000,000 .cn domains are been registered£¡
At last,Sorry for the disturb if any.
Wish you a happy new year 2008, and welcome to our China to visit Olympic Games.
Best Regards.
Liu
=================
Appendix:
Some large international companies use .cn domain in China.
http://www.google.cn/ The world's largest search company google.com China Station
http://www.Amazon.cn The world's largest online bookstore amazon.com company
China Station
http://www.Yahoo.cn Yahoo.com he is the sub-stations in China