Active Domain Resale?

[csmm]

Hi,

Someone I know has just been offered a domain name by http://activedomainresale.com/. Is anyone familiar with this company? They're offering the non-hyphenated domain name (the person I know has the same domain name except with a hyphen) for a one-time fee of $49, payable through paypal or a credit card. When we contacted customer support by email (they did respond quickly), the email came from a different domain - directpremiumdomains.com.

Has anyone had any experience with this? If it's legit, it seems like it could be a good opportunity to get the non-hyphenated URL but I'm concerned that it might be a scam.

Thanks in advance!

Carolina

[SEO5Team]

Hi Carolina,

A quick glance in the whois records for their own domain reveals the following info:

Registrant
Great Value Domains LLC
Michael Newton
Email:sales@antiplastics.com
1620 East 16th Street
93500 LA
United States
Tel: +1.307123456

The phone # is wrong. Does not inspire a lot of confidence. The email is associated with another domain and not the domain  "active domain resale"

More research on the direct premium domains.com reveals this info:

Riverside Domain Brokers
Edward Clark
Email:riversidedomainbrokers@gmail.com
2710 Thomes Ave
82001 Cheyenne Wy
United States
Tel: +1.3074591955

Riverside has a lot of reviews on the net . Links below. I'd be very wary of sending any money to them.

Domains.com Review

DNForum.com

[AgentsofValue]

Based on their reputation, I would be wary.  They might be trying to sell you a domain name that they don't even own.

You should be able to check the whois record to see who owns the non-hyphenated version of the domain (assuming they don't have whois privacy setup).  If your friend really wants to get the domain, they could try to contact that domain owner directly, rather than replying to a spam email.

Also, for any domain transaction (even small transactions like this), you use escrow, especially if there's reason to suspect fraud from the other party.

There's a service ecop.com that specializes in low value escrow transactions.