123 Reg

I had a few service lines I need to cancel as the business had folded.

Forced into calling rather than having the ability online. That wasnt possible,

I have received the below scam email from solutions@***3-reg.solutions few days ago, please see below:

Hello!

An investor from England is interested in purchasing (yourdomain.com). I represent his interests in this deal.

The buyer is a professional investor. Your domain will be used as a part of his online project.

I located your contact information in a domain name whois lookup and understand that you own the domain name.

Are you still interested in selling?

I help clients of our hosting company to buy and sell intellectual properties.

If you have more names I can help you to sell them.

Best Regards,

Susan Miller

Domain Broker

123-reg.co.uk

There is a new scam out there for us people selling websites and start up company templates for new biz owners. This is the email going around. It is from a fake broker telling you he wants to buy your website, but first you have to buy a "certificate" to prove its worth. DO NOT DO IT! Below is the email many of us sellers got. I hope this helps in preventing any of you new sellers from being scammed.

Leave your experiences below if you got one of these too!

Emails We got:

Email 1: Hello!

I represent a professional investor from Scotland who wants to buy (yourwebsite.com) for a new project.

Are you still interested in selling?

If you have more names I can help you to sell them.

I work as a domain broker and lawyer for a hosting company.

Best Regards,

Walter Dawson

Vice President

123 REG UK

Email 2:

The buyer will pay you the appraised value. It will be fair since he does not want to pay something over the real market value.

Based on my experience, I think your name is in $15,000 - $20,000 range.

Do you have a certificate of the appraised value?

If you don't have it's not a problem. You can order it online.

He needs it from a source he knows and trusts.

I’m also interested in a good estimate of the market price because he pays me % on each sale.

The process is very easy:

1. Go to the certificate agency site (see instructions below) and submit your domain for the certification. Please let them know you have a buyer with $XX,XXX offer. It will help you to get a better valuation. In the comment field please ask them to guarantee that the appraised value will be higher than the appraisal service fee. In this case you will not risk to pay and get a low appraisal. I suggest you this company because they protect you as the seller from getting a low appraised value. They will send you the payment instruction only if your domain is worth $1000 or higher. Otherwise your request will be declined and you will not pay hem anything. Other companies does not offer this option.

2. If your request will be approved, please pay them the fee and wait for 24 hours. Then send me the results via email and we will start the sale process. As soon as he receives your certificate, he will buy your domain via an escrow service. Any escrow service will be able to pay you via Paypal, Wire, Western Union or any other method you prefer.

He wants to ensure the safe delivery of the funds to you. Furthermore, since this is our first time conducting any business, I believe that using a third-party escrow service can provide a safe, well defined sale process.

The certificate must include only 2 things to be accepted by my buyer:

1. Independent valuation of the market price. Only manual valuation is accepted. No valuations generated by scripts.

2. Trademark infringement verification. It proves your domain has no trademark problems. He would like this verification to be included in the appraisal report. It's not a problem because some companies include the TM verification for free.

You can read about the recommended certification agency at Google Answers: http://archive.answers-google.org/answers/threadview/id/5047****.html ("Domain Broker" is my nickname there).

If you are new to certifications, I can send you step by step instructions.

WARNING!

Here is a link to another set of people who had this experience as well: http://sunauskas.com/blog/domain-buying-fraudscam/

Basically 123-reg will auto-renew your domains without your permission BEFORE they expire and then REFUSE to refund you. Shocking, shameful and very unprofessional.

Their customer service emails all simply say 'sorry no refund'. Would a letter to their CEO produce results? After all, what decent company would not want to get feedback and improve things. Nope - I got another 'sorry no refund' email from customer services.

Am astonished that they have refused a refund when my domains had not even expired. As with all poor companies, they turn to 'Terms and Conditions'.

So now I have to get paperwork ready for Trading Standards to inspect, and for the Court Case. What a waste of my time. What an inconvenience for me. But the fact is they have £115 of my money, and though they must be rather short of cash to hold onto it so desperately, I need it more!

What a wasted opportunity to finish a simple matter quickly, efficiently and correctly. After all, I have many other Domains with them and am happy to keep them (so far). But These sort of companies should not be allowed to get away with hiding behind self-made illegal terms created, it seems, for the sole purpose of keeping clients' money in circumstances that are not fair, decent or right.

I work with over 50 businesses every week in a trusted and reputable organisation called BNI and not one of them would put in the vast amount of time, trouble and effort that 123-reg have done to refuse to do the right and decent thing.

Would I recommend 123-reg.co.uk? ABSOLUTELY NOT (unless you have plenty of time to write unnecessary letters and emails!!).