Beware of broker tactic (2.Viewing)

rlm

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So - here's the situation.

A guy who is trying to broker domains calls me by looking up my home phone # in the whitepages. I've gotten lowball offers from him many times in the past and it has never gone anywhere, so I tend to ignore them. He called me about a domain a couple weeks ago, acting as if he was in touch with a business owner and wanting a price. Then a couple days later I get lowball $1000 offers on two completely different generic 1-word dictionary ultra premium domains - from this same guy, using two different email addresses. Both of these domains have public whois so with a couple seconds of work he should have known it was me and not fire off random lowballs. So I tell him I ignore lowball offers, why are you sending me these?

This is his response:

Why I sent you offers
I may track 30 domains down in a day. As you know, whois is not a great place to find contacts. That means I do not know I am sending them to you. It also means I have no idea what domains I asked about, I'd rather search 30 today, than 15 because I was keeping track. If you kept the emails just reply if you want to sell them.

My business model recently is to find great .ca domains that would be of interest to a fashion house. I tracked down NeimanMarcus.ca's owner by contacting a friend at Bodis. The owner contacted me, now I will reach out to Neiman Marcus with, "I am a Canadian domain investor, I don't own NeimanMarcus.ca but I may be able to find the Canadian owner and negotiate the purchase for you".

Why would the domain owner pay me a commission when he could sell it himself? 1. He doesn't have the time and a subordinate does not understand the domain world. 2. A third party, me, keeps the emotions down. As you know a CEO can be pissed that someone bought 'his' Canadian domain 3. That same CEO could accuse the owner of 'bad faith' if the owner reached out and offered to sell it. He may launch a legal procedure, particularly if the domain is not an English word.5. I am good at it.
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I'm horrified by this. Am I over reacting? What do you guys think? MapleDots @MapleDots DomainRecap @DomainRecap MaiTaiMan @MaiTaiMan or anyone else wanting to chime in?
 
My business model recently is to find great .ca domains that would be of interest to a fashion house. I tracked down NeimanMarcus.ca's owner by contacting a friend at Bodis. The owner contacted me, now I will reach out to Neiman Marcus with, "I am a Canadian domain investor, I don't own NeimanMarcus.ca but I may be able to find the Canadian owner and negotiate the purchase for you".
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So much is wrong with that statement :eek:

The problem here is he may spoil a legitimate domain sale. I would be pretty peeved if someone was actively soliciting my domains without my knowledge. I can contact the obvious end users myself but I prefer to keep a clean slate and wait for them to initiate contact.

Is it just me or is a domain broker not supposed to be hired by one of the two parties before he begins his work?

What do you call someone that does deals behind the lines and potentially interferes with a legitimate business without being authorized to do so?
 
My business model recently is to find great .ca domains that would be of interest to a fashion house. I tracked down NeimanMarcus.ca's owner by contacting a friend at Bodis.
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I would just like to clarify here, the "friend at Bodis", which was a colleague of mine, did NOT give out the domain owner's details when contacted by this broker. We would never do that. My colleague merely forwarded on the message.

Shaun
 
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