Save 25% on a Domain purchase pretending to be a broker! (1.Viewing)

Pretend Domain Name Broker​

I had an inquiry from a broker on one of my better domains and from all appearances it looked like it was a legitimate inquiry which was going to turn into a significant sale. The broker seemed professional and we spent almost two weeks going back and forth negotiating a price. Once we agreed upon a price he sprang a commission on me. He said he initiated the sale and brought a cold contact to his client. In other words the broker was responsible for finding the domain and presenting it to the end client. The broker said the client agreed on price and terms but the sale would be subject to a 25% commission to the broker.

Now in most cases the broker works for the end client and gets paid by the end client. In this case I did not initiate contact and I told the broker I was not responsible for paying a commission, to which the broker responded that he would cancel the deal.

All my spidey senses went off and I figured I would do more research into the broker. I was already pretty confident I knew who the end client was so I made it my project to find out who the broker was. Luckily I keep meticulous records and log emails, ip's, conversations, and mentions of other domains etc. Sure enough when you have two weeks of conversations and emails the people communicating use several devices and/or email addresses and digging deep into my database I soon discovered some irregularities. One of which was shared ip which showed me the broker was not who he claimed to be, in fact the so called broker was actually the end user looking to get an additional 25% discount on the domain.

So basically the potential end user pretended to be a broker and spent two weeks negotiating his best deal. Then he sprang a 25% commission on me which would have saved him an additional quarter of the domain price.

Holy cow, what a scam, I don't know if I should admire his ingenuity or ban him from forever making contact with me again.

After some reflection I confronted him and told him I knew who he was to which he responded that I was wrong. Once I presented him with the evidence he simply asked me if I still wanted to sell the domain. I responded yes but the price has gone up by 25% so he could pay for his commission.

All in all I was polite and wanted to make sure I don't spoil a sale. It was a significant amount of money so losing my cool and trying to confront him would not have been to my advantage. I simply stuck to my guns, said we agreed on a price and he can contact me if he ever wanted to consummate the sale.

How would you have handled the situation?

well I think you handled it as best as you can. you can't lose your cool if you want to make a sale. but the tactic is bullshit and hopefully no one here would accept that. personally, I'd call him out right here so we all know and can be looking out for this joker.

And just to be mathematically correct, you need to raise the price by 33.33%, not 25%.

for example, if you expected to sell for $1000, you need to sell for 1333.33 * .75 (minus 25% commission) = $1000.

If you only raise by 25% you screw yourself by 6.25%. (1250.00 * .75) = $937.50. Loss of $62.50 or 6.25%.

Handled like a pro, let him stew in his pot of lies.

Like @rlm have said, you did a good job.

That is very commendable.

Wow. Just wow. The 'creative' lengths that some people will go to in order to try to save money never ceases to amaze me. Kudos to you to catching this scam and calling the fake broker out. We just turned away a potential client/gig today because the potential client, a startup founder, did some shady stuff in order to try to buy a domain name, before he reached out to us for help. With the red flags we uncovered, we sent him packing.