Watch out for domain offers from Cloe Harris, like this one (see below) … it’s fake.
If you write back, chances are you’ll start receiving far more spam emails in your inbox rather than serious offers. Sadly “Cloe” only wants you for your email address.
If you do reply back about the offer — hopefully because you want to mess with the scammers — I’d go through a temporary email account service like HideMyAss.com or sign up for a (new) Gmail account.
Remember the Internet rule: if something is too good to be true, it usually is.
Here’s the fake domain offer email:
From: Cloe Harris <cloeharris04@gmail.com>
Hi,
I have taken an interest in purchasing your domain [your domain name].
Please let me know if you are interested in selling. If so, all I need is your selling price and we will make a decision.
Thank you!
Regards,
Cloe Harris
Artie
We got the same offer with the same wording, same sender, and reported it to gmail as spam. This is typical of a scam that has been going on for several years, at least. Years ago I used to reply, before I realized that spammers were just trying to validate my email on file with my registrar so they could sell my address for more money or just load it up with garbage emails.
Goat
Thanks for the warning! I got this message as well.
Michael
Yes, just received the email and did a search for the name and your article came up. Thanks for the heads up!
Christophe Sepulchre
Thanks for the warning. We received the exact same message earlier this week.
Much appreciated.
Chris
Johnson
Received the same email format from the one and only Cloe Harris
Clementine Deuteronomy
same exact email, thanks for the heads up
Ernie
We just got our first email from this Cloe person.
tiger
just received an identical email, same wording amazingly. Almost replied back. Thanks for the warning.
rashed
i am in the middle of it , Not sure what to do ?? i have replied to the first e mail
and he just responded with the fallowing email :
Thank you for answering my email. We are small development company, starting to plan things for our specific project. Please be so kind to let me know the price for this domain name as I don’t know the value. Your reply with a selling price is well appreciated and will help us decide if we can pursue a deal.
Thank you.
Cloe Harris
Wick
Just keep in mind it’s a scam – they’ve emailed far too many people with unrelated domain names for this to really be a “small development company” looking to buy a domain for their “specific project”.
It could be the typical bank check scam, where they send you the bank check for a few hundred dollars over the amount you want for your domain, & ask you to wire the excess to someone else (typically some sort of broker or agent etc). In that scam, the bank check is a fake — people think bank checks are the same as cash — THEY AREN’T. The fake bank check can take a week or more to bounce, & you can’t reverse your wire transfer. So just be careful. If you find out more about the specific scam they’re running, definitely write back & let me know. Thanks & good luck!
linda
Got the same exact email today. Thanks for the information. I am going to ignore it.
Michael
Just got the same email on one of my domains. I wish that I had checked it out prior to responding to it.
It will be interesting to see if I get an increase in spam. Thanks for the article.
Richard
Got this email from cloeharris04@gmail.com today. Thanks for the warning.
Hi,
I’m interested in your domain, c..,,,,,y.com.
If you’re interested in selling, please let me know your asking price.
Look forward to hearing back from you.
Thanks,
Cloe Harris
Michael Christopher
thanks for the info:
Hi,
I’m interested in your domain, collocated.com.
If you’re interested in selling, please let me know your asking price.
Look forward to hearing back from you.
Thanks,
Cloe Harris
Jeff
Thanks. I got this one also, with a domain I registered with dotearth.com. Not going to reply.
Cloe Harris
Cloe Harris is a FRAUD and SCAMMER
Why can’t google delete this scammer ?
Oh yeah…. because google makes money selling ads and serving spam emails…. The more crap they render in your inbox the more “ad fees” they can charge to unsuspecting adwords users
Richard McClelland
Chloe contacted me about Funicular.com today…
Michel
I got email from an agent at bighornconsultants.com forwarding an offer from his client who is interested in buying one of my domain. We had several emails after his first one and we discussed the price. You think this is a reliable company? Thanks.
Wick
Never heard of bighornconsultants.com & their pretty awful website doesn’t strike me as legitimate – no contact info, no client list, etc. Sounds too good to be true.
Jim
I received the same kind of email today.. I already created an Escrow account. and they send me the link of escrow.com and there it said that the amount we discussed was on it.
Is it scam?? what are my risks?
Wick
It’s been awhile so honestly I’m not sure. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Escrow.com is a legitimate service though, but as far as I know they don’t act as the registrar in the transfer like some other domain-specific escrow services do. I believe the scam happens when the buyer (scammer) claims they haven’t received the domain (when they have) & so escrow.com returns the buyer’s money — since Escrow.com is not involved in the actual domain transfer, they have no good way to verify that domain ownership has changed. WHOIS info doesn’t necessarily have to change for an ownership/registrar transfer; in other words the scammer can keep the WHOIS info set to you & still have control of your domain.
So the scammer ends up with your domain AND their money back. You’d have to prove to escrow.com beyond any doubt that you transferred the domain, like a video of you confirming the transfer. Hope that helps.
Jim
Thank you this is very helpful.
Well the domain certainly has some good potential, so I think it is worth it, and we are talking about a 4-figure (x.xxx) amount of money.
So for me its a big deal.
The only thing I can do is to call Escrow and verify if the buyer has a history, and If not… well they are existing for many years, …then there is something weird going on.
Thanks!
Deepak
Hi Michel,
I got similar email from bighornconsultants.com. Just wondering did you ended up doing sale or it was scam.
Michel
I was very concerned when this consulting company contacted me, I’ve been very careful and I had lots of doubts (poor website, can’t retrieve information on the web about them, etc.). Second step of my negotiation was on Escrow.com like other users mentioned above, there I verified buyer history and reputation with Escrow.com staff and it resulted great, so I went ahead and everything ended great.
Note: this consulting company just make as “shield” for other more famous companies (in brand and internet copyright protection field) wich are engadged by big brands to protect from harmful use of certain domains. If your domain is related someway to a famous brand, your case could be similar to mine. It’s a pretty interesting chain but, in my case, everything was good.
Mike
Michel, may I have a few minutes of your time. Please email if I may contact you about certain details.
Jim
In addition to what I already said. Well I took contact contact with escrow.com and asked about the history/reputation of the buyer on escrow.com, and it was positive, so i started the transfer. 🙂
Mike
Jim, how did your transaction turn out?
Solange
Bighornconsultants.com is MarkMonitor, they try to get domains for nothing or enough evidence of bad faith to get some advantange in a potential WIPO domain dispute. Watch out with them!