An email reply to a cyber-squatter

January 27, 2011

I’ve received four emails from Arthur Simmons this week about a domain name, clintonmontague.com, which is about to expire. He has noticed that I own clintonmontague.co.uk and so assumes that I will also want to buy his domain as well.

His email

Following up about the domain clintonmontague.com:

I am going to list clintonmontague.com for sale in a couple days. At the moment I am trying to reach people who might be interested in buying clintonmontague.com. I found you as a prospect, because you own a similar domain. Should you be interested in this name – I’d be glad to consider your offer. Please use the following link – http://VIRTUALHDR.COM/b82535a151b54a4c.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,
Arthur Simmons
InTrust Domains
6660 Delmonico Drive, Suite 415
Colorado Springs, CO 80919

I am fully CanSpam compliant. If you would rather not receive notice of these types of opportunities again, please click the following link, and your address will be removed immediately -http://VIRTUALHDR.COM/1/b82535a151b54a4c

PS. I have received a number of questions from my morning email about domain purchases. So, I thought I would take a moment to answer the most common questions:

1. How can I be sure this offer is legit? – We have been in business for two years with a very positive rating at the Better Business Bureau. Also, we offer bonding on all transactions, just to show you that we are serious about delivering on our promises.

2. I do not want to get into a bidding war. – We get this a lot. That is why we have sent you a priority offer. You will have priority over any bidder who does not own a related domain name.

3. How much should I bid? – We accept all reasonable offers on domains and we sell the domain first-come, first-serve to the first reasonable offer.

You can submit your offer on clintonmontague.com here: clintonmontague.com.

Best regards,
Arthur Simmons
InTrust Domains

My thoughts

It seemed that Arthur really wanted me to have this domain, so I did the right thing and attempted to make an offer. An offer which I felt he couldn’t refuse. An offer of $0.01. But that was too low to be accepted by his online form (the minimum being $97), so I emailed him with my offer instead.

My email

Hi Arthur,

I tried to make an offer on the site, but it was below the minimum. I offered $0.01 for the following reasons:

1) The domain is worthless to anyone other than someone who shares my name (and I’m sure that you can appreciate that there are not many of us!). As such, there is no competition for it.
2) The domain is worthless to me (as you quite rightly point out, I already own clintonmontague.co.uk)
3) You seem quite desperate to get rid of this domain (this is the fourth time you’ve emailed me about it), so I’m offering the 1 cent out of courtesy and feel that taking the domain off your hands will lift a huge weight off your shoulders as you’re so keen to get rid of it.

Please, either accept my offer of $0.01, or leave me alone and trust that I don’t want it.

I’d suggest that you probably don’t want to renew the domain name yourself, it’d be a waste of money (if it’s worth nothing to me, and it’s my name, I don’t think that you really need to hold onto it to be honest). That way, if I really do want the domain as you insist that I do, I’ll pick it up at the regular price of around $10/year instead of the $97 which you’re offering to sell it to me for.

Thanks!

Clinton Montague

The funny bit

What Arthur doesn’t realise is that I’m a nerd, and I looked at the whois record. It turns out that the domain will be released for the public in the next few days, so I’ll just buy it from 123-reg then.