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While I’m not a very religious person, I’ve browsed through the Bible, but cannot tell you who wrote it, there are many words of wisdom in it. I define words of wisdom as “Ideas that make sense”, or “Fundamental Wisdom”. One of my favorites bible quotes is “Give And You Shall Receive”. It does not say “Receive And You Shall Give”. If you want a better salary, if you want to be loved, if you want others to be kind to you, act before you ask. Acts of kindness in my opinion are acts that are done completely unselfishly, without consideration of receiving. Call it Karma, good luck, fortune, or whatever, but for me, it always happen that good things happen when helping others.
Around 2003, when domain value was sky high and every other person was searching for the next big purchase, I too was browsing lists, sites, in the search of the great one. While eBay always was mostly low quality domains, from time to time, if you search hard enough and long enough, you may get lucky. One of those days, during a routine browsing day on eBay, I came across a major one word .com domain name, with a “buy now” price of US$ 5,000.00, completely unrealistic to say the least. This one word domain would have gone then for millions, and today as well. To give you an idea, it gets no less than 2.7 billions search results on Google today. Not many keywords in the English language do.
So if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.. you know the rest. I had my doubts from the very first second I saw the listing. To add to my doubts, the seller seems to not have any major feedback rating.
One thing my partner Jeff and I were strongly against from the very beginning was to deal with stolen domain names. If we bought domain names in the aftermarket we would go many extra miles to verify ownership, knowing the domains are not stolen, and they were “kosher”. There are many reasons not to deal with stolen domain names, from legal standpoint to moral and ethical points. At the end of the day, I would not do to others what I don’t want done to me. In any event, since the seller specified payment via Escrow.com we felt comfortable enough to go ahead with the deal. Our thinking was that, knowing how Escrow.com operates, domain transfer happens before funds are release to the seller, and in that case, once domain is transferred to us we can demand proof of ownership before releasing payment to seller. Not waiting for the last minute I immediately started investigating the domain, looking up its history, calling a number of places around the world in order to find the rightful owner. After hours of investigation I was able to locate “David”, the last owner of the domain name I could find. While David was driving down a highway in Southern California, this is how the conversation went like:
Me: Hi, may I speak with “David” please?
David: Speaking, how may I help you?
Me: This is Sahar speaking, we haven’t met however a friend of yours gave me your number and said you are the owner of XYZ.Com.
David: Yes, it is our domain. How may I help you?
Me: Well, it happen that someone posted it on eBay for US$ 5,000 “Buy Now” and I happen to buy it. Looking at my escrow.com account right now and my emails, I happen to have it in my account.
David: Wow, are you serious?
Me: Yes, very serious, but no worries David. I had my doubts about this purchase and thought it may be stolen, and you can have it back if you want it. I can get my money back from Escrow.com.
David: Great Sahar, can’t believe you are doing this!
Me: No worries David, it’s just the right thing to do. By the way, if you are still interested in selling the domain for that price I’m very interested as it will fit our business model.
David: (laughing, hard!). I’m sure you are Sahar, we bought it few years ago for US$ 300K!
Me: Really? Well, I’m still interested if you can sell it to me for the price I mentioned, like I said, it would be good for our business.
David: I like what you have done here Sahar, let me get back to you on this tomorrow. Thanks A LOT!
Me: Great David, thanks, and looking forward to chatting tomorrow.
A day after David called me back saying he liked what I’ve done and is willing to sell it to me for 5K. Few months later I mentioned the story to a good friend and surprisingly, he mentioned they sold the domain to that person for US$ 300K few years ago.
During the events I went back to the person who listed it on eBay, asking for proof of ownership. Once confronted, that person simply disappeared.
The second story involves another category killer .com domain name. Not on the same level as the first one but still, in today’s market this domain would easily fetch 200K++. After reading an article about a lady who recovered a stolen domain name and her experience I picked up the phone and called to say Hello. I was interested in what happened, offering to help her track down the hijackers free of charge, explaining that stopping those thieves protects our business, not to mention it was really just the right thing to do. After we talked for a while I asked her if she is willing to sell the domain, mentioning that I may know someone who may be interested in purchasing it. She said she have not thought of it but for US$ 8,000 she is willing to let it go. I replied that I haven’t thought of buying it but I do like the domain and impressed by her, I’m willing to give her US$ 10K. The deal was sealed on the spot and rest is history. The domain is doing well on PPC and is one of our strong properties. Since purchasing, we’ve declined two six figures offers for it.
Clearly, doing the right thing, for us, usually works out. Care to share some stories as well?
Have a great day!
Sahar
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