How domain sellers try to scam me

2026-09-11

One of the downsides of putting you email address on the web is that people will try to contact you. I never put me actual private email on this site instead opting to use an address specifically for "devshrine.net". The first mail I ever got was this one:

From: Landon M
To: mail@devshrine.net
Subject: devshrine.com

Hello do you want to buy the domain name devshrine.com?

Landon M.

I didn't think much of it and didn't reply. I had no reason to buy "devshrine.com". I'm perfectly happy with "devshrine.net" and put a lot of thought into it.

Nothing much happened after that, and then, after a month, I got this very nicely worded email:

From: Travis To: mail@devshrine.net
Subject: devshrine

Good Morning,

Do you have any interest in devshrine .com for 500 usd? i noticed you own .net version, so maybe you will be interested in this one as well.

Regards,
Travis

This is interesting. So someone else also wants to sell me "devshrine.com"? Maybe he just bought it from the first guy. I couldn't find the actual owner and the actual domain is just parked at some hosting company that I didn't bother to investigate further.

Then, on the very same day, I got another email:

From: Greg Spell
To: mail@devshrine.net
Subject: devshrine.com

People often default to typing the .com version of a brand name. I wanted to check whether owning devshrine.com could be useful for capturing that traffic.

At this point I realize, that the mails probably will keep ticking in. But I'm lazy, so I still didn't do anything.

Two days later, two more mails tick in. First from Travis.

From: Travis To: mail@devshrine.net
Subject: devshrine

just make sure you saw this.

<old message quoted here>

Regards,
Travis

And then from Greg:

From: Greg Spell
To: mail@devshrine.net
Subject: devshrine.com

Hi,

I wanted to follow up once and explain why I thought devshrine.com might be relevant to your business.

Since you already use this exact name, the .com would be a natural extension of your existing brand rather than a different name or a rebrand. You could make it your main web address, use it for company email and marketing, forward it to your current website, or simply keep both domains and decide later.

It gives you a more familiar address for customers while keeping the matching .com connected to your business and available for whatever direction you take in the future.

If that would be useful, I can make it available for $100 through GoDaddy. If not, I completely understand.

Best regards,
Greg Spell

Thanks Greg, I was wondering why your first email was so short? Different tactics, same purpose. And the bot clearly has no idea what my site is actually about.

What bothers me the most is that I never actually put my email on this homepage. I only ever embedded it in the HTML because it was the easist way to sign into indieauth, which I had to do to get my site on the IndieWeb Webring. Suffice it to say, I removed my email address from the HTML and disabled the address completely. The next time I have to log in, I will have to figure out an alternative.

Travis and Greg, if you are reading this, use the contact form instead, and make sure to have read my blog first :)

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