The record industry want my girlfriend...

[Dr Lobster*]

ok bit of a strange one here...

i registered a domain for my girlfriend so she could easily pick up her mail and have an easy email address to give people over the phone. (eg: [email protected]) and over the last couple of weeks i've had somebody keep emailing me asking if he could buy it (in fact, i remember somebody asking to buy it several months ago too)

but i ignored it - i get hundreds of emails every week so it was easily forgot about, until tonight.

mrs lobster's dad had received a phone call from somebody in the states wanting to purchase the domain, apparently he has gone through nearly everyone in the phonebook with the same surname in this area and wanted her details - he says his cousin (who has the same full name as my gf) is about to make it 'big' in the states as a singer and wants to buy the .com domain - the person who contacted me seems to own other variants of the domain name.

i've asked him to make an offer (as has mrs lobster's dad) - he has so far been elusive and says he doesn't know how much the domain is worth.

what would you do and how much would you sell it for?

[Neil Jones]

Sounds fishy.

Considering I've just run a domain name check on mrslobster.com (I realise its probably not the "real" one you refer to) and another one and found a contact phone number in less than two seconds for both of them, I don't buy the story of having to flick through the phonebook.

I wouldn't sell it on the back of these emails, I'd wait until the phantom record company gets in touch and a real phone number and person to speak to, if the claims are real about "making it big". Then decide from there.

[Dr Lobster*]

i agree - one thing which does substaintiate his claims is that if i do a search on google for the said named person, i do find information about such a young lady, and the chap emailed pictures of her and a song as an attachment to my gf's dad. for technical reasons, i can't get the attachment which has been forward to me by him to upload and let you hear because my email wont accept attachments that size, so i'm going to have to download it to my memory stick when we next pop round.

[Neil Jones]

i agree - one thing which does substaintiate his claims is that if i do a search on google for the said named person, i do find information about such a young lady, and the chap emailed pictures of her and a song as an attachment to my gf's dad.

I'd treat this with caution as well as you can bash any old common name into Google and find a picture of somebody and use that as a basis for your claim. The thing to remember is, if somebody wants something yet are prepared to concoct for it (that is, they making it up as they go along), they'll slip up somewhere along the line. So keep a note of the facts and everything that's gone before and see where the events go.

Of course, there is a remote chance that the entire saga is 100% genuine. But unlikely, so I would proceed with caution and sell nothing.

[cdd]

Have you considered selling your domain through a domain escrow service? That's no-risk.