Almost caught by a clever domaining scam

Kudos to the folks at Sedo.com -- they just helped me avoid getting caught in a clever domaining scam. Someone wrote me (email reproduced below) and said that they wanted to buy Bath-Cabinets.com, and that they would pay 65% of the appraised value of the domain name. Then they recommended 3 companies whose appraisals they would accept: Sedo, Podzz or AccurateDomains.com.

I forked over $29 to Sedo to do an appraisal of the name, and wrote the folks back saying "Sure, I'm happy to try it".

Sedo contacted me the next day saying "We believe the email is an attempt to get people to order an appraisal from nameorange.com. After purchasing an appraisal, the domain holder will not receive a response from the person again."

Anyway, Sedo then offered to refund my appraisal price, which I think is tremendously good customer service. Thanks Sedo!

Here's the original email expressing interest in the domain name:

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are interested to buy your domain name BATH-CABINET.COM and offer to buy it from you for 65% of the appraised market value.

As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:

sedo.com
podzz.com
accuratedomains.com


If you already have an appraisal please forward it to us.

As soon as we have received your appraisal we will send you our payment (we use Paypal for amounts less than $2,000 and escrow.com for amounts above $2,000) as well as further instructions on how to complete the transfer of the domain name.

We appreciate your business,

Yours truly,

J. Harris