[3][4] Scam methods may operate in reverse, with a stranger (not the registrar) communicating an offer to buy a domain name from an unwary owner.
By mimicking aspects of the legitimate sales process and agencies, the scheme appears genuine in the early stages.
The prospect of an easy, lucrative sale disarms the owner's normal suspicion of an unsolicited offer from a stranger with no earnest value.
[5] Other variations of this type of scam include registrars that target their own existing customers with similar made-up threats of another entity trying to register the same domain as theirs under different TLDs.
[citation needed] This section outlines reported domain scams as a timeline of events, showing how they have evolved, the companies involved and the outcome of complaints.