I have been trying to buy a particular domain name since 2010. I didn’t hear back after my first offer, had my second offer rejected, and my third and fourth offers went unanswered. I followed up in March of 2013, but I didn’t receive a response, and I figured there was no deal to be had.

Two days ago, I received a reply to my offer, and the owner provided a reasonable counter offer. I agreed to purchase the domain name, and we had a couple of phone conversations to discuss the transfer of the domain name. Because the owner lives within a couple of hours from me, he asked that we do the deal in person. He has a couple of businesses offline, and although he bought a number of domain names many years ago, he doesn’t have much of an active online presence.

I am most likely going to meet this seller in person for a couple of reasons. First, I initiated contact with him, so it’s not like he was targeting me to harm me or steal from me. Second, I don’t want to take a chance that I lose out on this deal since I’ve wanted to buy this domain name for a while. Finally, he is willing to do escrow through his attorney’s firm (a large firm in the state), but I would imagine that could take quite a bit of time since they probably aren’t all that familiar with domain transactions.

Listed below are 5 precautions I am going to take when buying the domain name in person. As always, I welcome your advice and feedback.

A few weeks ago, I received an inquiry on MKM.com. The person inquiring had what looked like a real email address and he made a low offer for the domain name. It wasn’t a $500 offer, but it wasn’t all that reasonable either. I replied “nope” and moved on. Two weeks later, the same person emailed me about RER.com, this time without an offer and telling me that he needed it for a project. Clearly, this was a domain investor rather than an end user buyer.

I get quite a few inquiries on my domain names asking about their availability. Many of these seem to come from what sounds like a real person based on the email address. Instead of using a throwaway Gmail or Hotmail account, these buyers will use something like Angelica@AngelicaFunwoody.com  (made up)  or some other real sounding domain name. Although these emails seem like an end user wanting my domain name, they are most likely another domain investor using a pseudonym.

There are several ways to get an idea about whether or not the email is from another domain investors masking his or her identity. Here are a few telltale signs that it is a domain investor sending automated emails:

In a comment on my blog last Tuesday, Richard asked “It would be nice to hear a little more about your acquisition tactics – can you share how and where are you acquiring your inventory Elliot?” I thought it would be interesting to share how I buy acquire the majority of my domain names.

In terms of volume, I probably buy more domain names on the aftermarket via NameJet than anywhere else. I certainly don’t buy a whole lot of inventory, but I buy quite a few domain names each month. I primarily use