Selling a domain name

[cpradio]

So I got a strange request yesterday asking to purchase one of my domains (they originally asked how much I'd sell it for).
I originally replied that I was interested at this time, but they responded back with a really good offer.

Unfortunately, I've never heard of this person and a google search doesn't really return anything useful. I'm still not 100% certain I'd sell it, but the offer is really good that it makes me want to consider it. I've had the domain for many many years and don't really have a lot tied to that specific domain (2 e-mail addresses that I literally created this year, 1 site).

So here is my question
1) If you were originally not interested in selling your domain and then were given a very reasonable offer, would you change you mind? What considerations would you be thinking about?
2) How would you go about selling it to ensure you are not a victim of a scam seeing how you have never had any interaction with this person previously?

Your opinions will be greatly appreciated.

[shadowbox]

If the price is right and you really don't need it, sell it. Just use escrow.com, it's commonly used for domain transactions.

So I got a strange request yesterday asking to purchase one of my domains (they originally asked how much I'd sell it for).
I originally replied that I was interested at this time, but they responded back with a really good offer.

Unfortunately, I've never heard of this person and a google search doesn't really return anything useful. I'm still not 100% certain I'd sell it, but the offer is really good that it makes me want to consider it. I've had the domain for many many years and don't really have a lot tied to that specific domain (2 e-mail addresses that I literally created this year, 1 site).

So here is my question
1) If you were originally not interested in selling your domain and then were given a very reasonable offer, would you change you mind? What considerations would you be thinking about?
2) How would you go about selling it to ensure you are not a victim of a scam seeing how you have never had any interaction with this person previously?

Your opinions will be greatly appreciated.

[ralph.m]

I would ask for some verification of who they are, and if satisfied with that, provide a means for them to pay (perhaps what shadowbox suggested). If the money comes through, I guess it's a reasonable bet that they are for real. But I guess they could be using a stolen card or something ... which is why I'd like to be convinced they are reputable first.

[cpradio]

If the price is right and you really don't need it, sell it. Just use escrow.com, it's commonly used for domain transactions.

Thanks, I have never heard of escrow.com (never sold a domain before, or anything of internet value before).

I would ask for some verification of who they are, and if satisfied with that, provide a means for them to pay (perhaps what shadowbox suggested). If the money comes through, I guess it's a reasonable bet that they are for real. But I guess they could be using a stolen card or something ... which is why I'd like to be convinced they are reputable first.

I couldn't agree more. I still haven't fully decided if I do want to sell, but asking for more information about the potential buyer surely couldn't hurt

[EastCoast]

I had this very situation occur to me recently, an obscure domain that I'd never got round to developing. I told them I wasn't fussed about selling it really but they came in with a good offer so I went for it. A bit of research showed the prospective buyer has developed some very high profile domains, so I made sure and did a bit of research to make sure I wasn't missing something that would make the domain a lot more valuable than it might seem - you should do the same. As mentioned, escrow is the way to go.

[cpradio]

High profile domain... hmm, do you recall what you used to determine that? Searching for the domain name with and without the suffix isn't producing anything useful (at least for me).

[EastCoast]

The person that emailed me, in my case his name was quite visible on google, including articles where he'd talked about developing these domains, which were single household word domains ranking on alexa in the top couple thousand. As for checking my own domain, I ran a bunch of likely related search phrases through searches, google insight, and adwords keywords and traffic tools, and set up google alerts while waiting to process the sale.

[cpradio]

Ah, found out through adwords that the domain name as a whole isn't worth much (single word) but as two words, it had much more interest. Good to know. Thanks