Have you ever got an email offering to sell you a domain name that was simular to yours?
I have a couple of times. The funny part is it is usually the dot net of my dot com, but a couple of times it was a dot net only simular to a dot com of mine. I always check out their website replacing the @ in their email addy with a www just to get an idea of what that person is up to. (usually a commercial squatter) Then I do a whois on the name to see if the person really owns it. Then I do a search on simular names so see how valuable it is. (Like how many are simular ones are taken ect.)
In two instances, I found a better one!
Once, the dot com was available, so I bought it. (ha ha)
Recently I got an offer to buy a biz name, that was the same word as a subdomain I have on my website and found the us one was available, so being a US resident, I bought it too. (He was from .de so he couldn't buy it first)
In short, thanks for the spam, but "no thanks"

I have had a few like that.

At the time I found them annoying.

Never hurts to try... I have a couple of domains that I registered for whatever seemingly brilliant reason at the time, and have just entered the word into google to see what comes up. I thought of contacting people that I could find and seeing if they wanted to buy it (as that seemly brilliant reason seemed less brilliant now). I've seen subdomains, etc., and thought hmmm, maybe they'd want the domain to that. Some probably do, some don't...

I realise it never hurts to try, but at least have a good one. I mean this guy in DE (the country, not Deleware) obviously bought the biz name and was trying to sell it to a US resident when the US domain was available. DUH!

Hey, now that makes me think I did him a favor now by buying the US one, (com net, org, ect were taken) now he has the only one for sale :(

I usually reply such guys that I will pay them exactly 10 bucks for their name and I never get spammed again :stickout

Doesn't WIPO consider making an unsolicited offer to sell a domain indicitave of registering that domain in bad faith? So by contacting someone with a similar domain, may be all the evidence they need to go file a claim with WIPO. I guess if its a cheap domain, it's not a problem, since it would be quicker and easier for them to buy it from you. But if you're planning on asking for a few thousand or more it might be dangerous to make an unsolicited offer to sell.

Isn't that only in cases where the domain name is a trademark?