Hijacked Domain cwr.com

[Daehler Ralph]

I have a very important message for all domainers. I have bought 1 month ago the domain cwr.com (Registrar Networksolutions) over Sedo for USD 19950 and the transfer happened successful after a few problems with an invalid Authorization Code for a transfer to my GoDaddy account, I decided to takeover the domain to my account by Networksolutions. But yesterday Network Solution has transferred the domain back to the old owner without any information. I have opened a ticket by Network Solution and they explained me that the domain was hijacked and sold later and also back transferred to the old owner.
Sedo hasn't checked well the whois-Informations with the seller contact information, which was somebody from Mexico.
Now I have lost my money and for Sedo is the task closed when the domain is transferred.
A warning on all domaines that can happen to everybody which buy a domain on a non-registrar-platform like Sedo.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

So the domain was stolen in 2014 and only now returned?

How do you figure?

In 2015, the domain went into privacy. This does not necessarily mean it was stolen then. The owner may have been receiving a lot of spam / unsolicited emails during this time, as it was during the CHIP boom.

WHOIS now shows the domain was recently returned to the same registrant name that was listed in 2014. More would have to be known / discovered to uncover the exact stolen date / time.

@Daehler Ralph -- Have you contacted the current domain owner yet? [RJR Enterprises]

 

[Argentum]

Sedo charges massive 15% commission, I thing they must include in their sales agreement full refund in cases when domain was stolen and returned to previous owner. It must be their problem to return back processed funds and buyer must be 100% covered by refund.

 

[Argentum]

Sedo charges massive 15% commission, I thing they must include in their sales agreement full refund in cases when domain was stolen and returned to previous owner. It must be their problem to return back processed funds and buyer must be 100% covered by refund.

But i want to mention that full refund can cause problem for Sedo as well, any cheater can can sell domain to himself under different names and then claim that domain was stolen and ask for full refund from Sedo, that's why i thing they will never processed any refund in such cases (stolen domains) but who knows, possible because of reputation one day they will add such "insurance" in their sales agreement, at least they must try to process back paid funds to thief and in case they are lucky to return back funds, process them back to buyer.

 

[barybadrinath]

Sedo charges massive 15% commission, I thing they must include in their sales agreement full refund in cases when domain was stolen and returned to previous owner. It must be their problem to return back processed funds and buyer must be 100% covered by refund.

I agree but won't you say this time that " our buyer " here made a so called sedo's self drafted legally binding agreement" and sedo has just " facilitated the sale which they completed properly."..
Won't you this time put this argument sir as a defence from sedo's side.

 

[Daehler Ralph]

In the contract of Sedo stands on point 3 as follows:

3. Warranties and Representations

a) The Seller guarantees that they are the owner of the aforementioned Purchase Object and may freely dispose of said Purchase Object. Furthermore, Seller warrant that the Purchase Object is not encumbered by the rights of third parties and that to date, they have not received any warnings of potential litigation or preliminary injunctions against the Purchase Object that have not been disclosed to Buyer.

b) The Buyer understands and agrees that it is their sole responsibility and duty to perform all necessary due diligence before entering into this agreement to buy the Purchase Object, including research of fitness for particular intended uses, trademark clearance, or anything that could inhibit their future use and enjoyment of the Purchase Object.

https://sedo.com/member/contracts/t..._iframe=true&height=400&width=600&language=us Seite 1 von 2

Sedo 02.01.19, 21(58

c) Buyer and Seller shall be liable to each other only for damages that are based upon their failure to perform the necessary steps to complete this transaction, intentional wrongdoing or gross negligence and shall not be liable for claims seeking consequential or punitive damages.

I think I cannot doing anything to get a part of the money back. I would need an attorney in Germany.
This can happen to everybody. It's a warning for all buyers for the future. Be careful.

 

[barybadrinath]

a) """The Seller guarantees that they are the owner of the aforementioned Purchase Object and may freely dispose of said Purchase Object. Furthermore, Seller warrant that the Purchase Object is not encumbered by the rights of third parties and that to date, they have not received any warnings of potential litigation or preliminary injunctions against the Purchase Object that have not been disclosed to Buyer."'"

In the first place sedo allowed someone to come on their platform who was not even authentic seller.
What due diligence did sedo perform to find out whether the person is really seller or not...
Why sedo allowed some fraud to pose as a seller on their platform...

 

[barybadrinath]

In the contract of Sedo stands on point 3 as follows:

3. Warranties and Representations

a) The Seller guarantees that they are the owner of the aforementioned Purchase Object and may freely dispose of said Purchase Object. Furthermore, Seller warrant that the Purchase Object is not encumbered by the rights of third parties and that to date, they have not received any warnings of potential litigation or preliminary injunctions against the Purchase Object that have not been disclosed to Buyer.

b) The Buyer understands and agrees that it is their sole responsibility and duty to perform all necessary due diligence before entering into this agreement to buy the Purchase Object, including research of fitness for particular intended uses, trademark clearance, or anything that could inhibit their future use and enjoyment of the Purchase Object.

https://sedo.com/member/contracts/t..._iframe=true&height=400&width=600&language=us Seite 1 von 2

Sedo 02.01.19, 21(58

c) Buyer and Seller shall be liable to each other only for damages that are based upon their failure to perform the necessary steps to complete this transaction, intentional wrongdoing or gross negligence and shall not be liable for claims seeking consequential or punitive damages.

I think I cannot doing anything to get a part of the money back. I would need an attorney in Germany.
This can happen to everybody. It's a warning for all buyers for the future. Be careful.

You will surely get your money back. Court must order sedo to refund back your money along with 200% extra compensation for mental agony caused to you ..
Also court must order an investigation in sedo's business practices , must verify all the data of last 10 year sales released by them in public , must also verify whether money changed hands actually in these so called sales , and must also ask sedo to stop giving their platforms to thieves .

As far as I know , once sedo told everyone that fastfood.com got sold for 500k USD whereas in real it was never sold ..

 

[barybadrinath]

This is a very scary situation. I myself bought a 3 letter domain name for 5 figures and I would be devastated if that had happened to me.

Was the domain originally stolen from a NetSol account too? I am never using NetSol. Even when people post free domains for a push, if they are at NetSol I usually just walk away as I don't want to create an account there after stories like this emerge.

However, Sedo is the one who dealt in stolen merchandise. How do they establish who the real owner is in cases like this? It is difficult as if the domain is stolen the thief can verify ownership and Sedo at this stage would have no way of telling if he is a thief.

@Daehler Ralph - I hope this can be resolved somehow and sorry for the loss.

Very politely I would like to ask a question from you Respected sir. Sedo has been in domain business since starting. Have they not devised a way till yet or have no procedures put in place to verify the information and authenticity of the seller...
From each domain sold on their platform , sedo is earning money so sedo have responsibility towards verification of each domain name listed / sold on their platform.
It doesn't and must not matter whether number of domains listed or sold via them are in hundreds , thousands or in millions..
Sedo can't give an excuse that it is not possible for them to verify for each domain name.... It is sedo's responsibility...
Will Amazon allow secure platform to thieves as well. Tomorrow any thief can steal something and can sell it next day for good money via their platform which I guess never happens on Amazon ..
Sedo is giving just excuses..

 

[Arfy]

Very politely I would like to ask a question from you Respected sir. Sedo has been in domain business since starting. Have they not devised a way till yet or have no procedures put in place to verify the information and authenticity of the seller...
From each domain sold on their platform , sedo is earning money so sedo have responsibility towards verification of each domain name listed / sold on their platform.
It doesn't and must not matter whether number of domains listed or sold via them are in hundreds , thousands or in millions..
Sedo can't give an excuse that it is not possible for them to verify for each domain name.... It is sedo's responsibility...
Will Amazon allow secure platform to thieves as well. Tomorrow any thief can steal something and can sell it next day for good money via their platform which I guess never happens on Amazon ..
Sedo is giving just excuses..

It probably does happen on Amazon. If someone steals a bike and sells it on Amazon, Amazon will just list it. How will they know it is stolen? Probably same with eBay.

 

[barybadrinath]

It probably does happen on Amazon. If someone steals a bike and sells it on Amazon, Amazon will just list it. How will they know it is stolen? Probably same with eBay.

Hi. If amazon is listing that stolen bike than its wrong. In India due to Indian govt's ethically correct principles and instructions , none of the e-commerce portal is allowed to do that..
There are many ways to find out whether seller genuinely owns that asset or not. That's where transport department , bike rc and other documents are to be seen and verified from...
At the end of the day Amazon is getting commission from the sale of that stolen bike so they must have a way to do " due diligence" before listing on their platform ...

 

[barybadrinath]

And when we list any domain sedo always verifies it and then lists it.
I am sure if I will list some premium domain name such as sex.com , it won't get listed immediately on sedo from my account ( It will show pending verification )..
Sedo takes some time to verify it and thereby listing it in case of small domainers like me... Not sure why these procedures are not followed in case of hifi sellers..


Then how come cwr.com was allowed to get listed immediately or if the due diligence was done on sedo's behalf then how come buyer got cheated....
Until and unless there was some kind of any setting among themselves..

 

[barybadrinath]

1) In the case of cwr.com was it not sedo's responsibility to verify identification documents of the seller before allowing him to list any domain for sale..

2) after sedo allowed the thief to list cwr.com ( whether his initial identity proof was verified or not ) , was it not sedo's responsibility to verify the ownership of cwr.com

3) after the domain got sold ,and sedo sent the money to seller , won't sedo be having bank account details of seller in which sedo deposited proceedings of sale..

When buyer has told that he has been cheated , what is sedo doing now.
Do they have no obligation to report about the seller to authorities .
Or do this responsibility also depend on person ( buyer ) who has got cheated.
After buyer's exposure of him being cheated , can't sedo alert the bank to freeze money in seller's account saying that they have got complaint from buyer...

When sedo can earn big commission from sale of domain name , then everything wrong associated with domain name is sedo's responsibility...

 

[Arfy]

1) In the case of cwr.com was it not sedo's responsibility to verify identification documents of the seller before allowing him to list any domain for sale..

2) after sedo allowed the thief to list cwr.com ( whether his initial identity proof was verified or not ) , was it not sedo's responsibility to verify the ownership of cwr.com

3) after the domain got sold ,and sedo sent the money to seller , won't sedo be having bank account details of seller in which sedo deposited proceedings of sale..

When buyer has told that he has been cheated , what is sedo doing now.
Do they have no obligation to report about the seller to authorities .
Or do this responsibility also depend on person ( buyer ) who has got cheated.
After buyer's exposure of him being cheated , can't sedo alert the bank to freeze money in seller's account saying that they have got complaint from buyer...

When sedo can earn big commission from sale of domain name , then everything wrong associated with domain name is sedo's responsibility...

I agree with the point that Sedo should report the seller to relevant authorities considering they have bank account information etc.

 

[Daehler Ralph]

Hello all. I have informed the owner of the domain name cwr.com now, but from Sedo I have no response neither an excuse nothing.

 

[barybadrinath]

In my dream when I was sleeping in the afternoon today , uncle Sam came in my dream and asked me these two questions ---

1) Sedo says they just facilitate the sale and they have nothing to do with anything...and buyer is legally obliged to Honor it .
Buyer mentioned that sedo first took domain name cwr.com ( in their account ) and then transferred it in buyer's account.. Simultaneously sedo took 19k from buyer as well ..
Sedo then checked whether the cash sent by our buyer is in real currency notes or not. The notes were real so Sedo gave green light to buyer mentioning that "sedo has received your payment".
But in my dream Uncle Sam asked me "after receiving domain cwr.com in their account , did sedo not give same due diligence to check whether cwr.com belongs to seller or not "..
What did sedo check technically about cwr.com after they got it in their escrow account from the thief's account....
They did due diligence about buyer's money but did not perform any due diligence for verifying details about cwr.com and the thief who was selling it. Why did sedo accept something from Thief and then further passed it or transfered it into our buyer's account...
Uncle Sam asked me is it right ???

2) If sedo did due diligence and then also accepted cwr.com in their escrow account , then why did sedo "INTENTIONALLY " accepted cwr.com in their own account ..
Was sedo some kind of indirect partner in this all episode..

3 ) Also uncle Sam asked me that " there must have been a whois change for cwr.com after it moved to sedo's escrow account. At that moment itself why did Net Sol did not took it back in their account ( from sedo's account ). Uncle Sam told me that when domain moved into buyer's account from sedo's escrow account , that time NetSol pulled the domain back from buyer , making him bleed for 19k , all his ethically hard earned money.
Uncle Sam asked me if the criteria for Netsol to pull the domain back is whois info getting changed , then pulling back of cwr dot com must have been happened from sedo's account itself.
Why did netsol wait for whoisinfo to get changed twice and once it got changed twice ,then Netsol pulled the domain back.
Uncle Sam was asking is there any quid pro quo between the seller , domain's registrar and the platform to facilitate the sale..

Will anyone from gang tell me what should I reply back to Uncle Sam in my dreams...

 

[barybadrinath]

Hello all. I have informed the owner of the domain name cwr.com now, but from Sedo I have no response neither an excuse nothing.

Sir why don't you write email to the new CEO and mr Hakan Ali of sedo saying to them that first loss of yours in new year has been facilitated by sedo..
I am sure someone from the core network of gang will be able to provide you sedo's new CEO email id.
And I am sure it's your right to contact company management which earned money from you....

 

[Chris Hydrick]

WHOIS Registrant Name History of CWR.com according to DomainIQ

• December 2014 -- RJR Enterprises Chuck Risley
• April 2015 -- Perfect Privacy, LLC [possibly updated 2015-03-12T19:03:30Z]
• October 17th, 2018 -- Glenn Smith [possibly updated 2018-10-07T17:26:04Z] *tagging @ninjadomain for comment*
• October 18th, 2018 -- Alejandro Garcia Briseno* [possibly updated 2018-10-18T04:19:32Z] [email protected]
• October 25th, 2018 -- Perfect Privacy [possibly updated 2018-10-24T18:04:20Z]
• December 5th, 2018 -- Protected, WhoisGuard [p. updated 2018-11-03T07:30:15Z] [email protected]**
• December 19th, 2018 -- Daehler, R (assuming @Daehler Ralph) [p. updated 2018-12-14T11:47:03Z]
• January 4th, 2019 -- RJR Enterprises Chuck Risley [p. updated 2019-01-04T17:21:13Z]

**Registrant Name shows Protected WHOIS Guard, yet it reveals WHOIS Info. The address listed appears to be a UPS store.
Show attachment 106223

Hosting History
Show attachment 106222

It appears Alejandro Garcia Briseno (AGB) may have sold other 3L.com on Sedo.

Given the allegations behind other domains sold by AGB, there is a possibility that other domains sold by AGB may have also been stolen, such as GHE.com

The previous owner of GHE.com was using a Mindspring.com email address that had been pwned multiple times.

I will work on contacting the previous owner of GHE.com to confirm the status.

If anyone is in contact with Nat Cohen of Telepathy.com, they might want to reach out to him to make him aware of this red flag.

 

[Daehler Ralph]

It appears Alejandro Garcia Briseno (AGB) may have sold other 3L.com on Sedo.

Given the allegations behind other domains sold by AGB, there is a possibility that other domains sold by AGB may have also been stolen, such as GHE.com

The previous owner of GHE.com was using a Mindspring.com email address that had been pwned multiple times.

Show attachment 106307

I will work on contacting the previous owner of GHE.com to confirm the status.

If anyone is in contact with Nat Cohen of Telepathy.com, they might want to reach out to him to make him aware of this red flag.

Wow thanks for your great infos.

 

[Daehler Ralph]

If that would happens in a Bank, the Police would try to arrest this hijackers on international Way and the Security would be changed. It is important that such threads keep high and actual that such stories doesn't happen anymore. It's not just a Sedo problem. It's a high security problem of some registrars which doesn't have a save controlling when they release an authcode for transfers to other registrars or internal transfers.

 

[bulkdomainz]

I think auction houses can do better than what they do now. They need to scrutinize every 'seller' of high value domain sale who has held a domain for less than two years (registration date ti be taken into account). Ask to see registration/ renewal receipts/ID/Matching Bank AC / information from seller before transferring funds to Seller. Also do a video call before funds are transferred. (£6/ month Zipcar does a video call to confirm registration. Why not £xxxx payouts?) Seller can also be told to go collect the cash from their local bank. Get a proper mugshot of 'seller'!

These suspect 'thefts' are not doing the industry any good!

 

[Kate]

But domainers are already complaining about escrow.com procedures, that are less intrusive.

Buyers need to do due diligence. Sedo is not the seller, and not even a real broker most of the time. Just a third party assisting with payment and technicalities. They cover their a$$, not yours.
Nobody is going to hold you by the hand. But if for some reason that is your expectation, review the terms of service first to double-check what is covered and what isn't.
Sometimes I am surprised that people are casually spending so much money in confidence on the Internet.

 

[golan]

Buyers need to do due diligence. Sedo is not the seller, and not even a real broker most of the time. Just a third party assisting with payment and technicalities. They cover their a$$, not yours.
Nobody is going to hold you by the hand. But if for some reason that is your expectation, review the terms of service first to double-check what is covered and what isn't.

And what is with escrow concierge service? Is the level of protection high enough in this case?

 

[Daehler Ralph]

And what is with escrow concierge service? Is the level of protection high enough in this case?

Yes but what would happen if I would not pay the domain. If you pay 15% commission from the salesprice then you can except any service and the price was 20000 USD. What would then happen when it would be a million deal?

 

[Chris Hydrick]

It appears Alejandro Garcia Briseno (AGB) may have sold other 3L.com on Sedo.

Given the allegations behind other domains sold by AGB, there is a possibility that other domains sold by AGB may have also been stolen, such as GHE.com

The previous owner of GHE.com was using a Mindspring.com email address that had been pwned multiple times.

Show attachment 106307

I will work on contacting the previous owner of GHE.com to confirm the status.

If anyone is in contact with Nat Cohen of Telepathy.com, they might want to reach out to him to make him aware of this red flag.

@Telepathy

 

[Keith]

Seems you could run an easy scam.

1. Put a valuable domain in its own account with a newly created email.
2. List domain at Sedo
3. Sell domain and get paid under scam whois and overseas bank
4. Use real info and tell registrar the domain was stolen.

Now you got paid from Sedo and the registrar returns domain from the unsuspecting buyer at Sedo.