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[RESOLVED] - Domain Name Stolen...A Horrible Story and a Warning...

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Hi All. I've not been in here for a number of years, but a week ago I had my domain of 20 years (dustie.com) stolen and I have to tell the story. it looks like I'm out of luck here, and out a lot of money, but maybe my story can help prevent this happening to someone else. This happened at Godaddy, though I don't blame them, and i still have all of my domains with them, as well as my websites. I blame the no good slimy thief who stole my domain name!

Here's the story... First off, my name is Dustie, and I've owned Dustie.com since 1998.
Sometime in 2017 (I think) I decided to go ahead and list dustie.com as a premium domain for a high price. It being my name, I wasn't real keen on selling it, but, as they say, everything is for sale for the right price. I'd had someone offer me 5,000.00 for it, but after taxes (it would have put me in a higher tax bracket for the year) and commisison, it wasn't worth it wasn't worth it to sell it for that amount. However, I figured that if someone were willing to pay that for it, maybe someone would pay even more. So I listed it as a premium domain for 20,000.00. I seriously didn't think it would sell but it woudn't hurt to list it (or so I thought).

All was well, until a bit over a week ago. I had been out that evening and didn't get home till nearly 10:00 PM. It was 11:00 before I was able to get onto the computer. That's when I saw the 5 emails from Godaddy.... I'm sure you can imaging my reaction when I saw that, within 20 minutes, my domain name, dustie.com, which I have owned since 1998, sold and transferred for a mere 450.00? I was sick...simply sick. How could this happen! First off, I've never had a domain name sell and transfer inside of 21 minutes and then be paid for it a little over a day and a half later. That's unheard of!

Immediately after reading those 5 emails and realizing my domain name had sold for less then 5% of what I'd had it listed for on Premium Domains, I was online with Godaddy help. Though they were sympathetic, no one there could help. They said I'd have to wait till morning and call auctions help. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well and was on the phone as soon as they opened their office. Though I was on the phone for a good 30 or so minutes with them (a good part of that time on hold), I was ultimately told there was nothing they could do for me. My domain was bought, paid for, and transferred and that was that! (Oh, and this even though they found the price had been tampered with twice that same night, long before I got online). They said this had to be me because no one else had access to that account! That was proof to me that someone was in there messing with my account and screwed me over big time, but not to them.

So I've been sick all week...trying to forget that someone illegally reached into my pocket and stole a lot of money , as well as my NAME! Needless to say, even a week later, I'm just sick about the whole thing.

Today, on a lark I looked up dustie.com on godaddy and was sick all over again when I saw that it is now listed as a premium domain for 12,000.00 (by the person who stole it from me?). That's just wrong, in so many ways! How do I get over this? I want to know how this could have happened!!??

I am posting in here as a warning to you all, as well as wanting to go on record that this did happen, regardless that the guy at [email protected] said that dustie.com had always been listed at 450.00 and it was a legitimate sale! I know how to use GoDaddy. I'm a long time user and have over 50 domain names with GoDaddy, more the half listed as premium domains! Ever since Dustie.com was originally listed as a premium domain at 20,000.00 that was the price that showed up whenever I went to maintain my premium listings. It always stuck out like a sore thumb, because most my other domain names are listed below 1000.00. There is simply no way Dustie.com was ever listed for as little as 450.00. Even go daddy suggested a price of nearly $5,000 as a premium listing starting point for dustie.com.

Without a doubt, my godaddy account was hacked and my domain name of 20 years stolen from me and relisted for 27 times what they paid for it! That burns me to the core!!!

I'm sure that, since this happened to me it will surely happen again. If any of you hear about such a thing, could you please have them get in touch with me? If I can find others that this has happened to, maybe we can do something as a group?

In the meantime, if you have a valuable domain name on Godaddy Premium domains, then you might want to take screen shots of the listed prices. Also, I was told that if I had the original email when it was listed that would be proof that it was listed at 20,000.00. Alas, I did not have it...I had, not long ago, deleted emails that were more then a year and a half old. If you don't have emails for your most valuable domain names, then remove them from listing, then relist them to get a new email and save those emails just in case!!

And Thanks for listening to my very long rant!

Dustie
(was [email protected] for over 20 years...now I am [email protected] and my site is dustie.art ... cool name, but it's certainly not worth what I lost in dustie.com!)
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Godaddy is an evil domain registrar,they have stolen my ideas a lot.When I check any domain name whether it’s available godaddy themselves register the domain names.
Can I know how can I check the availability of a name without godaddy ?
You can go to www.whois.com to look up availability of domain names, however, I doubt that Godaddy is registering domains after you look them up though. That wouldn't go undiscovered for long and it would ruin their business forever if something like that were ever proven. I don't think they'd take that risk.
 
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Godaddy is slimy. at $450 that name wouldn't have been listed for long before someone grabbed it.
How did @maxtra find it?
How long was it listed at " that price supposedly" for? 1 year, 2 year?
 
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You can go to www.whois.com to look up availability of domain names, however, I doubt that Godaddy is registering domains after you look them up though. That wouldn't go undiscovered for long and it would ruin their business forever if something like that were ever proven. I don't think they'd take that risk.

2 points. Whois.com is just another registrar. They are just as likely to steal your searches as GoDaddy were doing with their front-running before. They managed to weather the storm, and grow substantially.
 
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You can go to www.whois.com to look up availability of domain names, however, I doubt that Godaddy is registering domains after you look them up though. That wouldn't go undiscovered for long and it would ruin their business forever if something like that were ever proven. I don't think they'd take that risk.

There are regular complaints of possible front-running on whois searches (not saying that is specific to GD) but I can tell you from firsthand experience that was once policy at Netsol - search a domain, suddenly it was registered (for a few days, but you don't know that) and they wanted $39.99 for it. Even if you input a string of nonsense for a domain name.

I really recommend the NP thread and method on this topic https://www.namepros.com/blog/checking-domain-name-availability-without-using-a-website.862678/ - you can do a whois search direct from a PC without using a website.
 
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Godaddy is slimy. at $450 that name wouldn't have been listed for long before someone grabbed it.
How did @maxtra find it?
How long was it listed at " that price supposedly" for? 1 year, 2 year?

Over a year and a half...according to the tech at GoDaddy Auctions. I think it was more a case of a tech who didn't know what he was doing though.
 
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I have had network solutions phone me twice asking if i want to register a domain that was left in the cart, and when the guy said the name, he knew. Was something random to test codes.
They know whats going on when you visit their site and search
 
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Over a year and a half..

I'd bet that a short domain name with Creation Date: 1999-08-12, which is also a first name, would have been purchased for $450 within a couple of months or less after being listed. A number of known domainers (buydomains, Mike Mann - just to name a few) frequently purchase cheap GD premium and/or GD auctions bin listings which are _not expired_. I believe they even automated this process in some way.

Proof: no 100% proof, just my researches on domain movements and available aftermarket domains...
 
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There are regular complaints of possible front-running on whois searches (not saying that is specific to GD) but I can tell you from firsthand experience that was once policy at Netsol - search a domain, suddenly it was registered (for a few days, but you don't know that) and they wanted $39.99 for it. Even if you input a string of nonsense for a domain name.

I really recommend the NP thread and method on this topic https://www.namepros.com/blog/checking-domain-name-availability-without-using-a-website.862678/ - you can do a whois search direct from a PC without using a website.

Actually I did catch onto the fact that NetSol was doing that exact thing back in early 2000. I'd search something, then when searched again later it was ALWAYS taken. Then a week or so later it would come back, higher. I discovered that, if you waited a week or so after that, then it was back down to normal price.

After that, I left NetSol and never looked back! Dustie.com was originally registered with NetSol for 100.00 and stayed there for at least 5 years. Then GoDaddy came along and prices were so much better then Netsol's and they weren't messing with the domain names I looked up so I jumped ship.
 
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You can go to www.whois.com to look up availability of domain names, however, I doubt that Godaddy is registering domains after you look them up though. That wouldn't go undiscovered for long and it would ruin their business forever if something like that were ever proven. I don't think they'd take that risk.
We already understood here in 15 pages that you don't quite understand the basics of the domaining business. Why then you think you are competent to give any domaining advice?

Your answer is wrong, you just got some random idea from the sky and gave it to the person who needs a competent advice. But instead he gets an incompetent info, which doesn't dissolve his ignorance at all. What's a point to get a wrong advice. If you want to help people, help them in a field you are competent in. This doesn't have to be Namepros, you can go giving good advice on some art forum.
 
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I am really glad that it looks like this will have a happy ending for @Dustie. It is really big of @maxtra to return an asset most would agree is worth substantially more even though the investigation indicated no wrongdoing. The way many have stepped up is an indicator of the very best in NPs. It must be special to own your first name and have it for such a long period.

While it is great to have apparent resolution, there are two parts that it would be satisfying to have better answers.
  1. I noticed that two of the emails that Dustie provided came from GoDaddy Auctions. Is it just corporate structure or was the name at auction? I had always thought just a BIN premium listing?
  2. In the very first post it was indicated that GoDaddy staff said the price changed that night. This is legitimate if it was after the transfer, but definitely not if before. This is not mentioned in the communication from @Joe Styler to @Dustie that she shared, which I presume means that the change was simply a new listing by new owner or had not happened, but would be reassuring to have confirmation.
even though they found the price had been tampered with twice that same night, long before I got online

It is wonderful that @Joe Styler and @Paul Nicks are active on NPs and interact with the community.

Thank you to everyone who helped @Dustie out.

Bob
 
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@Dustie -

I'd like to offer a couple suggestions -

1) Add 2FA to your GD account.
2) CHANGE your GD password.
3) CHANGE your [email protected] password (and make sure it is different than your GD password - DO NOT use the same password for both)
4) Add Login Lockout plugin or Loginizer plugin to your Wordpress (with a 10 try limit or something reasonable) - and then check it once a month for IP addresses that have tried to hack your password.
5) Check Afternic/Sedo once every couple months to make sure someone hasn't added Dustie.com to their account. If they have, promptly contact AN/Sedo to have it removed.

I hope the suggestions are helpful.

I'd hate to see this thread re-open in 3 months with an "Oh Snap - Not Again" situation occurring.

-Cougar
 
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You have anything to back up those claims? It seems like misinformation to me.

Brad
I checked on godaddy for a domain name which was digimb.com at first they said it’s available when I was about to purchase they said sorry it’s taken.That is what I have to back my claim.
 
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@Dustie -

Thank you for being transparent about the results.

Given the visibility of this situation on NamePros and since there were (2) GD VP's involved in the Risk Mgmt review, please provide the following questions to Joe Styler and as for clarification. A generic request gets a generic response (which is what was provided). A specific / direct request may provide specific results and help identify the Root Cause of this situation.

1) What date was identified by GD's research as being the date that the original $20,000 GD Premium listing was added to the GD system by your GD account?

2) What date was identified by GD's research as the date the $450 price modification request occurred?

3) Which venue was identified by GD's research as being the one that requested the $450 price modification? Was it via your GD account (via a login)? Was it via an Afternic request? Was it via an internal GD "service" or manual request?

4) What date was identified by GD's research as the date that the buyer - @maxtra - purchase the domain on the GD platform?

5) Which GD sales model was identified by GD's research was used for the purchase? Was it a GD Premium Auction listing that sold the domain? Was it a GD Regular Auction that sold the domain? Was it an Afternic purchase that sold the domain?

6) Was there an Afternic listing request identified by the GD's research group for the domain? If so, what date was the request made?


The response you received from Joe does not provide context and is without details of the results identified by the (2) VP's.

Without this data, it leaves the situation open to scrutiny.

With this data, it puts clarity to the dynamics of what transpired and helps put closure to the issue for all parties.

ADDITIONALLY - having this data would provide you (the prior domain owner) insight to what actions you should take to prevent this from happening again.

Thank you,

-Cougar

ps: Sorry - but we manage what you measure - and without a quantifiable and detailed outline of the data research for the issue that transpired, it is hard to determine what the ROOT CAUSE of the problem was - therefore - it is impossible to for you (or GD) to take proactive steps to prevent this happening again in the future.

ps: Joe is terrific. He should have no issue providing you the above information as you were the owner of the domain up to and including the time of the $450 transaction. By doing so, this will help to table the issue, but more importantly, shed light on what actions you (and everyone on this Forum) should take to help prevent this sort of situation from happening in the future. It is in GD's, yours, Mastra's, and everyone's interest to be provided the above insight.
 
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Godaddy is an evil domain registrar,they have stolen my ideas a lot.When I check any domain name whether it’s available godaddy themselves register the domain names.
Can I know how can I check the availability of a name without godaddy ?

If they have stolen your ideas a lot, why keep using them? I would use a different registrar
I use gwhois.org to check availability

I am still reading the thread shared earlier, has helpful information
https://www.namepros.com/blog/checking-domain-name-availability-without-using-a-website.862678/

I checked on godaddy for a domain name which was digimb.com at first they said it’s available when I was about to purchase they said sorry it’s taken.That is what I have to back my claim.

Registrar Chengdu West Dimension Digital Technology Co., Ltd
- they caught that name when it dropped on the 4th of April.

Godaddy did not register it, they did not steal your name. Anyone could register the name when it dropped.

====

I agree with Brad, it is misinformation, not helpful
 
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Tldboss my registrar is ipage I go to godaddy for domain appraisal.I have only one domain with them.which is foldablesmartphones.co
Digimb.com was registered in a second I was surprised too.i thought it’s goddady who did that.

We're going a bit off topic here - there are plenty of threads about registrars possibly front running and also cases where GD shows a domain is free when it's not. Sometimes even you register a domain at a registrar and pay for it, then you get an email saying sorry, transaction cancelled, refund made, possibly not even explaining that the domain was not available. It happens - there are threads about that.

One thing about GD is they cache results and also update prices slowly - as I mentioned in detail earlier in this thread, you can change a listing price at Afternic and wait days for the updated price to show in searches at GD. The key point being, what you see in your control panel for your listings can be different from the price a buyer sees when searching.
 
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The four letter domain is shorter. And better. It sold for $42,500. I already said all that.

What went without saying was:
But both are first names. Both could be spelled in different ways including ending in an i or y.

What was already said or implied in the short version was:
They are comparable in that the sale of one may be used as a comparable for the other keeping in mind what I said before, that one is shorter and better than the other.

i.e. Nothing you said contradicts what I said (I mean I already stated that the four letter is shorter, better) other than your claim that one has nothing to do with the other, no relevance at all, which is incorrect, I hope you’d agree. So...why argue? We’re almost saying the same thing.
I would consider this a discussion not an argument. Name value is based off want. One simple stat shows that even though they are names that in my opinion they are not even close to being comparable. There are 105,352 people in the US named Toni and only 1,646 in the US named Dustie. Basing value totally on want Toni may be worth 42 grand but Dustie is probably only worth 1/10th of that so I wouldn't consider them comparable even though they are both personal names. We all look at name values different and this is just one stat that I look at in valuing personal names.
 
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Dustie is also another way of saying dusty, the adjective. Just as Toni is another way of saying tony, the adjective.

Your saying this particular one word domain is worth max 4200 is as much to say that maxtra made a mistake buying it for 450. I’ve sold two word domains for a lot more than 4200.

C’mon if you’re going to turn down an opportunity to buy a name like Dustie then what are you willing to spend money on - are you looking just for reg fee garbage? Have you ever spent big money on a domain? Answers to those questions may reveal more about why you don’t think this name is worth much, more than anything else.
 
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Dustie is also another way of saying dusty, the adjective. Just as Toni is another way of saying tony, the adjective.

C’mon if you’re going to turn down an opportunity to buy a name like Dustie then what are you willing to spend money on - are you looking just for reg fee garbage? Have you ever spent big money on a domain? Answers to those questions may reveal more about why you don’t think this name is worth much, more than anything else.
i see you edited your answer after my reply. I'm not saying it's not worth anything but not worth even close to what you compared it to. I wouldn't pay 4200 for this name. I personally don't picture many companies wanting to call themselves Dustie. It's the type of name that would sit for a long time in my opinion. Dusty on the other hand is a whole different animal. That's a stellar name.
 
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Sorry man, from your story, I think someone did something ugly with your auction member account, and my question is, did you by mistake give someone your account information? if no, then someone in godaddy auction store can help you out, with some proof of how your domain was listed for at $450
 
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Someone just paid a hundred thousand dollars for yotta.com yesterday. What’s a yotta?

hookbox these are players paying. You can’t play big if you think Dustie.com is worth max 4200 because that implies that you woulda hesitated to buy it for 450.

Here at NP a lot of people freeze up when a good domain (yes, occasionally even at NP good domains are offered for sale) is offered for a fixed price. Any domain. They figure - it can’t be worth that much. Then the same domain is put on auction elsewhere and it gets bid up higher than that fixed price.

I have a couple thousand domains. Sell about weekly and get offers almost daily. Didn’t get my domains freezing up. XYNames bought them most of them many years ago at a time when others were freezing up at paying more than reg fee for the same domains. Didn’t have to pay much over reg fee for most of them but at that time most people couldn’t see the value. For a lot of domainers paying over reg fee (even ten, twenty or a hundred over reg fee) for something to re-sell is like pulling teeth. This attitude is a loser attitude.
 
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What’s a yotta?
It is the largest prefix in the SI metric system. (but probably more relevant for this sale also the name of a big international infrastructure software corporation operating on com but not simply their name in com, but instead it might be the blockchain company or a bunch of marketing firms with name; I suspect at least 2 of them wanted it :xf.wink:)
 
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I noticed that two of the emails that Dustie provided came from GoDaddy Auctions.
Interesting. I overlooked this somehow. Premium listings are copied by the system to auctions.godaddy.com as BIN listings, so such a purchase is definitely not impossible. The first practical difference would be that @maxtra was likely not forced by the system to pay for 1 year renewal together with $450 purchase. At least it is what I remember from my experience both as auctions buyer and seller. The second difference - relevant for our discussions - is that he should likely see sellers account number in his auctions history, and, if so, there should be no need to further confirm this number with GD in order to return the domain name - which was discussed yesterday. Not sure if the number is displayed by current system, but I think that it was displayed at some point of time...
 
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Yotta.com : Whatever it is you may bet that if it had been offered a month ago for $10000 or even $1000 (or $4200.) at NP most everyone here would have frozen up at buying it.
 
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Premium listings are copied by the system to auctions.godaddy.com as BIN listings, so such a purchase is definitely not impossible. The first practical difference would be that @maxtra was not forced by the system to pay for 1 year renewal ..

I sold a mid to high four figure name listed on Afternic premium (but buyer bought it via GoDaddy) and buyer got a free renewal year when he bought. i.e. he didn’t have to pay for the renewal when he paid.

The reason I know is that I got a notification from GoDaddy to transfer the domain before sale was final - before I had any other notification of any pending sale even - before buyer’s payment had cleared. I asked Afternic what this meant and they said it was because buyer got a free renewal as a promotion as part of the purchase deal, and then this notice to transfer was sent out automatically.

After a few days payment cleared.

But point being - that there are situations where buyer doesn't have to pay the renewal fee.
 
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Someone just paid a hundred thousand dollars for yotta.com yesterday. What’s a yotta?

hookbox these are players paying. You can’t play big if you think Dustie.com is worth max 4200 because that implies that you woulda hesitated to buy it for 450.

Here at NP a lot of people freeze up when a good domain (yes, occasionally even at NP good domains are offered for sale) is offered for a fixed price. Any domain. They figure - it can’t be worth that much. Then the same domain is put on auction elsewhere and it gets bid up higher than that fixed price.

I have a couple thousand domains. Sell about weekly and get offers almost daily. Didn’t get my domains freezing up. XYNames bought them most of them many years ago at a time when others were freezing up at paying more than reg fee for the same domains. Didn’t have to pay much over reg fee for most of them but at that time most people couldn’t see the value. For a lot of domainers paying over reg fee (even ten, twenty or a hundred over reg fee) for something to re-sell is like pulling teeth. This attitude is a loser attitude.
Dustie.com sat here on namepros at $5,000 or best offer for six days and no one pulled the trigger. That says it all. He paid $450 and was willing to take a best offer which I'm sure he would have been happy flipping it quick for a grand or two profit and no one jumped. It's not that great of name but to each his own.
 
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