discuss [Resolved] Domainer Loses $26k On A Stolen Domain!

spoiltrider said:

No one ever called and spoke to me. its my cell phone. has been for 8 years. i don't have employees. i am the only one who answers my phone. text me. email me. call me...nothing til i was in my account on netsol and my domain had simply vanished from my account, being transferred out. i am not a scammer. i am honest and hard worker. all the accounts associated with my @cqd.com - including my apple account...sh*t man i've been updating all my records to prevent identity theft. i am paranoid and anxious. I DID NOT SELL MY DOMAIN! it was on afternic for at least 2 years at a outrageous amount. and the offers did stop coming in after that. to stop all the emails with offers. i stopped responding to them all. so say what you want. i know the truth. and as God is my witness, my domain was STOLEN! and yes i want it back! afternic called me and i was told on march 7th when this exploded, that they would take me ad down. i think this is a horrible situation. now I'm worried if i do get my domain back that i'll have a hit put on me. GD!

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I am not sure what this offer James Booth, and his legal team has made to you, but I am sure no offer other than the free, and clear return of your domain will be enough at this point. I certainly cannot see anyone paying to buy back their own domain, that they didn't even get compensated for, so that is out the window.

Why don't you guys come to an exclusive brokerage agreement. That way he can try to earn back his buy, and you can try to hit your grand slam number. You guys are both going to waste money in court, I have to agree with most the odds of winning this in court given both the original owner, and web.com are based in FL. Somewhat of a homefield advantage from afar.

I did a quick search, that is the first point of contact that phone # came up in google, that would be the first thing I do, is make the call, and see what info I can drum up. The answer of the call, and immediate no it is not for sale would have activated a chain of events where the purchase never would have gone thru.

Silentptnr said:

@spoiltrider I noticed you chose GoDaddy for you current domain. That was probably a very wise choice.

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i have them everywhere. i buy them on sale when i can. Listen, i bought CQD.com in 1996 when INTERNIC was the ONLY company selling .com, .net and .org domains. none of the others existed. Network Solutions took over INTERNIC when they got out. they inherited me. so long ago...i have worried about my domain over the years. i do manage my accounts. i don't do forums. i didn't know network solutions has the horrible reputation y'all put on them here. i am not in the business of selling domains, i buy them for customers, and for my businesses. i have 4 web sites. horses, horse camp, real estate and my oldest and first, graphic design, advertising and marketing. (yes i still know how to advertise and market) but real estate is my main focus now. i grew tired of competing with students doing graphic design for free to get credits in class at UF and SFC. it got old. i took in 1 pro bono job each year either dealing with children or animals. i do work for past clients and referrals that come in. but only as much as i have time for and the interest in which to create for. i got an email from the forest service about 3 months ago, wanting me to do work for them again. i hadn't dealt with them for 10 years. but now...all those people out there with my @cqd.com email address....well I'm just going to be a no response now. perfect for my reputation of "usually responds quickly".

everyone here can say what they want and dissect this situation as much as you care. its hurtful and hateful at time. but, at the end of the day, this is really simple. i am a victim of a 3 letter, 22 yo domain being stolen, and the person who has it, knows it's stolen. period. my web site at that URL is gone. my marketing to the url is wasted. the ppc ads, gone. the printed materials out there, useless. and most importantly, there will never ever be anything linking me to the sale of my domain. ever. period. no PROOF will ever surface that i had anything or any knowledge that this was occurring. and it's a shame that somebody won't do the right thing and give my domain back to me, and take his loss up with the escrow company that took his money! i won't stop till i get it back or it kills me. i am the rightful owner of the CQD.com domain.

jberryhill said:

As a practical matter, the ball is in Burns court to actually take action.

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Since member @spoiltrider politely asks current registrant to return the domain, on a public forum, it appears that so far nothing was performed in aspects of legal/courts/subpoenas/etc? If so, why? What about a police report at least (something was stolen, and someone has $19K or $25K in the pocket)? I'm not taking sides here. Just wondering.

wwwweb said:

Your the one who knows best, based on the offers in your inbox.

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right. i sell real estate. people ask me everyday what the beautiful home with granite countertops and stainless appliances and hardwood flooring in that popular neighborhood on 1/3 acre lot is worth. i tell them nothing to me, my 9 horses can't live there. so how do you really put a amount on a set of letters? you can't. asking and getting are two different things.

spoiltrider said:

right. i sell real estate. people ask me everyday what the beautiful home with granite countertops and stainless appliances and hardwood flooring in that popular neighborhood on 1/3 acre lot is worth. i tell them nothing to me, my 9 horses can't live there. so how do you really put a amount on a set of letters? you can't. asking and getting are two different things.

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Between 2015-2016 your email box would have been filled with daily offers, most in Chinese, and many in English also. Those would have been the peak of the market.

Either your domain is owned for an end purpose, or a wholesale purpose, the wholesale price is probably $25-35K, and when it is an end user you are looking north of that given their size, and intended use, Chinese buyers pay a premium for all letters other an A E I O U or V for the most part, which are all exempt from your name, giving it a decent liquid wholesale value.

tonyk2000 said:

Since member @spoiltrider politely asks current registrant to return the domain, on a public forum, it appears that so far nothing was performed in aspects of legal/courts/subpoenas/etc? If so, why? What about a police report at least (something was stolen, and someone has $19K or $25K in the pocket)? I'm not taking sides here. Just wondering.

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i am taking action. i just began the reporting on the 7th. thats when the bomb dropped.

spoiltrider said:

i am taking action. i just began the reporting on the 7th. thats when the bomb dropped.

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Was this your only three letter? You should look into two factor authentication. I use it for my domains.

Also, many of the people in this conversation have successful professional careers and domain names are a hobby.

spoiltrider said:

i am taking action

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By the way, thank you for retracting the statement about namepros community being involved in this unfortunate story. In 14 pages of this thread, you find a lot of useful information and it should be definitely helpful in whatever action(s) you may elect to take...

@spoiltrider

Hi Rebecca, so I assume an investigation is going on? Once you have the reported you should upload it online for everyone to see.

There is no other way, if you don't want to waste time and money, just upload your report, and have a talk to James. I am sure, after that, he will do something again. Because if you have done everything, ie. report stolen domain, upload it for the public to see, talk to James, and I am a bit curious can you upload the information the escrow support gave you? Communication, ie. that $19K you said.

You have nothing to lose, just let people know what is going on by doing all you can (uploading the documents you said you did). Again, I am not 100% sure of anything, but I hope you are not too frustrated, keep calm, and do the right thing. By doing the right thing, I mean uploading information and reaching out so James knows you are "real and sincere". There is no way, someone would hand over $25k to someone by just stating that a domain is stolen. It would help everyone with more information and sharing is caring. Thanks.

Unfortunately hacks are getting very sophisticated and scary! In the old days it means you get pop-up ads or porn sites. Today it is whole new level!!!

Today hackers may pose as internal company member and ask the accounting department to wire money internationally.

winst said:

Unfortunately hacks are getting very sophisticated and scary! In the old days it means you get pop-up ads or porn sites. Today it is whole new level!!!

Today hackers may pose as internal company member and ask the accounting department to wire money internationally.

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True

spoiltrider said:

that was my mistake and the report has been updated...and approved.

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This is the kind of bad stuff RipOffReport does.....they allowed @spoiltrider to add her statement clearing NP but they have NOT changed the page. Still names NP in the title and her edit is a small line down in the post.

https://www.ripoffreport.com/report...e-pros-stole-cqdcom-and-is-a-reseller-1433122

Here's their fine print at the bottom:
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 03/07/2018 08:35 PM and is a permanent record located here:https://www.ripoffreport.com/report...e-pros-stole-cqdcom-and-is-a-reseller-1433122. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

That page will rise in SERPS and is now a blemish on this great forum.

A real shame. They never change the reports unless they are paid a ransom.

Wow. What a fascjnating thread. We learn here many domain transaction points that we can improve on in our industry, thats for sure.

@spoiltrider Rebecca i feel your pain. Nice domain, but having your email taken away that you have owned for 22 years has to feel like a huge violation. Im very sorry to hear this happened to you. This type of thing can happen to anybody here and it is scary. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. NamePros is a great community of people who care though. 99.9% of community will do back flips to help you out here and ask for nothing in return. Hopefully you realize this soon. I spend money in a Business account here every year, not for any special perjs at all but because of how much i have gotten from NP members here for free. Its my way of giving back.

@BoothDomains James, same to be said to you. Sorry to hear this happened to you. Same thing could happen to any one of us here as well, buying a stolen domain from someone who has hijacked a whois email account. Very sorry to hear this happened to you.

I would like to offer a helping potential solution since i care about the domaining Community/Industry as a whole.

I would love to see James give the domain back to Rebecca. I would love to see Rebecca retract her deflamatory statements about James and see her negative statements about NamePros retracted on RipOffReport.

Then i would like to start a donation campaign to James so he could recoup some of his losses i am pretty sure we could get at least half his 25k back. This could have been any one of us that this happened to.

Plus the positive exposure he would gain for doing the right thing (giving back domain to Rebecca) would come back to him 10-fold from the domain community.

It really is very simple to do and would sidestep any lawyer fees and more negativity and hostile feelings. Actually it could end up being quite the feel good story at the end of a friggen nightmare domain transaction. Some nice positive stories could be spun from this type of story book ending if possible.

Wishing all the best here.
Vito

Media Branding said:

Wow. What a fascjnating thread. We learn here many domain transaction points that we can improve on in our industry, thats for sure.

@spoiltrider Rebecca i feel your pain. Nice domain, but having your email taken away that you have owned for 22 years has to feel like a huge violation. Im very sorry to hear this happened to you. This type of thing can happen to anybody here and it is scary. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. NamePros is a great community of people who care though. 99.9% of community will do vack flips to help you out here and ask for nothing in return. Hopefully you realize this soon. I spend money in a Business account here every year because of how much i have gotten from NP for free. Its my way of giving back.

@BoothDomains James, same to be said to you. Sorry to hear this happened to you. Same thing could happen to any one of us here as well, buying a stolen domain from someone who has hijacked a whois email account. Very sorry to hear this happened to you.

I would like to offer a helping potential solution since i care about the domaining Community/Industry as a whole.

I would love to see James give the domain back to Rebecca. I would love to see Rebecca retract her deflamatory statements about James and see her negative statements about NamePros retracted on RipOffReport.

Then i would like to start a donation campaign to James so he could recoup some of his losses i am pretty sure we could get at least half his 25k back. This could have been any one of us that this happened to.

Plus the positive exposure he would gain for doing the right thing (giving back domain to Rebecca) would come back to him 10-fold from the domain community.

It really is very simple to do and would sidestep any lawyer fees and more negativity and hostile feelings. Actually it could end up being quite the feel good story at the end of a friggen nightmare domain transaction. Some nice positive stories could be apun from this type of ending if possible.

Wishing all the best here.
Vito

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I agree. This would be much easier if James gave the domain back and together, including possibly Rebecca, we could find a way to help James get whole. I would love to be a part of that.

Just to add to the list of various inconsistencies mentioned so far

spoiltrider said:

I DID NOT SELL MY DOMAIN! it was on afternic for at least 2 years

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vs.

BoothDomains said:

The domain has recently been added to Afternic.

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... and also: $19K sale or $25K sale? Last year, the domain was transferred to Chinese Ename.com/Ename.cn registrar and soon transferred back to Netsol. What happened? And, the last but not the least, did the buyer notice he was dealing with a man and not a woman?

I honestly don't think people are going to take up a collection, because there have been people with health issues and other serious things where few if any contributed. Plus it would have to be done for everyone, people getting scammed in this business everyday. I think James needs to pressure Escrow.com. I would also imagine James can find some tax uses for the loss as he has plenty of gains to offset.

@spoiltrider The dissecting happens because there are many elaborate scams, you would not be the first person to give an academy award performance it wasn't me and then it turns out you were. (Not saying you are and I would bet you are legit). But a lot of us have been doing this for a long time and have seen scams most wouldn't believe.

equity78 said:

Thanks Brandon, then what can someone like James do, there has to be an ironclad way where someone using an escrow company and spending $25,000 is protected, if not this business is more of a joke than many outside the domain echo chamber already think.

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In the real estate world someone would buy title insurance. In the domain business most do their own due diligence. Selling insurance is a highly regulated business, even more so than escrow There are services out there, like the one Bill Hartzer provides, that will vet the ownership chain of a domain. If you are serious investor you need to have a subscription to a Whois tool that provides detailed account history and fully understand how to use it. Bottom line, this comes down on the buyer.

In this case it appears escrow.com did their job per their TOS. They released their concierge service after my time there so I don’t know if paying double the standard escrow fee gets you any added protection and I don’t know if it was used for this transaction.

I hope this ends in a amicable way and it surely can if both of them work out a solution 'together'. As explained by the legal expert both lose in the legal battle. But both can be winners if they communicate directly with each other.

Because nothing is justified, neither Rebecca losing her precious domain, nor Booth losing his hard earned 26K.

Who we are is defined by the choices we make.

Please Make the right choice.

Brandon Abbey said:

In the real estate world someone would buy title insurance. In the domain business most do their own due diligence. Selling insurance is a highly regulated business, even more so than escrow There are services out there, like the one Bill Hartzer provides, that will vet the ownership chain of a domain. If you are serious investor you need to have a subscription to a Whois tool that provides detailed account history and fully understand how to use it. Bottom line, this comes down on the buyer.

In this case it appears escrow.com did their job per their TOS. They released their concierge service after my time there so I don’t know if paying double the standard escrow fee gets you any added protection and I don’t know if it was used for this transaction.

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James Booth is experienced, seems he did his homework, maybe he should have waited to get someone on the phone like someone else mentioned, but this whole situation makes the industry look bad or I should say riskier than it should using an escrow company.

Do transactions directly through registrars like godaddy reduce the risk.
Suppose my domain is registered, listed and sold at Godaddy itself.
Is this a better way than personal trading of domains?
I know they charge higher commission but if safer, than its worth it.

With ICANN contemplating restriction of public WHOIS access in the coming months (due to GDPR), that'll make due diligence even harder (and perhaps reduce the value of those domains whose owners have not opted-in to public/transparent WHOIS).

I for one will seek to keep the WHOIS of my company's domain names public and unrestricted, just to have some public evidence of that ownership.

GeorgeK said:

With ICANN contemplating restriction of public WHOIS access in the coming months (due to GDPR), that'll make due diligence even harder (and perhaps reduce the value of those domains whose owners have not opted-in to public/transparent WHOIS).

I for one will seek to keep the WHOIS of my company's domain names public and unrestricted, just to have some public evidence of that ownership.

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Good point. I think I will remove privacy even though it will lead to more spam...

On the other hand, with a private whois record, it would have been harder for the thief to figure out which E-mail account to hack. And Yahoo was breached a long time ago. The password for the mail account may be public knowledge by now.

If @spoiltrider has indeed owned that domain, then she has evidence, she has a paper trail, E-mails, renewal confirmations, credit card statements. She now needs to document her own ownership history.
Netsol will have to release evidence. Escrow.com will have to release evidence. I guess this is going to require a subpoena.

There is an elephant in this room that has not been addressed yet.

ANYONE USING A YAHOO EMAIL ADDRESS PLEASE CHANGE IT ASAP!!!!

Yahoo accounts have been hacked by the millions and if I had access I would search for the keyword domain and would probably start to build a nice profile on the owner of the account. The next steps would be easy, it all starts with the email address used to register the domain.

Yahoo also has 2-step verification (like Gmail) for enhanced security:

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN5013.html

which should be enabled to protect email. Of course, one should also opt-in to 2-factor security at the registrar. Here's a list of registrars which support 2FA:

https://twofactorauth.org/#domains

although, I'm not sure if it's correct that Network Solutions doesn't offer it, e.g. see:

https://github.com/2factorauth/twofactorauth/issues/190

which claims it does offer it. Regardless, there are lots of reasons not to have domains with NSI!