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information Brent Oxley Loses Access to Create.com, Plus Millions of Dollars Worth of His Domains

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Brent Oxley, the founder of HostGator, has been accruing a portfolio of ultra-premium domain names since he sold his hosting company for close to $300 million in 2013.

With purchases such as Give.com for $500,000, Broker.com for $375,000, and Texas.com for $1,007,500, Oxley has spent millions of dollars over the past few years accumulating this collection. According to his website, the portfolio is worth more than $25 million.

Oxley has now, however, lost access to a proportion of his portfolio

Read the full report on my blog
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
@create.com that's really unfortunate, can't you get court order copy from Godaddy? you tell them that you want to approach court and for that you need to know the court and case number etc.

"such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually determined to be with or without merit."

Ask them whether their is any legal action or just its scam. if it legal action ask them to show the court order.

Try a US court and get a release order, i am sure Godaddy don't go against US court order. But if you can't, the other options are:

Get a injunction from Rajastan District court / High court, i think such think can be done by paying just $200 or less.

You can do that by 2 method:

1. Get copy of court order from godaddy and ask the lawyer to get injuction
2. If no copy of court order from godaddy, get yourself injuction court order against godaddy action.



There are many Indian law site to do that, i am not a legal expert so consult a lawyer from
India.

If you need a lawyer, i will check whether if i can do anything about it, See, i am not from Rajastan so i can't help their, I can contact lawyer from my state only. But their are many namperos member across India they can also help you also.


I have question? what is the basis that the guy Puneet, claiming your domains is it trademark or stolen or what he or godaddy claim it to be?
 
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I am seeing this scammer in jail roasted for years if you had a nice lawyer in india , Best of luck
 
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this is really insane, what happens if for some crazy reason the court there sides with him, will gd hand over the domains to him?

We all knew about people that abuse UDRP to steal names, but this is a new low.

That was and still is a huge concern for sure and part of why we've taken this to court in America.

One of the original reasons I chose GoDaddy, to begin with, was that they were a US company and publicly traded. I thought that they would offer more protection from financial stability and being Us based. Big Mistake!

I’ve been on the fence for a while now about launching my new hosting company Create. If it wasn’t for Godaddy poking me, I’m not sure I would have ever entered back into the hosting space; at least one good thing came from this nonsense!

Now it's time to steal some of their market share as payback! I was told at the time of Hostgator's exit that we hosted more sites than GoDaddy. If I did it once, I can do it again. It's all about customer service, uptime, and doing the right thing by the customer.
 
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...Oxley has now, however, lost access to a proportion of his portfolio

Read the full report on my blog

Interesting point in that article about Namecheap refusing to lock the domains without due proces, unlike Godaddy. Let's not forget Godaddy are trying to be big in India - are any other registrars?

In May 2020, I noticed that Oxley moved the majority of his domain name portfolio to Namecheap. In fact, every valuable domain Oxley owns was moved to Namecheap. The only other domain left at GoDaddy, aside from the locked names, was Create.com, which was locked in February 2021.

I understand that after Oxley moved his domains to Namecheap, Agarwal contacted Namecheap asking for Oxley’s names to be locked, a request that Namecheap declined. I contacted Namecheap for comment. I was told:

“Namecheap always puts our customers first, protecting their right, freedoms and valuable digital assets such as domain names. We have a proven track record of doing the right thing by our customers that includes fighting for their rights in court when deemed necessary. We do not lock or disable customer domains on a whim without the correct legal requirement.
 
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...One of the original reasons I chose GoDaddy, to begin with, was that they were a US company and publicly traded. I thought that they would offer more protection from financial stability and being Us based. Big Mistake!

Godaddy want to be big in India - here is their site in Hindi: https://in.godaddy.com/hi
 
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Hello,

Brent Here. I had to create a new account as the old one had my old company Hostgator in the name. =)

I don't think a lot of you realize how serious this is. A scammer spent a little over $12 in India, and without proof, a contract, or even a court order, was able to abuse Godaddy's policy and lock over $10mm worth of my domains!

These names have been locked for over a year now, and I've spent $10,000's in legal bills trying to get a court order to get them unlocked as Godaddy requires. (covid hasn't made it easy with the courts) The legal fees pale in comparison to the millions in deals I've had to turn down. The lock prevents you from changing a domain's DNS or transferring it, which means you can't sell it.

This scam is pretty genius if you think about it. Just about any scammer in the world can file in their country courts for a small fee; email GoDaddy that the domains are under "dispute," and bam Godaddy will lock whatever domains the scammer asks them to in their email to [email protected]. (at least that's what happened to me)

The scammer doesn't even have to show up for court to keep your names locked and most likely won't. Godaddy will lock the domains without a court order and then require you to get a court order to unlock them all.

Getting a court order to get your domains unlocked is very costly, time-consuming, and can take several years with how backed up most of the courts are from Covid.

If you're with Godaddy and you think your account is safe from this scam, I'd recommend you email them and find out for yourself that your names can be locked from a "dispute." and their UTOS says such.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had a few moments of weakness and offered the scammer Puneet over $10,000 to drop the "dispute" with Godaddy. I even had some of the potential buyers wanting to pay Puneet $10,000's in extortion money in order to close on the names locked. He was too greedy, demanding millions, and as a result, I'm not going to pay him a dime in extortion money. Instead, I'm paying lawyers in India to make sure he serves prison time for both extortion and fraud.

At one point, I even offered Godaddy full indemnification from the "dispute" if they unlocked my names. This is off the table now, but I can't for the life of me figure out why'd they turn this down and continue to keep my names locked without any proof or court order.

Below is the email in which I found out why my names were locked. In this email Godaddy lied about there being a court order to lock my names. I don't know why they lied about this but I'm guessing it's because the file Puneet attached was in Hindu and they took his word for it.

"Dear Brent,



We have been notified that per documents filed in the District Court in Alwar, Rajasthan, the domain names below are the subject of a legal dispute:

HYBRID.COM, DISTRIBUTE.COM, ADMIRER.COM, DRONE.COM, CIA.COM, DEMOLISH.COM, EMIR.COM, DARM.COM, BRIDE.COM, ADVISE.COM, FLUTE.COM, LOANTAP.COM, JEWEL.COM,

ITEM.COM, PIANO.COM, DEVOTE.COM, VTOK.COM, ATHLETE.COM, BONJOUR.COM, VALENTINE.COM, DUST.COM, DETECT.COM, VIAJE.COM, MESSAGE.COM



The court ordered that the domain names are to be locked pending further order of the court. Accordingly, we have locked the domain names.



If you have any questions regarding these actions or this court case, please contact the Court or Plaintiff’s Counsel directly. Contact information for Plaintiff’s Counsel can be found below:



Puneet Agarwal

** email removed **



Kind regards,



Lisa

Disputes Administrator

GoDaddy"



When I pressed them on there being no such legal ruling or court order, they quoted their UTOS:

"Per Section 14 of GoDaddy’s Universal Terms of Service (“UTOS”), we reserve the right to lock domain names to defend any legal action or threatened legal action without consideration for whether such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually determined to be with or without merit.

"

I had a registrar back in the day named launchpad.com and sold it with the sale of hostgator.com. I don't think anyone could ever picture something like this happening and it really doesn't make sense to have a registrar for less than 150 domains.

Had the domains that I bought before I launched Create been with Namecheap or Epik, this would never have happened!

I'm positive Puneet is insane. He has sent me thousands upon thousands of emails, messages, calls, etc, etc. Many of these messages involve death threats, talking about praying to the devil, drugs, pictures of mutilated naked bodies, and all kinds of craziness. In a few of the messages, he told me he got in trouble for waiting outside Prime Minister Modi's private house and office for trying to talk to him. I'm not sure I would have even believed this if it wasn't for him sending over a document that was an official complaint against the officer that questioned him for harassment!

CC @Joe Styler This scares me. I know you're doing Afternic things not legal things, but it would be nice to hear from you whether our domains at Godaddy are safe from such an attack. Thanks for chiming in.
 
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👋 @create.com --- welcome back to namePros!

In case you are not already aware, @barybadrinath had started a thread in January 2020 titled @Sharjil that looks to contain comments related to this ongoing case.

upload_2021-3-4_23-53-13.png


...

upload_2021-3-4_23-55-8.png


tagging @Sharjil & @BoothDomains
 
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The moment I noticed this thread I knew it was that guy. He's utterly insane, threatened multiple people on various occasions. If I recall correctly, that girl from Wikipedia as well.

It's a disgrace his account is still active.

Good luck Brent. Have used your hosting back in the day, always a pleasant experience. Hope you will get this resolved as it's a crazy story. And sue the guy for damages. He should be put to a stop once and for all.
 
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This is really, really scary. And it could happen to anyone with names at GoDaddy apparently. I wonder how much it matters that GoDaddy has a legal/physical presence in India?

I hope you get totally vindicated in all matters soon, Brent.
 
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Horrible situation, but hopefully some good comes out of it after it's successfully resolved in your favour, Brent.
 
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The moment I noticed this thread I knew it was that guy. He's utterly insane, threatened multiple people on various occasions. If I recall correctly, that girl from Wikipedia as well.

It's a disgrace his account is still active.

Good luck Brent. Have used your hosting back in the day, always a pleasant experience. Hope you will get this resolved as it's a crazy story. And sue the guy for damages. He should be put to a stop once and for all.
Yeah that guy is an utter fruit loop - should be nowhere Namepros..........or the domain industry in general

@NamePros you need to ban this idiot
 
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👋 @create.com --- welcome back to namePros!

In case you are not already aware, @barybadrinath had started a thread in January 2020 titled @Sharjil that looks to contain comments related to this ongoing case.

Show attachment 184226

...

Show attachment 184227

tagging @Sharjil & @BoothDomains

@Grilled if what you shared is true, then its not scam, its a legal dispute and Godaddy did right about following court order. If @create.com used his service or used the information Puneet shared to buy or sell domain then it is fair to compensate him, if he feels not to pay and other party feel he have to pay for using is lead information then court case is valid and also its common for court attach the property to pay off any court compensation.

Best bet get US court order or fight the case in Indian court, I feel Godaddy right about this case, they just followed court order.

I think both parties in this not followed the business ethics and got in to this legal tangle.
 
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@Grilled if what you shared is true, then its not scam, its a legal dispute and Godaddy did right about following court order. If @create.com used his service or used the information Puneet shared to buy or sell domain then it is fair to compensate him, if he feels not to pay and other party feel he have to pay for using is lead information then court case is valid and also its common for court attach the property to pay off any court compensation.

Best bet get US court order or fight the case in Indian court, I feel Godaddy right about this case, they just followed court order.

I think both parties in this not followed the business ethics and got in to this legal tangle.
Go through all that guys posts and see what kind of person he is.........

I am not going to offer advice or comment on a legal dispute I know nothing about, it would just be if's, but's and maybe's from my end

You can find readable information here on Namepros about the way this person conducts himself on a public forum......he should not be allowed to keep posting hateful, insulting posts time and time again and be allowed to get away with it......
 
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Interesting and scary. Thanks for bringing the story to us @James Iles

Thanks for giving direct input here Brent @create.com. I really hope it gets resolved very soon. It is dangerous if an unproven claim, with seemingly little to back it up, in any country can lock up some of the most valuable digital assets in the world.

Bob
 
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@Grilled if what you shared is true, then its not scam, its a legal dispute and Godaddy did right about following court order. If @create.com used his service or used the information Puneet shared to buy or sell domain then it is fair to compensate him, if he feels not to pay and other party feel he have to pay for using is lead information then court case is valid and also its common for court attach the property to pay off any court compensation.

Best bet get US court order or fight the case in Indian court, I feel Godaddy right about this case, they just followed court order.

I think both parties in this not followed the business ethics and got in to this legal tangle.

You really believe I'd turn down a $21mm offer one of my domains that I'm not running as a business already? There is no court order, contracts or anything. If I emailed you saying that I had a $100mm offer for each and every one of your domains and fail to produce a buyer does that mean when you sell one I'm owed money? What if someone had your portfolio shut down without any evidence or court ruling would you feel differently?
 
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@create.com ,

If this case is going to go to court then it's best for you to be careful as to what you say in a public forum such as here, any accusations made by you or any derogatory language used by you towards others might be used against you in the future.

If he has legitimately helped in facilitating any domain sales for you then perhaps it's best for you to settle with him out of court and end this dispute the easy way.

But if you believe that you are a victim of some kind of a scam then you need to fight this all the way no matter how long it takes,

But either way consult with your attorney and be careful of what you say here and elsewhere.

This is not meant to be legal advice and should not be taken as such, just saying what makes common sense.

IMO
 
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You really believe I'd turn down a $21mm offer one of my domains that I'm not running as a business already? There is no court order, contracts or anything. If I emailed you saying that I had a $100mm offer for each and every one of your domains and fail to produce a buyer does that mean when you sell one I'm owed money? What if someone had your portfolio shut down without any evidence or court ruling would you feel differently?

See scam is different you can easily get that overturned in Indian court, since in the initial post this information not shared and @Grilled shared that, I initially thought someone you don't know at all try to scam you. For record, I am against holding of anyone digital asset.

If he have any proof or communication with you, then such case take years in Indian civil court (forget about merit of such information, to decide that court take years). Better file a case in US court or settle out of court, to the other party(puneet) don't be greedy and both party settle for a compensation.
 
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Hello,

Brent Here. I had to create a new account as the old one had my old company Hostgator in the name. =)

I don't think a lot of you realize how serious this is. A scammer spent a little over $12 in India, and without proof, a contract, or even a court order, was able to abuse Godaddy's policy and lock over $10mm worth of my domains!

These names have been locked for over a year now, and I've spent $10,000's in legal bills trying to get a court order to get them unlocked as Godaddy requires. (covid hasn't made it easy with the courts) The legal fees pale in comparison to the millions in deals I've had to turn down. The lock prevents you from changing a domain's DNS or transferring it, which means you can't sell it.

This scam is pretty genius if you think about it. Just about any scammer in the world can file in their country courts for a small fee; email GoDaddy that the domains are under "dispute," and bam Godaddy will lock whatever domains the scammer asks them to in their email to [email protected]. (at least that's what happened to me)

The scammer doesn't even have to show up for court to keep your names locked and most likely won't. Godaddy will lock the domains without a court order and then require you to get a court order to unlock them all.

Getting a court order to get your domains unlocked is very costly, time-consuming, and can take several years with how backed up most of the courts are from Covid.

If you're with Godaddy and you think your account is safe from this scam, I'd recommend you email them and find out for yourself that your names can be locked from a "dispute." and their UTOS says such.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had a few moments of weakness and offered the scammer Puneet over $10,000 to drop the "dispute" with Godaddy. I even had some of the potential buyers wanting to pay Puneet $10,000's in extortion money in order to close on the names locked. He was too greedy, demanding millions, and as a result, I'm not going to pay him a dime in extortion money. Instead, I'm paying lawyers in India to make sure he serves prison time for both extortion and fraud.

At one point, I even offered Godaddy full indemnification from the "dispute" if they unlocked my names. This is off the table now, but I can't for the life of me figure out why'd they turn this down and continue to keep my names locked without any proof or court order.

Below is the email in which I found out why my names were locked. In this email Godaddy lied about there being a court order to lock my names. I don't know why they lied about this but I'm guessing it's because the file Puneet attached was in Hindu and they took his word for it.

"Dear Brent,



We have been notified that per documents filed in the District Court in Alwar, Rajasthan, the domain names below are the subject of a legal dispute:

HYBRID.COM, DISTRIBUTE.COM, ADMIRER.COM, DRONE.COM, CIA.COM, DEMOLISH.COM, EMIR.COM, DARM.COM, BRIDE.COM, ADVISE.COM, FLUTE.COM, LOANTAP.COM, JEWEL.COM,

ITEM.COM, PIANO.COM, DEVOTE.COM, VTOK.COM, ATHLETE.COM, BONJOUR.COM, VALENTINE.COM, DUST.COM, DETECT.COM, VIAJE.COM, MESSAGE.COM



The court ordered that the domain names are to be locked pending further order of the court. Accordingly, we have locked the domain names.



If you have any questions regarding these actions or this court case, please contact the Court or Plaintiff’s Counsel directly. Contact information for Plaintiff’s Counsel can be found below:



Puneet Agarwal

** email removed **



Kind regards,



Lisa

Disputes Administrator

GoDaddy"



When I pressed them on there being no such legal ruling or court order, they quoted their UTOS:

"Per Section 14 of GoDaddy’s Universal Terms of Service (“UTOS”), we reserve the right to lock domain names to defend any legal action or threatened legal action without consideration for whether such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually determined to be with or without merit.

"

I had a registrar back in the day named launchpad.com and sold it with the sale of hostgator.com. I don't think anyone could ever picture something like this happening and it really doesn't make sense to have a registrar for less than 150 domains.

Had the domains that I bought before I launched Create been with Namecheap or Epik, this would never have happened!

I'm positive Puneet is insane. He has sent me thousands upon thousands of emails, messages, calls, etc, etc. Many of these messages involve death threats, talking about praying to the devil, drugs, pictures of mutilated naked bodies, and all kinds of craziness. In a few of the messages, he told me he got in trouble for waiting outside Prime Minister Modi's private house and office for trying to talk to him. I'm not sure I would have even believed this if it wasn't for him sending over a document that was an official complaint against the officer that questioned him for harassment!



This is very unfortunate, unbelievable on GoDaddys end to say the least. I truly hope this is resolved for you. Thank you for sharing this with us and giving us a heads up to be cautious.


@Joe Styler @Paul Nicks How is GoDaddy allowing such BS?

Is this in fact all it takes over at GoDaddy to have our names locked, a crazy man with $20 , and a document filing in India?
 
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This is very unfortunate, unbelievable on GoDaddys end to say the least. I truly hope this is resolved for you. Thank you for sharing this with us and giving us a heads up to be cautious.


@Joe Styler @Paul Nicks How is GoDaddy allowing such BS?

Is this in fact all it takes over at GoDaddy to have our names locked, a crazy man with $20 , and a document filing in India?
THIS ISN'T A NEW DEVELOPMENT.

Godaddy has been doing this for a long time... That's why I don't believe your names are safe there.
 
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I'm not familiar with the Indian legal system, but here in Canada (which is based on the same English legal system that India follows), one can make a motion for security of legal costs.

https://www.torys.com/insights/publications/2019/10/when-should-you-get-some-security-for-costs
https://kmlaw.ca/motion-for-security/

That might be a way to bring a quick end to the dispute, if the Plaintiff is unable to provide such security to the court.

I believe @create.com has good legal connections already.

For a large part, this is about how Godaddy will explain things to the domaining community at large. It's a "trust" issue.
 
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@Grilled if what you shared is true, then its not scam, its a legal dispute and Godaddy did right about following court order. If @create.com used his service or used the information Puneet shared to buy or sell domain then it is fair to compensate him, if he feels not to pay and other party feel he have to pay for using is lead information then court case is valid and also its common for court attach the property to pay off any court compensation.

Best bet get US court order or fight the case in Indian court, I feel Godaddy right about this case, they just followed court order.

I think both parties in this not followed the business ethics and got in to this legal tangle.
I don't know if it's the same in every corner of the world, but when you open a dispute, you need to attach some prove for what you are complaining . It's like I will say that I was robbed by you, but I don't know you, we never saw each other face to face or talked. From what I understand, there is no agreement between them, so there is no proof. From what are you saying, I could do exactly the same thing to you, keep your domains locked for 6 years and at the end I will just say' sorry, my mistake', I was wrong. In the real world it should not be possible something like this.
 
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