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

[Silentptnr]

Darn! Another scam and this time it is an experienced domainer James Booth.

James must have thought he was making a sound acquisition as he transferred approximately 26k to escrow for CQD.com. Instead, after completing the escrow, the domain was taken from his account by the registrar without notification and returned to the "true" owner.

Turns out the person that sold him the domain CQD.com, may not have been the true owner.

Apparently this incident involves several parties including the registrar and the escrow.


Thanks to Theo over at DomainGang for the tip on this.

 

[alcy]

this is awful. too bad you had that 60 day lock.. and couldn't trasnfer to gd earlier.

 

[Silentptnr]

So you had the domain in your Netsol account? Then you were (smartly) going to transfer it out?

 

[Addison]

yes I lost all the money.

Condolences. That's a heavy pill to swallow.

You'll bounce back!

 

[BoothDomains]

Exactly. I did the push as I thought there were no issues. I literally logged in to my Netsol account to do the transfer to GoDaddy and realized the name was gone.

 

[BoothDomains]

Condolences. That's a heavy pill to swallow.

You'll bounce back!

It's life I guess. I saw someone lost much more on PDD.com.

 

[Constantin S]

Hi All, Just to let you know what happened. I emailed the Whois email (the same one that is listed now) and agreed a deal. I did my due diligence and also emailed the email on the website ([email protected]) and they both confirmed all my questions. I set up the Escrow transaction and Escrow confirmed the seller was KYC verified. So after speaking to both emails and Escrow confirming the seller was verified I believed the domain to be safe.

I made payment for $26k and had the domain in my Network Solutions account for around 4 weeks. One day I logged in to find the domain had just vanished. I called Netsol / Web.com and they said ''Oh we have returned the domain to the seller'' Obviously I was not happy. They did not email me, call me or mention in any way anything about it. They simply just took the domain with NO questions and handed it back to the seller.

I am currently proceeding with legal action.

This could've happened to anyone, the only thing I can suggest when buying a domain is to directly request the EPP code and move it to a secure registrar, Netsol/Web(.)com has proven way too many times how bad they are at handling domain names.

 

[Silentptnr]

Unbelieveable.

 

[joro001]

I've personally sold a domain before to @BoothDomains and he is highly professional and was a pleasure to deal with. You will bounce back from this even if you end up having lost all that money and get not a cent back in the worst case scenario.

Honestly there are so many reasons to be wary of buying these really liquid domains, from all these seemingly endless scams we keep on reading about such as this one even escrow isn't safe, all the UDRP's which seems to increase with time, I personally am pretty put off these 3l.coms as an investment too many other potential issues down the road these days at these prices (but that's just me).

Again you will move forward no matter the outcome of this!

 

[TERADOMAIN]

Hi All, Just to let you know what happened. I emailed the Whois email (the same one that is listed now) and agreed a deal. I did my due diligence and also emailed the email on the website ([email protected]) and they both confirmed all my questions. I set up the Escrow transaction and Escrow confirmed the seller was KYC verified. So after speaking to both emails and Escrow confirming the seller was verified I believed the domain to be safe.

I made payment for $26k and had the domain in my Network Solutions account for around 4 weeks. One day I logged in to find the domain had just vanished. I called Netsol / Web.com and they said ''Oh we have returned the domain to the seller'' Obviously I was not happy. They did not email me, call me or mention in any way anything about it. They simply just took the domain with NO questions and handed it back to the seller.

I am currently proceeding with legal action.

Sorry to hear about your loss. You are doing great so you will recover via other sales. But it’s lesson for so many here including me.

Soon I will share a post why not to keep names at NetSol until they change their structure. They have lots of loopholes and it becomes a perfect platform to hold stolen names. I did transfer all of my names from there to my Other rigistrar for this reason. There are lots of horror sotires in last couple of months and there is only one thing which is common and that is NetSol.

Thanks

 

[carob]

This could've happened to anyone, the only thing I can suggest when buying a domain is to directly request the EPP code and move it to a secure registrar, Netsol/Web(.)com has proven way too many times how bad they are at handling domain names.

Another thing would be to refuse to buy a domain at Netsol - insist that the buyer moves it to another registrar first, then when you buy they push to you at the new registrar. Too many stories of domains being bought at Netsol then disappearing without warning or notification.

 

[creataweb]

That's nuts. Glad to see someone suing NetSol for this non-sense.

 

[alcy]

Exactly. I did the push as I thought there were no issues. I literally logged in to my Netsol account to do the transfer to GoDaddy and realized the name was gone.

oh so the domain wasn't even locked. too bad you waited 4 weeks ot transfer. you know how netsol is.

 

[Josh R]

I didn't pick Netsol. The name was already there. I just did a push to my account and was about to transfer to my GoDaddy account, and yes I lost all the money.

Netsol are the worst in the industry by far. How much bad PR do they want!? Sorry to hear about this James @BoothDomains

 

[dande]

This is very bad. Is there nowhere to report this to ICANN? I think ICANN should have a say in a matter like this?

 

[Lox]

I did. The whole thing is really fishy. I called, emailed and did all the checks. It seems she told Web.com one of her employees sold the name without her authorization which is a lie.

I have all the emails from her.

Ok, Thx for answering

 

[Cruncher]

Anyone know what chances he has of getting his money back? It seems here that the legitimate owner is in fact the scammer.

 

[tldboss]

Sorry @BoothDomains

Its good that you are taking legal action, hopefully you will get your money back + put a stop to this going forward, there is a chance she has done this before or was going to do the same to next buyer.

 

[wwwweb]

Sorry @BoothDomains

Its good that you are taking legal action, hopefully you will get your money back + put a stop to this going forward, there is a chance she has done this before or was going to do the same to next buyer.

In order to take legal action you have to find this person, serve them, then go thru the process, and hope they have something tangible to collateralize as this money is most likely long gone.

 

[lambo.com]

Speaking to the right person at Netsol and surely that domain goes back in your account. Good luck

 

[Lox]

It seems here that the legitimate owner is in fact the scammer.

No is not, she is selling it since 2015 for 150k. The outside seller/scammer most likely already spotted her FB message and the rest is ... what is. The FB post address was updated on January 5th 2018 (img 3.jpg) , maybe hacker?

 

[Joe Styler]

That's not how I operate. The domain has recently been added to Afternic. This happened to me several weeks ago. Theo from DomainGang messaged me today to let me know it is for sale on Afternic.

I am sorry to hear this happened to you. We don't have any way to know for certain what happened as the domain is registered outside our registrar and the sale did not take place on our marketplace. The only thing we have is a listing on Afternic which has been there with the same account for several years with no changes on it. We did look at historical WHOIS and didn't see it change names but of course there are gaps in the WHOIS and we don't have the full info on it because the domain was not with us for the period in question. We also do not know who sold the domain or how. In this situation it appears we have the current owner listing the domain with our marketplace. James can contact me with any further information and we can do our best within our policies and legal boundaries to work to protect buyers and sellers using our marketplace. I did reach out to the owner of the domain as well for clarification and have not had a response yet.

 

[lambo.com]

I am sorry to hear this happened to you. We don't have any way to know for certain what happened as the domain is registered outside our registrar and the sale did not take place on our marketplace. The only thing we have is a listing on Afternic which has been there with the same account for several years with no changes on it. We did look at historical WHOIS and didn't see it change names but of course there are gaps in the WHOIS and we don't have the full info on it because the domain was not with us for the period in question. We also do not know who sold the domain or how. In this situation it appears we have the current owner listing the domain with our marketplace. James can contact me with any further information and we can do our best within our policies and legal boundaries to work to protect buyers and sellers using our marketplace. I did reach out to the owner of the domain as well for clarification and have not had a response yet.

you rock, great to have you around

 

[Arca]

Not surprising that NetSol would do that. They unfortunately take very lightly on moving domains out of accounts. Some users seemingly just have to ask for a domain to be moved to them, and NetSol take their word for it.

 

[OmarVG]

Darn! Another scam and this time it is another experienced domainer James Booth. He transferred 26k before realizing he had been scammed.

Experienced??? LOL He should have a big sign on his forehead that says: NEWBIE ALERT hahahahahaha!

Now he will remember the 2018 for the rest of his life! in a BAD way of course...

 

[mdent]

Moral of the story is, never keep a valuable domain at Network Solutions, not even for a minute. If you're buying a domain that's registered with Network Solutions, first ask the seller to transfer the domain out. Offer them an extra $100 for their trouble. If the seller refuses, they're probably trying to scam you.