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.

 

[tonecas]

@BoothDomains

please remove my CQD.com domain from your web site as
"Here are some of our recent sales :"
because it certainly was not!

https://www.bqdn.com/sales

man, i come to this thread just to find more very lame stuff.

REALLY??

@BoothDomains says that he has returned the domain back to Rebecca and then we know that Network Solutions did it, not James, and after first doing the reverse following a "3 month investigation" (shame on you also Network Solutions)

then James goes ahead and places the domain counting as a sale on his website/platform. probably an error but there are already too much errors from James and for too long.

and not even a single voice commenting on this.

i'll bet that some months from now James will be all clean and sweet, and everyone will praise how good domainer he his and what a nice guy to do business.

and burn the sucker that goes against this and call things as they are. more voices will appear then than now.

and then people get amazed how rotten this industry is and how bad it is looked by the general public

and regarding Rebecca's blazing her guns against @Jackson Elsegood, she is in all her right. She is not a domainer, she had to pass an ordeal to get her domain back and did not get even a single word from Escrow over this mess! Don't come in saying how great Escrow is and how great these guys are. WTF? where is everyone's sense of justice and independence??

Escrow HAD a bug in their platform. They might still have. They have not addressed this issue that might have plagued other sales in the past but that haven't come to public.

yeah, just sit tight and don't say anything and let's see if the storm passes by and the issue gets forgotten. that is a very wise business decision but not an honest and transparent one, so please cut the BS about praising other people when they fail to keep up to their reputation.

 

[offthehandle]

i'll bet that some months from now James will be all clean and sweet, and everyone will praise how good domainer he his and what a nice guy to do business.

Since I have been on this forum you and a few more people are vocal. I saw through this as a slippery business with low barrier to entry starting last year with the Bidding on your own names thread. But I have continued to participate in questioning various irregularities.

Then I believe those working behind the scenes investigating and they do good work, And I think in the future, there is enough evidence being gathered right now behind the scenes to expose more irregular behaviors, scams and nonsense. It should be interesting when it is released.

But... as you know.
The in-the-news people reported weekly doing wholesale only business
The flippers
The get rich quick youtubers
Those who are simply not interested in integrity.
Those who are all about the pom-poms cheering on the positive, myopic to reality, dismissing and tuning out negativity as though it is jealousy or hate.
Or the personal attacks and threats.
A couple blogger clowns and sideshow circus acts.
The pump and dumpers.
The shill bidders.
The offshore cartel.
The renewal after expire game.
The Auction hidden bidder ID game.
The API bidder game.
The passing around “musical” domains game.
The cyber squatters getting UDRP’s (Amusing to follow)
The trademark infringers who sell domains to newbies like Segway, knowing they are infringing.
Etc.

Keep the faith though, as there are really some good people here.
The real news is END USER sales!! Love to hear about those, but remain cynical when even those after being reported, you check 2 months later, the whois doesnt change or if it does they supposedly paid $XXX,XXX. Yet the It does not even resolve to a website!

 

[Brandon Abbey]

If I remember correctly escrow.com has not replied in this thread. I expect that they have taken this stance on the advice of legal counsel. If a crime was committed you need to follow the money and we can assume they know where it went. If they are given a proper subpoena they will most likely comply. Regarding someone saying they have over 100 employees, when I ran the company we were less than 15. Based on their current financial results from the freelancer annual report - "For the full year, Escrow.com was a major drag on GPV for the group, dropping to $428 million in FY17 from $506 million in FY16 (-15%)." I doubt they added 85+ employees to their payroll, but i could be wrong.

Back in the day a transaction of this size went through a manual review at escrow.com First by an escrow officer, then the escrow manager and then me. If the payout was for a person with a Florida address in the system and the funds were being sent to Latvia that would send up a red flag. Additional due diligence was done to verify the validity of the transaction. I expect there are a few of you out there reading this who benefited from this process. We didn't catch everything, but we did a pretty good job.

I believe escrow.com followed their terms of service in that the "seller" indicated they were the rightful owner of the domain. I would expect they are now doing everything legally possible to assist Mr. Booth in getting his funds returned.

 

[winst]

and regarding Rebecca's blazing her guns against @Jackson Elsegood, she is in all her right. She is not a domainer, she had to pass an ordeal to get her domain back and did not get even a single word from Escrow over this mess! Don't come in saying how great Escrow is and how great these guys are. WTF? where is everyone's sense of justice and independence??

I disagree with this statement. Again, no association with any parties. This is getting out of hand and becomes too much of an "entitlement" and blaming every company indiscriminately out of ignorance. I don't like it.

If someone stole your car (with keys and title) and sold it using an escrow service, do you blame the escrow service? Do you blame the bank that offered the escrow service? The anger seems misplaced. If your car key was at the dealer, you blame the dealer.

So how do we prevent these types of problems in the future? Perhaps the escrow.com could offer a "title insurance" and "title search" service. We need to use more reputable domain registrar. We need to use MFA (multi-factor authentication). Maybe even record all transaction records on a blockchain.

@Brandon Abbey
So Escrow.com is a lot smaller than I thought. I based the 100 employee # on the Linkedin Search. I guess I was wrong.

On a lighter note, I can understand why some managers don't want to "MAN UP"; Years ago when my uncle first opened a Chinese fast food restaurant and he told me he never tells customers that he's the owner or the manager. I asked him why, he says people only come to the owner to complain and get free food.

 

[SoManyDomains]

@tonecas
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@BoothDomains says that he has returned the domain back to Rebecca and then we know that Network Solutions did it, not James, and after first doing the reverse following a "3 month investigation" (shame on you also Network Solutions)


James only mentioned the domain name been pushed back to Rebecca account!!! You were in the front line to post "It is hard to take the loss but it was an honest and ethical action to do." - "from my side I am here to help you now." Remember? Good.

Shame on Network Solution you say? oh, yes , you should explain them how to do proper investigations. Go ahead... seriously...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


then James goes ahead and places the domain counting as a sale on his website/platform. probably an error but there are already too much errors from James and for too long.

OH no $hit sherlock! Of course it's still listed, it's was a deal for him before he figured out he got scammed.

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and not even a single voice commenting on this.

He owes you NOTHING.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i'll bet that some months from now James will be all clean and sweet, and everyone will praise how good domainer he his and what a nice guy to do business.


Yes, that's correct. Business is business... but how would you know...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and burn the sucker that goes against this and call things as they are. more voices will appear then than now.

and then people get amazed how rotten this industry is and how bad it is looked by the general public

You are the rotten apple in the industry. Spreading hate, no business, what you are good for?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and regarding Rebecca's blazing her guns against @Jackson Elsegood, she is in all her right. She is not a domainer, she had to pass an ordeal to get her domain back and did not get even a single word from Escrow over this mess! Don't come in saying how great Escrow is and how great these guys are. WTF? where is everyone's sense of justice and independence??

Rebecca should be happy with the outcome and be very careful with her words

Escrow did NOTHING wrong, and they are not obligated to respond to some hysterical women talking non-sense 99% of the time. I would be surprised if they would.

I know it's would be hard for you to understand, but you CAN'T blame escrow.com in this situation, if you would be in domaining you would know.

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yeah, just sit tight and don't say anything and let's see if the storm passes by and the issue gets forgotten. that is a very wise business decision but not an honest and transparent one, so please cut the BS about praising other people when they fail to keep up to their reputation.

Right, cut your BS HATER.

 

[tonecas]

I disagree with this statement. Again, no association with any parties. This is getting out of hand and becomes too much of an "entitlement" and blaming every company indiscriminately out of ignorance. I don't like it.

If someone stole your car (with keys and title) and sold it using an escrow service, do you blame the escrow service? Do you blame the bank that offered the escrow service? The anger seems misplaced. If your car key was at the dealer, you blame the dealer.

I see your point, but the problem is Escrow hasn't made a single comment on this AFAIK.
they can have been advised by their legal team to not give up any details, but they could - and should have - give some feedback. A simple "We cannot provide any details but rest assure we are following this issue".

because this is not only this case per se. it's the bug in Escrow system that I described some posts back that could have also been used to help scam Rebecca (and James) on this and even other transactions.

i don't know if you and others noticed but Escrow could let a client change his name and all other information at any time, even after a transaction has been made and having that new info show up in the transaction records.

don't you think that alongside with Rebecca's case this is sufficient to ring some bells? to get someone talk about this? nope. it seems more important to come here and say "look, this guy and that guy is honest and there is no reason to doubt them" even when there is evidence after evidence that all this is a bunch of BS.

Rebecca is not a domainer. If i was in her shoes I would have blast even more and shoot everyone. specially when seeing so much silence.

thank God there are some new guys like @Grilled that remain skeptical and go the extra mile on investigating things and help others.

 

[Kenny]

Hello Members,

Off Topic / Flaming / Trolling

1.2. Be professional, tactful, and constructive at all times. Do not harass, threaten, attack, instigate, insult, or antagonize others.

We understand this issue is heated and everyone is entitled to their opinion,
but personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Please keep it On Topic.

Thank you.

Peace,
Kenny

 

[winst]

because this is not only this case per se. it's the bug in Escrow system that I described some posts back that could have also been used to help scam Rebecca (and James) on this and even other transactions.

i don't know if you and others noticed but Escrow could let a client change his name and all other information at any time, even after a transaction has been made and having that new info show up in the transaction records.

I SUSPECT the "name change" is only in the buyer/seller's account, it PROBABLY does not change what Escrow.com has for the transactions. I suspect nobody wants to release their log files unless they were served with a subpoena (trade secrets).

To me, escrows are only slightly above CASH, a holding place between a buyer and a seller. It is not a contract, there is no insurance, it does not verify ownership (like a title search). I used it because it is cheaper than the domain marketplaces, and the buyer/seller reached me directly.

This 49 page thread really just reaffirm my belief that everyone should be mindful and guard their email accounts, and Network Solutions is terrible: Allowing hacker(s) to push a domain name out, revert the ownership back to Robeecca, send it to James Booth, then forced James Booth to give it up.

If anything, Network Solutions should explain how it came to the decision, or they just bend toward whoever has the bigger guns?

 

[alwaysforGod]

A resounding don't ever use Network Solutions seems to be the prevalent thought and takeaway, in general.

 

[spoiltrider]

Last evidence and facts I see posted here were @Grilled notes.

Curious, if you can comment? Do you have some new information? No answer to my earlier question.

hi kate, grilled is offline with no access to his devises right now. he will be back soon though. he emailed me a few weeks ago to let me know.

 

[offthehandle]

@spoiltrider Any updates on finding the thief? Is the law enforcement investigation under way?

 

[tonecas]

@spoiltrider Any updates on finding the thief? Is the law enforcement investigation under way?

i suggest @spoiltrider to not waist any more time with this and:

1) move the domain out of Network Solutions as soon as possible (look at Name.com or NameSilo.com for instance)
2) change the whois information to another email address since the yahoo.com accounts are prone to hacks. start using something like protonmail.com and *to not use the same password in this email account in other services*

for the rest, let the suckers burn and deal with their own problems. they have a lot of friends to help them like the music says:

 

[Kate]

I can't believe the whois is still listing a Yahoo E-mail account...

 

[Dave]

@spoiltrider Congrats on getting your domain back.

I am obviously quite late to this thread, had to find a fair amount of time to sit down and read through and digest it all.

@Grilled Fantastic investigative work as usual.

@spoiltrider Why is cqd.com still at Network Solutions? If I was you I would make it top priority to get this domain name out of there and as far away from their incompetence asap.

 

[spoiltrider]

I can't believe the whois is still listing a Yahoo E-mail account...

i can't change anything for 60 days from when i got it back.
but trust me....it's moving!

 

[spoiltrider]

@spoiltrider Congrats on getting your domain back.

I am obviously quite late to this thread, had to find a fair amount of time to sit down and read through and digest it all.

@Grilled Fantastic investigative work as usual.

@spoiltrider Why is cqd.com still at Network Solutions? If I was you I would make it top priority to get this domain name out of there and as far away from their incompetence asap.

its on a 60 day lock. they have been advised.
it's moving and going private.

 

[tonecas]

@spoiltrider, after the lock please be careful with this situation coming from EU regulations on data protection (GDPR)

(2) Transfers

If a domain name is transferred to a new registrar, the new registrar cannot email the owner to verify approval. That's because the whois email address at the old registrar may be hidden due to GDPR. Consequently, the domain transfer process at most registrars will now skip that step.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

@spoiltrider In regards to the 60 day lock, I am fairly certain the removal of said lock is up to the rar should they wish to. Considering the circumstances they should remove it for you so changes or transfers can be made. It will be a fight as they can just claim TOS but I am certain it is at their discretion. Alternatively if a lock is made and no trans possible there isnt much to worry about in terms of another theft from the rar.

 

[BrandMart]

Good that @spoiltrider got her domain back. Just keep it secure and well accessed from now on.

 

[spoiltrider]

man, i come to this thread just to find more very lame stuff.

REALLY??

@BoothDomains says that he has returned the domain back to Rebecca and then we know that Network Solutions did it, not James, and after first doing the reverse following a "3 month investigation" (shame on you also Network Solutions)

then James goes ahead and places the domain counting as a sale on his website/platform. probably an error but there are already too much errors from James and for too long.

and not even a single voice commenting on this.

i'll bet that some months from now James will be all clean and sweet, and everyone will praise how good domainer he his and what a nice guy to do business.

and burn the sucker that goes against this and call things as they are. more voices will appear then than now.

and then people get amazed how rotten this industry is and how bad it is looked by the general public

and regarding Rebecca's blazing her guns against @Jackson Elsegood, she is in all her right. She is not a domainer, she had to pass an ordeal to get her domain back and did not get even a single word from Escrow over this mess! Don't come in saying how great Escrow is and how great these guys are. WTF? where is everyone's sense of justice and independence??

Escrow HAD a bug in their platform. They might still have. They have not addressed this issue that might have plagued other sales in the past but that haven't come to public.

yeah, just sit tight and don't say anything and let's see if the storm passes by and the issue gets forgotten. that is a very wise business decision but not an honest and transparent one, so please cut the BS about praising other people when they fail to keep up to their reputation.

thank you!! i appreciate your post here. i am still working it.

i will get all the puzzle pieces fitted and then hopefully burn down the house of escrow. netsol has my domain locked for 60 days since 4/24. they say they can't move it because of icann rules but it's BS. nothing good came from this for me. my years of honest hard work came to a screeching halt, and james was told right up front that the domain was stolen but he took the low-rent road and tried to swindle me out of his lost money. he's an asshole-punk with peach fuzz on his face, and i won't ever forgive him for what he did. he's a effing lying sack of pig shit in my humble opinion. ha he removed his pic from his web site, but i lifted it months ago (cause ya can) and it's in my file called "STOLEN CQD" it's what the "buyer" did with my pic....blue ink notarized PROFESSIONAL domain sales contracts people! it's what you need.

i await @Grilled

 

[spoiltrider]

i suggest @spoiltrider to not waist any more time with this and:

1) move the domain out of Network Solutions as soon as possible (look at Name.com or NameSilo.com for instance)
2) change the whois information to another email address since the yahoo.com accounts are prone to hacks. start using something like protonmail.com and *to not use the same password in this email account in other services*

for the rest, let the suckers burn and deal with their own problems. they have a lot of friends to help them like the music says:

PS i love the old school video. i recognize all the artists. LOL

 

[tonyk2000]

@spoiltrider - congrats on transferring your cqd.com to a trusted registrar. I just checked whois and it now shows Epik as the registrar. A good choice.

 

[larryscott2559]

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.

After reading this and reading about France.com Im almost sure I'll never use Web.com

 

[creataweb]

Did anyone ever get arrested from this?

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

@Jackson Elsegood can you post here what happened at your end so we can all learn from this and prevent it from happening again?