Due Dilligence before purchasing a domain

[calian]

What steps do you guys recommend before purchasing a domain? Some that I have come up with include:

-Use an escrow service such as escrow.com or sedo
-Do a search to see if anyone has listed the domain as stolen
-Send an email to the email listed on the contact of whois for confirmation
-Pay using a credit card

I still don't know how you can really protect yourself from purchasing a stolen domain. Even if you could access the previous whois' to contact any previous owners, how could you guarantee that they would give you a straight answer regarding their sale of the name.

Have any of you been burned buying a domain and if so, what would you do differently in the future?

 

[Dave_Z]

You're forgetting one more: have a competent attorney handy.