Hosts.com - How Name.com defrauded me out of a great backorder

[GoWebnames.com]

Ok, here is a recap of what happened in short in last 10 days:

1) I was checking expiring names at Name.com and saw Hosts.com available for backorder since the original owner didn't renew it for some reason best known to him. Couldn't believe someone would let it expire, it's registered since 1998

2) Since Name.com accepts only 1 backorder per available name, I placed a backorder immediately and double checked to make sure if backorder was not available to anyone else. Soon as I placed a backorder, Hosts.com said it was not available for any other backorders.

3) The backorder was SUCCESSFUL and CONFIRMED to me by Name.com on my email (see screenshot)

4) 4 days later, I saw my backorder change to not available in my name.com account and when I checked Hosts.com again, it showed to be available as a PREMIUM NAME with Name.com

5) When I enquired with Name.com, they gave a vague answer saying backorder is only possible when Name is available.

6) I enquired through their interface, they gave me a BIN price of $175,000 for Hosts.com

Can you believe it? Name.com just defrauded me out of a great backorder and kept the name for themselves.

I am trying to talk to them , let's see what comes up.

Is there any possibility of a law suit here in case they don't transfer the name?

Here are the screenshots:

 

[Keith]

You're not understanding how the system works.

You backordered the domain and got a confirmation or "success". The domain has to delete and be caught by Name in order for you to obtain it. In this case, the domain never deleted and was renewed. The owner has the right to list it for sale wherever they choose.

Nobody cheated you, it's just how the system has always worked.

 

[Kate]

The thread title should be changed because you obviously don't understand how backorders work.

 

[equity78]

@defaultuser John I know where you are coming from but I think there is some distinction of note, whether anyone should be able to auction off domain names and make money from it is a discussion worth having, I think there are plenty against that and some are actual domainers, one might say they feel that way because they don't have the budget to compete with a Brad Mugford or Mike Berkens or hundreds of other well financed domain investors.

I think what Name.com is doing by not letting a name drop and go to auction is a separate issue, look Go Daddy would love to keep the great names that expire at their registry, they could hold any LLL.com or NNN through NNNNN.com to sell how and where they see fit.

They used to have an entity that warehoused domains and got taken to task by many in the industry and stopped that.

Not every domain that Go Daddy or NameJet auctions off is the result of someone having a hardship, I let ZZTV.org, it was at Fabulous so when someone picked it up on NameJet I got a %,of that $69 bid, that is what I would like to see all the registrars do,set up a scenario where the previous registrant gets a piece of the proceeds. Fabulous and Above.com have put that mechanism into place.

If someone wants to say well no one should have the ability to profit from a dropped name, let it drop and fastest to register it wins, that is a separate discussion, but we all know that would be gamed too, those with the resources would set up a system that not all the Netizens of the world would have an equal chance to get a domain name when it dropped.

 

[The New Guy]

Did you actually think you had a chance to get hosts.com for $50?

 

[Kate]

Industry Standard? Am I missing something? You're telling me that stealing domain names is industry standard? So some guy dies, the domain expires, and the Registrar claims ownership of that domain name?

That's it. But you don't have to die, you just have to let your domain expire.
Why ? Because they can. It's one of the perks of operating within a loosely-regulated industry.

 

[discobull]

Nobody has suggested that the OP should get the name for $50.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that not getting the domain for 50 bucks is the reason the thread was started.

 

[carob]

Ive learnt that you never search for your names using one of the big registrars, use a small one to find the names, then go to your usually registrar to grab the name

Yes there are a lot of reports of registrars using the search data to grab names.

There is no need to search WHOIS at a registrar, ever - I have not for at least 5 years. What you need is a simple WHOIS client on your pc to do it direct for you. It's normally inbuilt in Linux, and you can add it in Windows:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb897435.aspx
tutorial: http://www.devcurry.com/2010/03/whois-information-using-windows-command.html

or http://sourceforge.net/projects/whoiswin/

I hope that helps everyone that needs it.

 

[.NJ]

Welcome to the domain industry.....................

 

[pooky]

My sympathies, GoWebNames.

Exact same thing happened to me with CloudStore.com back in June.

I had saved this piece regarding Name.com's domain expiry rules for future reference at the time (don't remember where from):
Depends on the extension, but after day 26 it is no longer visible in your acct. Days 35 and 36 the domain is offered for backorder, and on day 37 the domain is offered to the public via our 'expiring domain' service.

They seem to refer to as 'backorder', what would be known as pre-release anywhere else. This is different from their Domain Nabber, which is a conventional backorder.
As mentioned above, according to their own rules, any expiring domain is given to the person who has backordered (pre-release actually, only one person can place the order), and if there is no such order, the domain is put on expiring auction at decreasing prices till it goes into redemptionPeriod.

Instead, the domain was "absorbed" by the registrar around day 35 and put on sale at different sites, including GoDaddy auctions and Sedo.

Their asking price for CloudStore.com was $82000, a few days after they took over ownership.

I haven't visited their website after this distasteful experience, except to transfer out my domains from there.

 

[discobull]

Huh? This sounds to me like much ado about nothing.

1) The domain never dropped or even entered pending delete status.

2) Just because you're the only one that places a backorder through Name.com does not mean that you would have won the domain even if it had dropped. If hosts.com was dropping, you can be sure that there would have been 100+ backorders for it through namejet, snapnames, etc., and the probability that name.com would have beat those dropcatchers is pretty close to 0 ( I've placed about 50 backorders through name.com for domains that actually dropped and so far they've captured exactly none).

You can't be defrauded out of something you never had in the first place so I'm not sure what all the commotion is about.

 

[pooky]

@carob

Normally, Name.com offers up the domain to the (only) backorder on Day 35/36.
If there is no backorder on the name, I believe the domain is listed on expiring domains:
https://www.name.com/expired_domains.php

I'm not sure a link would work, but if you search for myintellipath.com there (owned by Dan Sheley), you can see it available for immediate purchase @ $79.00 (It was $129 yesterday, tomorrow it will be listed at $39 and so on if no one purchases it.)
It's not an auction, it's the equivalent of GoDaddy closeouts.

It will go into redemptionPeriod if no one buys it.

The $50 was for the purchase of the domain before it got listed on expiring domains.

What should definitely not happen is the registrar hijacking the domain.

 

[VirtualT]

"Because they can" is not the Universal answer to everything, it is the worst answer someone could possibly give.

Unfortunately just because its annoying doesn't make it any less relevant, you need to expect business will operate within their rules/laws to maximise profit unless by doing so they generate enough bad publicity to make it unviable, hopefully this is the latter..

 

[Kate]

Just because someone can do something, doesn't make it legal or ethical.

Did I say that ?
Just saying that What is right or fair, and what actually goes on in this industry are two different things.

 

[Keith]

There you go again accusing Name.com without listening to what they have to say about it.

Stub, it's not looking good for Name. They're mistake was grabbing a domain with public Whois and skipping their standard drop procedure.

As for their reply to icann...any excuse they give will suffice. It's a lost cause but at least it puts a bug in the room!

 

[domainventure]

The registrar's primary responsibility is that towards the registrant. The original registrant has been able to renew his domain for 15 some years without any issues and I'm sure that the registrar had also provided the required domain expiration notices to the registrant till the point the domain expired. There is no fraud here. Fraud happens when the registrar is complicit in the domain being removed out of the registrant's account without the registrant's knowledge or allows for someone else access the account and remove the domain etc, which has clearly not been the case here...

In a pre-release kind of scenario, OP tried to buy the domain by placing a non exclusive 'option to buy' where the sale was NOT guaranteed.

I do not believe the OP has a shot at this, it's like missing the mega millions by one number, the crucial number.

Just my opinion, and please it's just my opinion.

 

[Keith]

What's the point of speculation? Research and find out or move on imho.

The speculation period ended when a rep for Rightside.co, aka Name.com, emailed the OP:

Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. I work with Rightside and we are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly discuss it with my team.

How did Rightside come to own the domain? It clearly didn't go thru the "normal" expiration process that all others do. It doesn't take a genius to solve the puzzle here.

 

[DU]

If you're looking to argue, go on another forum. There has been so much evidence presented in this thread, that shows Name.com did something which should not have been done. Why haven't Name.com replied to this thread? I contacted them to reply to this thread, and they haven't done so.

I'm not looking to argue. I'm telling you the way it is - name.com did something that is very common that just about everyone on this forum has taken advantage of at some point in time. When you win that GoDaddy auction where do you think that domain came from? When you get Namejet pre-release, where do you think that name came from? These are names that are expired. There's a reason that the domain age doesn't die with these auctions.

People are complaining because it doesn't work the way the way they want. Too fucking bad, that's how the system works.If you don't like it? Get together the people and someone with legal expertise and force ICAN to do something. Don't complain if the net results aren't to your liking. The side effects of legal changes are often not understood until after implementation.

If murder becomes "normal", does that make it legal or ethical? If everyone is dying around you and you get murdered too, it's not so bad, right? Just because you wrote "Welcome to the 'normal'" doesn't mean it isn't illegal or unethical.

There's on teeny tiny minor difference - what Name.com did is not illegal and many would say it's not even unethical. I think it's unethical but what I think doesn't matter and my standards are different than yours. I find a lot of general domainer activity unethical. A LOT of it.

Take your example and make it more similar to reality rather than some bogus strawman. Domains were never intended to be hoarded or bought and sold for profit by investors yet I surmise you would call it legal and ethical and very normal. You would likely find fault with someone else who dared say otherwise.

So, as I said, you and many others want to have their cake and eat it too.

I might as well put up a porn star avatar, and see all my posts being liked too. Psychology, much? 90% Male forum + Pornstar Avatar = All posts being liked.

She's a pornstar? Actually, you really have no idea do you? I trade bjs for likes.

Now, I've seen them chime in at NP before. I'll die holding my breath as we await their reply to this thread. Are you out there Name?

I'll do it for them and save them the effort:
Name.com is the registrar of record for hosts.com and a subsidiary of Rightside.co. Rightside are the current owners of the domain. If you would like to present your best offer I will certainly pass it on.

If you pushed them further:
We may make expired domain name services(s) available to third parties, we may auction off the rights to expired domain name services (the auction beginning close to the end or after the end of the reactivation period), and/or expired domain name registration services may be re-registered to any party at any time.

If you really pushed them:
We have a kegerator. We used to be cool until Mushkin sold us out for cash interest.

Full Disclosure: I currently have 4 names with them (2 I can't move, and 2 I will next expiry)

 

[Kate]

I think the wording is confusing.
It's not the backorder that was 'successful'. Instead, the mail means that you successfully claimed the backorder slot for this domain (I understand name.com backorders are exclusive - first come first served).
Then the domain name must have been renewed (as expected). So the backorder is nullified.

Domains don't drop so fast, did you expect that the domain would be allocated to you on the spot ?

 

[Keith]

It is THAT case. Please read the thread carefully, you haven't even understood what I am trying to say before making your opinion.
"Is it a fair business practice to allow and register a backorder first and then decide to keep the name for yourself without first honoring the backorder?"
That's what it's all about.

They can only honor your BO if the domain deletes and they catch it. Assume it deleted, they would've never caught it anyways.

The question is did they renew it for themselves and is that allowed by ICANN?

 

[Soofi]

Gowebnames.com, please check this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b3hbed609mkp2ow/Screenshot 2014-09-24 04.39.16.png?dl=0

It clearly states the offer has been sent to the current owner of domain name when you submit an offer using the link you had provided above.

Your interest in the domain will be forwarded to the current domain owner. You should receive a response within one to four business days.​

Now the question remains though, who renewed HOSTS.com??

 

[The New Guy]

if it dropped and name.com was the catcher he would have gotten it for 50 bucks, but it would never have dropped given name would auction it and possibly thru namejet.

That was part of my point.

When bespoke.com actually did drop this year, the winning drop catch cost nearly $20,000.

 

[Soofi]

GoWebNames, you need a lawyer IMO

 

[Soofi]

John Berryhill is definitely a good option, however you could also seek help from Jason Schaeffer from Esqwire Inc or Karen Bernstein from Bernstein IP.

Let me know if you need introduction to any of these.

I also, sort of, know Akram Attalah (ICANN GLOBAL HEAD) and could introduce you to him as well.

Also, consider bringing this thread to the notice of Ron Jackson (DNJournal.com), Mike Berkens (TheDomains.com) and other domain name bloggers to highlight the issue through their websites.

Whatever it may be, take your chances and pursue what you think is right with proper proof.

Good luck!

 

[chickenfillet]

Why are they so keen on selling so fast? What other communication was there between you and them? Did they answer you as to whether the owner is still Dan Sheley, or how they now manage to claim they are the "current owners"?

Why are they throwing in hosts.org too? The DNS History clearly shows that hosts.org was owned by the same person, Dan Sheley, because the DNS servers used were the same since registration.

Until Name.com admits how they managed to get their hands on that domain name, I am contacting ICANN myself.

EDIT: Has anyone tried emailing the previous owner "[email protected]" to check if emails bounce? It actually looks like the previous owner may have died (I can't confirm anything yet), because even the hostscorp.com domain name has been for sale by another party for a while now.

2nd EDIT: Confirmed. Emails bounce when emailing [email protected], so there is a good chance the previous owner died, and Name.com illegally decided to snatch it up, and bypass proper procedure of obtaining domain names.

Hi ICANN, I have a complaint regarding Name.com...