Morals?

[Morph]

Here's something we have been talking about in chat.

Here is the scenario

You find SBD.com (No idea why that domain) in your registrars account - there are no transfer or push logs nothing, no one has contacted you.

Do you A - Keep the domain - you have done nothing wrong, lets reap the rewards.

Do you B - Contact your registrar have to fax copies of your passport and various paperwork, have to ring them 3 times and finally they let you give the domain back to the owner. You get a nice thank you email.

Whatdo you do for Q 1?



Q2

You find SBD.com on ebay - no one else has bid on it and you get the domain for 0.99c. The seller pleas with you to let him/her keep the domain and they will give you a 100$ settlement for positive feedback.

Do you A - make them transfer the domain - you won fair and square
OR
Do you B - Accept the 100$ and leave pos feedback. you get thanked repeatedly by the seller and get a thank you card in the mail.

What would you do?

 

[True_Snake]

First case: I'd choose B. I'd hate to lose my domain like that, so I'd definitely attempt to find out what's going on and the original owner.

Second case: Ask for a $300 fee to decide whether to keep the domain or not :p. A "Thinking Fee" .

Seriously though, I'd keep it. eBay has tons of users and I'm sure many looked at the auction and didn't feel that it was good enough to go for higher than $0.99.

PS: Tom, love the avatar :D !


True_Snake

 

[Kenny]

Ahhh Maxie,
The perpetual voice of reason.
Thanks for holding up the mirror.

I retract my first statement on Q2,
and bow to the Gentleman from Mississippi
and his direction in the "what if it was me"
lesson.

w0w..... :great:

 

[Peter]

Here's something we have been talking about in chat.

Here is the scenario

You find SBD.com (No idea why that domain) in your registrars account - there are no transfer or push logs nothing, no one has contacted you.

Do you A - Keep the domain - you have done nothing wrong, lets reap the rewards.

Do you B - Contact your registrar have to fax copies of your passport and various paperwork, have to ring them 3 times and finally they let you give the domain back to the owner. You get a nice thank you email.

Whatdo you do for Q 1?

I would personally do B. Better to be honest than to gain through knowingly having something you should not.

Q2

You find SBD.com on ebay - no one else has bid on it and you get the domain for 0.99c. The seller pleas with you to let him/her keep the domain and they will give you a 100$ settlement for positive feedback.

Do you A - make them transfer the domain - you won fair and square
OR
Do you B - Accept the 100$ and leave pos feedback. you get thanked repeatedly by the seller and get a thank you card in the mail.

What would you do?

I would keep the domain name. The fact that you won the auction means that you are legally entitled to the domain name. It was the sellers own poor judgement that caused the situation. In such an auction they had the option for example to use a reserve price and chose not too, they took the gamble and lost.

 

[CrazyTech]

For the first one, B is the way to go for me.

For the second, I have to say that if you won the domain, you won it. I think it'd almost be a situational basis for me, though.

 

[.X.]

Ok...I have re-evaluated my decision on #2 -LOL

I would take the name,But if the seller made a generous offer so they could keep it, I would take the offer, On that LLL.com , generous means 2k+

 

[JuggernautH]

1: Hope the owner contacts me and offers me a great deal of money to get it back. If he missplaced it it's his own fault but of course i hate when that happends to myself so i would settle for a rather low reward.

2. Wouldn't think twice about it, he put it up on auction withouth reserve and it's his own fault.

 

[maximum]

Ahhh Maxie,
The perpetual voice of reason.
Thanks for holding up the mirror.

I retract my first statement on Q2,
and bow to the Gentleman from Mississippi
and his direction in the "what if it was me"
lesson.

w0w..... :great:

You know better than most here that this Gentleman from Mississippi is by no means a saint, and often not a gentleman. I did state "I could argue either give or take on either question.". My major point, however, immediately followed that statement with "But, this is a thread about morals." The "what if it was me" lesson - Most of us started with domains, buying them, selling them, and all the parts intertwined therein, without a clue what we were doing. How many of us have atleast once been taken advantage of? The odd part of this issue, when you reallly think about it, is rather simple: We complained when it happened to us "way back when", yet now say "let it be a lesson to that LLL.com Ebay seller in this hypothetical question". Like a thief yelling when his crap comes up missing, don't you think? You'd think you wouldn't want folks to have to learn the hard way you did - but, as the answers showed, many don't think of it that way, and some may not care.

I'm no more moral than most here. But, the topic thread itself made me think along those lines.....lines we (myself included, as you well know, Kenny) should all think along in the first place, but sadly don't always.

PS: That mirror can be outright scary sometimes, can't it, Kenny?

 

[armstrong]

The odd part of this issue, when you reallly think about it, is rather simple: We complained when it happened to us "way back when", yet now say "let it be a lesson to that LLL.com Ebay seller in this hypothetical question".

I once had several 2-letter dot-orgs in afternic. I had already started limiting my domaining at that time, and lost track of them. They were still in my account, but I stopped tracking their real-world values vs. what I placed as BIN 2 years prior. Then one day some alert domainer cleaned them all out. Had I been more alert, I could have easily sold them for at least twice the amount he paid for.

The adult thing to do was to take my "loss" like a man, and I did. How is this hypothetical ebay situation any different?

No Brainer

Q1) Find the owner, push it back.

Q2) No Reserve? And unlike NP, no buyout.
Thanks for the sale.

Kenny, here's a thorny question: what happens if you push it to the wrong guy? One possible scenario:

The LLL.com was sold by person A and pushed to person B a year ago. Person B did not update whois details. When you find the domain in your account, you contact person A, who asks you to push back to him. You tell your story at NP, then a week later person B chimes in with "but that's my domain!" Stupid of him? Yes, but if he raises a stink, you could still find yourself inconvenienced.

 

[Kenny]

The question in my mind is how did it end up in my account in the first place. It had to be a glitch on the part of the reg house, so I have no right to the name.

Apollo:
Good (as in ugly) scenario there....
Whatever the case may be, I cant keep the name.
Maxies Mirror is the one we look into every morning,
thats a lot of introspection...

 

[Skinny]

Q1 - I would do whatever it takes to get that domain back to its owner. It's not mine.

Q2 - An auction is an auction. If no one else bid that's not my fault. I won the name fair and square and expect the seller to follow the rules as well.

Skinny

 

[armstrong]

Whatever the case may be, I cant keep the name.

Then make it somebody else's problem. Shoot a quick email to the registrar; it was probably their glitch, make them sort it out. If someone emails you requesting a push, just give them a copy of the email. If the domain is still in your account come renew time, then let it expire. The moment you actively decide the fate of the domain, then you might be held liable.

 

[Kenny]

Good point! Personal Liability... hadnt thought of that.

 

[ehoez.com]

lol, did this happen to you?