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The domain JixHost.com was hijacked and stolen to another registrar

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Jose Nobio

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I'm an owner of an industry recognized webhosting provider "Jixhost.com" since 2008 for which my domain was hijacked on October of 2020 from Domains Priced Right (GoDaddy) to Namecheap under a different registrant located in the middle east which has made a copy of my website and essentially stole a business I've had for 12 years.

I had immediately opened an unauthorized domain transfer dispute with my registrar and after 3 months they reply that Namecheap responded that the transfer was "authorized"


I've also posted 3 videos on my YouTube channel "WebsitePlex" regarding what happened.

I'm hoping it would be of enough value to the community to learn from and to bring to light this unfortunate situation.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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I found the right attorney to handle this, thanks to your recommendations. The last considering factor is if its still viable financially for me to pursue this. Given the tarnished reputation of the domain and very light traffic (I still have access to google analytics for jixhost) I question if it's a good idea to invest several thousand dollars in recovering the domain. Any insight would be appreciated and if there's also a way to know the number of clients hosting with jixhost. Thanks
 
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In my view if respected lawyer is asking x dollar as a fees then he will help you to get back your asset worth 50x usd.
Don't you want to punish that fraud and recover your asset+business back ??
 
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I found the right attorney to handle this, thanks to your recommendations. The last considering factor is if its still viable financially for me to pursue this. Given the tarnished reputation of the domain and very light traffic (I still have access to google analytics for jixhost) I question
In my view if respected lawyer is asking x dollar as a fees then he will help you to get back your asset worth 50x usd.

didnt u read ..he just said he doesnt know what if anything his asset as u called it is worth now
 
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I found the right attorney to handle this, thanks to your recommendations. The last considering factor is if its still viable financially for me to pursue this. Given the tarnished reputation of the domain and very light traffic (I still have access to google analytics for jixhost) I question if it's a good idea to invest several thousand dollars in recovering the domain. Any insight would be appreciated and if there's also a way to know the number of clients hosting with jixhost. Thanks
If you had found @jberryhill immediately after the theft & acted right away, it would have been worth the money.

Over a year Iater, no it is not worth the money. WebsitePlex.com is a better business name then JixHost. JixHost.com without the business is worth $50 or less as it sounds like a non-serious kiddie host.

I'm disappointed with Namecheap.com as I thought they would act with integrity and open up their own independent investigation instead of relying on GoDaddy who we already knew was too big to be helpful. But I thought the smaller & more domainer-friendly Namecheap.com would help because they had a better reputation than terrible GoDaddy.

@Tamar, your Namecheap is just as bad as GoDaddy, too big & "by the book" to be helpful to domainers. You aren't able to bend rigid & outdated policies to do the right thing based on the specific circumstances of a case like JixHost.com

Turns out Namecheap.com is too filled with red-tape to care or flex their policy based on the circumstances. I will be moving my ~1000 domains away from Namecheap.com to a Registry small enough to care & with an owner I can message directly, @Rob Monster at Epik.com. If JixHost had been moved to Epik, you'd have your domain back the first week it was stolen.

Brent Oxley, because you were helped by NamePros, would you please be willing to use your fame & clout to put pressure on Namecheap @create.com ?

Please, everyone with a voice, urge others to move their domains away from Namecheap as I have done at my own forum:
https://hostboards.com/discussion/4455/move-domains-away-from-namecheap-to-epik/p1?new=1
 
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If you had found @jberryhill immediately after the theft & acted right away, it would have been worth the money.

Over a year Iater, no it is not worth the money. WebsitePlex.com is a better business name then JixHost. JixHost.com without the business is worth $50 or less as it sounds like a non-serious kiddie host.

I'm disappointed with Namecheap.com as I thought they would act with integrity and open up their own independent investigation instead of relying on GoDaddy who we already knew was too big to be helpful. But I thought the smaller & more domainer-friendly Namecheap.com would help because they had a better reputation than terrible GoDaddy.

@Tamar, your Namecheap is just as bad as GoDaddy, too big & "by the book" to be helpful to domainers. You aren't able to bend rigid & outdated policies to do the right thing based on the specific circumstances of a case like JixHost.com

Turns out Namecheap.com is too filled with red-tape to care or flex their policy based on the circumstances. I will be moving my ~1000 domains away from Namecheap.com to a Registry small enough to care & with an owner I can message directly, @Rob Monster at Epik.com. If JixHost had been moved to Epik, you'd have your domain back the first week it was stolen.

Brent Oxley, because you were helped by NamePros, would you please be willing to use your fame & clout to put pressure on Namecheap @create.com ?

Please, everyone with a voice, urge others to move their domains away from Namecheap as I have done at my own forum:
https://hostboards.com/discussion/4455/move-domains-away-from-namecheap-to-epik/p1?new=1

nc does not offer anyway good prices..nor pleasant ui

not even phone support.

I once had bunches of names there. but that was mostly when I began to domain...not knowing there is better

any serious savy seasoned domainer does not have nc as top their list.

they just do not give a damn about remaining competitive with their prices. and the price to pay for that is that clients wont give a.damn.about them. they will just surely fade into non existence.

I'm down to 6.names there..and wont be coming back.unless they move way up on domprices.com

which imo will be never

they will still catch newbies like I once was.into sucking extra cash...which is too bad.
but we all wasted money in some ways when beginning this biz.

not to mention there interface is terribly unfriendly and slow.
 
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... The last considering factor is …

…. To get the name back and protect your business reputation and at the same time you’re going to protect people from the scammer/s.

IMO

Regards
 
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Yeah, you should get it back :) Did your company earn good reputation? If so, some of old (but currently inactive) customers may return someday. Why not, many businesses go online in covid times. I, for one, have/had a number of registration and/or hosting accounts, not using all 100% at any moment, but I know what service providers will I use should I need something.

As for number of current customers: grep zone file (.com, .net, etc) using dns server names may give an idea who is using the particular hosting (how many customers). Not all zones are publicly available though, but, generally speaking, gtlds are.

Your new registrar? Check the following polls:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/best-favorite-registrar-end-of-year-poll.1219904/
https://www.namepros.com/threads/which-registrar-do-you-feel-safest-with.1182872/
(the best info is in comments). The polls are from domainers point of view, you may not need all the features like aftermarket or bulk tools though.
 
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Sorry to hear about your loss. Personally speaking, the business (JixHosting) is most likely ruined at this stage and the domain name isn't really worth much.. estimated value is less than $1500 so is that really worth $7 to $15K to chase down a domain name that was stolen by some moron in the middle east who most likely stole it to try and gain some sort of ransom demand / or perform an online scam to collect payments?!?

The best thing to do I'd say is to write it off as a loss and to try and focus on protecting and earning your customer's trust back if at all possible.

I understand you mentioned that the hosting servers were not breached, but think about what you mentioned prior, they took a backup of your WHMCS the main platform that houses your customer's details and account information. Breaching the hosting servers is small potatoes by comparison.

Even if you managed to get the name back it wouldn't be trusted by consumers because of this issue right here. Regular businesses that get hacked have a hard time bouncing back and earning consumer trust, for a "web hosting" business to get hi-jacked and to initially have customer account details stolen is a bad deal that most likely will never bounce back.

Sure email can be breached and have you looked into how that happened? They had to have gained access to a local machine or via some sort of virus to get access to an email account.

Anyway, I feel sorry for you and wish nothing but the best for you moving forward. It's a hard pill to swallow to think about leaving behind a "business" you have had for 12 years, but at this stage, you have to think about moving forward and doing damage control. That business is ruined and while the basics of teaching them a lesson sound good, 9X out of ten that lesson would never get learned by those kinds of people. Sometimes you just have to know when to cut the losses and move on.
 
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In the best interests of the industry, community, past and future clientele of JixHost, I have retained Attorney John Berryhill, Esq. to assist me in this matter in recovering the domain and its associated business to its rightful owner.
 
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In the best interests of the industry, community, past and future clientele of JixHost, I have retained Attorney John Berryhill, Esq. to assist me in this matter in recovering the domain and its associated business to its rightful owner.

Thanks for the update and good luck!
 
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@Jose Nobio Please keep us up to date will be interesting to see how this plays out
good luck getting everything back and more
 
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Great news today, with special thanks to Attorney John Berryhill, Esq. who is a true expert in his field; JixHost.com is in process to be returned back to its rightful owner.

> Dear Parties,
>
> Please find attached the full text of the decision issued on September
> 10, 2021 by the Administrative Panel in the above-referenced case.
>
> The Administrative Panel's finding is as follows:
> "For the foregoing reasons, in accordance with paragraphs 4(i) of the
> Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the disputed domain
> name <jixhost.com> be transferred to the Complainant."
 
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I'm posting this information in order to index and maybe help those affected by the same individual. The hijacker uses the email [email protected] , he also uses the PayPal email address to receive payments from unsuspecting clients, [email protected]
 
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I'm currently in the 10 day waiting period, so by September 30th I expect to have access to my domain again.
 
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