What’s happened to my domain?

Afternic explained that No, the domain had not been listed for sale in my Afternic account but that the reason I received this email was
“it appears that the current owner of the domain name has not updated the Whois information, and it still had your information. That is why the email; was sent. The domain has not been listed since 2017, when you sold it.”

 

This is a tad scary to be honest.

 

No that will not be the case.The registrar knows if you are the same owner or not who opted in the domain for sale and will cancel the fast transfer ability for the domain when ownership changes.

 

Then what happened here? @Joe Styler please end the speculation.

 

Namesilo has already commented and been in touch with the OP it is really their prerogative to comment or not on what happened with the domain or the OP who has been in contact with them as well.

 

Any updates @Blueforever ?

 

So it sounds like someone else listed it and @Blueforever accidentally clicked the opt-in link.

Seems to me Afternic needs better verification system than just an email that an unsuspecting domain owner could click the link in not realizing what they did.

 

1) You said this

This is contrary to what @Joe Styler said. I wish he would clarify, instead of towing the godaddy line - "yeah, someone ELSE must have done something wrong, like click on an email they were not supposed to click on".

WHAT ABOUT godaddy not sending emails to people when the target email doesn't match the afternic account used to market the domain?

 

Can you imagine - Bank of America saying, "we sent you the wrong email, and when you clicked on it, we credited this random person's account $500 - Be careful next time when we send you emails we should not have sent".... REALLY? Is this what this has come to?

 

That's my understanding based on what the op stated in his post I quoted.

FWIW the opt in email comes from the registrar not Afternic so they dont know if it matches. Plus for me I do use a different email address for whois than I use for Afternic so that would be annoying if they made that restriction. The real fix is verify ownership via dns text record. Which will also simplify dealing with domains already listed as well. But @Joe Styler has already said that they wont do that because hes been told by others they dont want that. Like it's that hard to set a default DNS record in your registrar account...so instead we are left with be careful before you click links in emails you get (which with phishing and spear-phishing isn't a half bad idea, but every site always wanting to verify your email address by you clicking a link makes that common so I think for most casual internet users they are too trusting with clicking links) but they shouldn't be passing the buck like that.

It seems real bad that someone can add a domain to their Afternic account and hope the owner, not knowing better, clicks the opt in link. Then "buy" the domain to steal it.

 

We all like the dns text record. He is probably going off HUGE domains and perhaps a few other whales. He - meaning godaddy - Kowtow to anyone bringing them the most $$$ - not the person who wants to do things the right way.

Just look how they have screwed up their auction platform - Kowtowing to HUGE there as well.

 

Shhh....don't tell @Joe Styler

 

Nothing as yet. Was told by afternic support to wait till after thanksgiving as offices will be closed. Have written to both namesilo and afternic. Just waiting for a reply.

 

Please keep the community updated with how it goes. Thanks.

 

If godaddy/afternic weren't in the wrong - @Joe Styler would have said so. He hasn't said this - he has just danced.

Like many things in life, the first step of fixing a problem, is recognizing that you indeed have a problem. Joe Styler and Godaddy and Afternic will not accept responsibility for anything.

 

As long as we don't know all details regarding this specific case I won't comment on that.

However, it's unfair to say Joe never accepts responsibility. He's just a DM away if you need issues fixed. I'm not a GoDaddy fan but Joe is an asset.

 

Well, then he should tell us what happened, so we know how to protect our holdings. He already said the domain was transferred via afternic.

 

Maybe he can, maybe he can't. He cannot be accountable for everything that goes wrong at GD and affiliated companies.

He checks up on a lot of things that go wrong, even when technically it's not his job to do so.

I'm with all of you that TXT record verification should be mandatory. This thing is a mess. Still... Joe aint GD and he's a bigger asset to this community than most.

Again, I'm not a GD fan but Joe definitely is a guy I want to have around so when sh*t hits the fence, I know who will help, or try to, as far as within his capabilities.

 

what the former owner might have did is. gave you permission on the domain and it let it show the domain your account but was able to keep access to the domain which mean he didn't give you 100% power.

 

This is really scary to read and follow up with. I can imagine the stress and time already wasted on this. The domain business is risky!