Domain Theft: The New Internet Scourge

Having your domain name stolen is like getting punched in the gut. You try to log on to do some work on your site, or update some product information, but nothing works. You can’t get in, and you can’t switch things back. Or you check your email to find a notice that your domain name has been successfully switched to the new registrar, but you didn’t initiate any switch. You might feel lost, confused, miserable, and just plain angry.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to get your domain name back. First, change all your passwords. While changing passwords may seem a lot like closing the barn door after the horse already got out, you don’t want whoever hacked into your account and transferred your domain away to have any more access to anything belonging to you.

It won’t fix your problem, but it can help keep the hacker from getting to anything else in your email account, or transferring any more domains (if you have others) away from you.

Next, contact your registrar. You want to make sure they know about the problem as soon as possible. They may have a policy for those kinds of problems, or a procedure you can start on that will allow you to move toward getting your domain name back. They may also be less than helpful.

Either way, it’s important to make the effort to let them know what’s going on, as proof that you acted quickly and attempted to resolve the problem. Some registrars will be willing to file a complaint against the registrar to which the stolen domain was transferred, but that’s not the case with all of them.

If you don’t get a quick resolution from working with your registrar, there are more significant steps you can take. Although the UDRP process is not normally considered one of the steps you can take, recently an UDRP was filed and achieved the return of the domain name.

The case CIN –

Follow Up With a Best Offer

I make quite a few private acquisition offers via email on a daily basis. I am in constant contact with people who own domain names, and the vast (maybe 99.9%) majority of these domain names are owned people who bought the domain name with a plan to use it.

When making an offer, I try to be as reasonable as possible. I know that a low offer on a good domain name won’t elicit a response, and a high offer will hurt the chances of making a solid return on my investment. Making a reasonable offer takes some finesse, but it is an important aspect of the acquisition process for me.

More often than not, a response I receive is “the domain name is not for sale.” I have found that this sometimes really means

3 Domain Name Thoughts for Startup Founders

0

It’s partly frustrating and partly amusing to see criticism of domain investors and domain speculators from startup founders who are irritated that they can’t get their desired domain name at a bargain price. Some seem to feel like they are more deserving of specific domain names.

I want to share three thoughts about this, and I welcome your thoughts as well – even if we disagree. I am sure this isn’t the first time these things have been said, but they are worthy of consideration:

Keep Some Funds in Escrow

0

On Friday afternoon, I agreed to buy a domain name for what I think is a good price. It was getting late in the day, and there wasn’t much of a chance of getting the deal done that day, unless the money was already in escrow. For a situation like this, it might be good to have funds in your escrow account.

It doesn’t happen regularly, but I have had buyers and sellers back out of deals on me. They take a bit more time to think about the deal, and they decide they don’t want to close the deal. It sucks, but it happens. I have found this to be the case more regularly on deals that are agreed to prior to a weekend and are expected to close the following week. People either get cold feet about spending money on the domain name or they have second thoughts about selling a domain name for the agreed upon price.

When you keep funds in an escrow account, you can

Cons of Registering Political Domain Names

0

Every election cycle, and even months or years prior to an election, thousands of domain names are registered by people hoping to cash in on registering the “right” domain names. This is especially the case with the US Presidential election, where people attempt to register domains related to the presumptive candidates.

There are three cons to registering political domain names that I want to share with you. I know that there are many readers who read this blog that are fairly new to the business of domain names, and I want to share some of the reasons I think it is unwise to register political candidate domain names.

If you disagree with any of these reasons, or if you have other reasons, you are welcome to share them in the comment section.

Startup Uses Buyer Broker to Acquire EasyPost.com

A reader  shared an article with me that I think you might find interesting. The article is written by Jarrett Streebin, and it is aptly titled How We Bought EasyPost.com. The startup called Easy Post used a domain name buyer’s broker to acquire the EasyPost.com domain name. Prior to this acquisition, the company had been using EasyPost.CO for its website.

Some of my  key takeaways that I think should interest domain investors are: