Domain Renewal Warning

[mkrb]

Hi All,

Just a quick note for people that own domain names.

Keep an eye on your renewal date, dont rely on your ISP/Domain registrar to warn you.

I have just lost a Domain i have had for 3 years, which was also my business name. My Domain registrar 'apparantly' sent out a warning 7 days before the renewal date which i didnt receive. They didnt give me any more warnings and let it be deleted. The day it was deleted a cyber squatter (domain pocher) registered it, and now i have lost all my emails, business and there is nothing i can do about it. I asked the new owner if i could buy it back and here is the reply (Not that i want to name and shame or anything!!!)


"This domain name has "expired" from the previous registrar
and was purchased by Domain Reg LLC.

Domain Reg LLC registered this domain name for its own use after
it expired and was made available for anyone to register.

If any gross error was made, it was not by us.
We suggest you contact the previous registrar who dropped the
domain name as "expired".

Domain Reg LLC. now has registered ownership of www.BroHost.net

IMPORTANT: THIS DOMAIN NAME IS NOT FOR SALE.

However, Domain Reg LLC. prefers to amicably resolve
these types of matters, where the parties are sincere and
act in good faith and in some cases we may entertain offers.

Domain Reg LLC has already incurred expenses in administration,
programming and development costs, not including optimization,
prepaid hosting agreements and even legal fees.

If you wish to submit a offer on the domain name, or should
you have any questions or comments, please feel free to
contact the undersigned.

Sincerely yours,
Domain Reg LLC Support Team
----- Original Message -----
From: MKRB-Computing.co.uk
To: johblac@hotmail.com
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 12:28 PM
Subject: BroHost.net


Dear New owner of Brohost.net

There appears to have been a mistake regarding the registration of BroHost.net

I was not informed that the domain was expiring and once informed tried to register it.

Please would you consider selling it back to me

Best Wishes

Michael
BroHost.net (my business name)"

I replied back to them a few timesand received nothing back.

Alledgely this has happened to others by this 'Company' and they have turned down offers of hundereds of $. So much for their "where the parties are sincere and
act in good faith and in some cases we may entertain offers"

Which is rubbish!


So if you have a domain you want to keep, make sure you keep an eye on it.

Thanks

Michael
</Rant>

[shamrocker]

Hi Michael,

sorry to hear about your misfortune. I don't know if this is any use to you, but in the 'Help Desk' section of one of my old Web Pages Made Easy mags I read a letter from a reader who had a problem which is not dissimilar to yours. I've scanned it and uploaded it onto the web if you want to read it. If so, Click Here (http://rightgolf.com/article.htm) . I think there is a good lesson for all of us to be learnt here. Hopefully some of the other more experienced forum members will be able to offer more specific advice to you on the matter.

Good Luck!

Sham

[joshdhaliwal]

I had a similar experience - turned up to work one Monday morning and found that our website URL www.wirelessworldforum.com was now the domain of someone else. We lost it to someone in the U.S. who used the domain name purely as a search engine for the traffic our site was generating.

We didn't receive any of the warnings. What we did experience in the weeks running up to the expiry was that our site was being being attacked on a regular basis which meant that there were times when we did have to shut it down. A registration form on our site was particularly prone as someone overloaded the site by submitting blank forms at the rate of one every few seconds.

The site was re-registered just minutes past the expiry time which also meant that someone was keeping a close eye on it.

An important lesson but unfortunately not one you can always avoid when someone has their sights set and is prepared to use "any means".

[Martin]

As a business you can take various routes to obtaining the domain back again.

If your business is registered and it's obvious that your business is built upon your domain you can make a legal moves to try regain it.

Of course this would be much easier if it was a ".co.uk" domain but it's not impossible to recover a ".net" .


I think a trip to your solicitors about "Intellectual Property Rights".


This page will give you an insight about others who have tried this course of action.

http://www.patents.com/nylj8.htm (Is a few years old now tho)
http://www.patents.com


good luck

Martin