mcdmda

I am glad to have found this forum, thank you for making this available. It has been a revelation and now a valuable resource for me and a community of about 200 people stranded due to corporate greed and struggling to make a new start.

A few of us are working on a media story on this, a perfect and classic case of sleazy corporate dealings that are normally intended for speculative investment holding ( domain names that may have future value ) and if it works out, make a killing on the sale. Nothing wrong with that, we do that with antique goods, stock markets, you name it.

But this robotic process has left the life of a poor sick man and his wife in shambles and quite a few of us are struggling to help him out, since he's in the hospital.

Let me back up, so I can lay out the story, leaving out personally identifiable information as much as possible.

This is about a domain name owner, in the U.S. of A., who was once a top-notch software consultant, until he became disabled with mild autism and chronic fatigue syndrome. He lost most of his savings paying hospital, doctor and medication bills, because he no longer had health insurance. When he got a little better, he started a .org site to help people with autism and related illnesses to have a community. People with mild autism tend to be brilliant, this guy was no exception, so he dug deep and created a site that the community loved; his writing + his knowledge made for a valuable resource. He had lost a lot of his technical skills, certain areas of the brain/memory get seriously damaged.

Ok, now to the business side of it. His webhost registered his .org domain with 1and1.com ; he was busy with maintaining the site and all went well for 3 years, until he got very sick again. He got some email problems, and didn't get domain expiry notifications, and the way he found out he lost his domain was when a parked page appeared on his domain name, with the sign " Buy this domain ", with a link to Sedo.com . He was shell-shocked, he made some income from the site, mainly through donations from people. He decided to try and bring his site back up with a different domain name, just for the community and himself, even though many other sites had links to the domain name he lost. Starting over.

Upon research, we found out that:

(a) 1and1.com doesn't offer the 30-day grace period after domain name expiration, unlike most well-known registrars.

(b) The domain name was bought within hours of expiration, by a company called Domcollect. We checked Domcollect's website, it's one of the dubiest sites I've ever seen. Bare minimum and vague text, nothing about the company, just a contact form, no email. So Domcollect bought the domain name and put it up for sale at Sedo. Fine so far.

(c) A bid placed on sedo.com was countered with an offer in the $xx,xxx range. There's just no way anyone who visits that site can afford 5% of that.

(d) So we look up some more, and turns out 1and1.com and Sedo and Domcollect are all under one umbrella organization?

So we tried to talk nice to whatever customer service emails and phone numbers we could find, and to their credit, the employees who we spoke to were really professional over the phone, just following the corporate policy as they knew it, for their specific job.

A few of us contacted an attorney to see if we could try and get it back through the UDRP process, but the attorney said it may work out cheaper just buying it back. The attorney was willing to take the case on pro-bono, because it was community service site, but the ex-owner is dead-set against paying a penny to get the domain back - he says it's like giving in to terrorists. Without his signature, we cannot even pay from our pockets to try this.

The ex-owner is still trying to get his new website up and running, but is now facing with his wife's illness, in addition to his own. He has lost his income, so now it's charity health care for them. We are sending in whatever money we can for their expenses.

He did write up a long note to Domcollect, but never got to send it, he's still in a state of shock.

We are hoping we could buy his domain name back and run it ourselves, while he recovers. He is not going to be happy that we gave in to the greedy, sleazy business 1und1.de / Schlund Partners is in, but we're trying to be practical. It's business, it's money, doesn't matter if it's stolen from a hat passed around by a blind man.

We have one final recourse. There are two national news anchors who are dedicated to the cause of autism and related illnesses. I can't think of a juicier story for them.

Wish us luck. There just may be some justice and values left in the world of cruel capitalism.

Thank you.

paullas

what is the domain name?

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rob

The domain would have been moved to a 'hold' state, where the site / email etc would not work. Did anyone (users like yourself) notice the site being down during this period, was anything done?

Without knowing the domain it is hard to say if that is overpriced. ie. Student.com may have been a site run by students for students, and thus the users could not buy it for such a figure, however to a different group the name may be seen as a bargain at that price.

Yes, all under 'united internet' I think. There was a thread on here about it, Sedo took their time before saying Domcollect was infact them

Calling dropcatchers 'terrorists' is a tad harsh.

Bear in mind the .org could have been renewed for several years in advance, labelling and blaming others does not help the cause.

I would agree with the 'values' comment, however 'justice' ?

If this does go to the wider media perhaps it will educate people about values of domains and the importance of renewals if they wish to keep them.

I have every sympathy with the position, and if the story checks out personally I would sort something to result in the transfer of the domain back as I am sure many other domainers would.

It is worth being aware that domainers get people trying every trick in the book to gain ownership of domain names, be it dubious legal threats to sob stories about the history of the domain. I had a very 'real' looking one regarding a three letter .co.uk, apparently it was the blokes missus' old art website but they lost everything in the asian tsunami, she needed it back to continue her business etc etc web.archive.org indicated it was infact an old car dealership page and the story was a hoax to get the name for free.

Obviously I am not saying your story is wrong, however it is not unusual for old owners to pop up and want names back, or people who like the domain to make things up. Thus domainers err on the side of caution and not be as understanding as you may expect.

We are not all heartless cybersquatters, many of us actually practise a legitimate business. Much like there are cowboy builders, there are some very good builders out there

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sedo

Hello mcdmda,

I am very sorry to hear about your experience, and will PM you Domcollect's contact details if you would like to contact them about this.

I would like to echo Rob's points about the domain industry in general, but would like to point out again that although Sedo and Domcollect are in the same umbrella organisation, I think it is a little unfair to say 'Sedo took their time before saying Domcollect was in fact them', because it isn't true that Sedo 'is' Domcollect. As such, if a domain is listed for sale on Sedo as this one was, we don't always know the history of how a domain was obtained by the seller, whether it be Domcollect or anyone else.

If you would like to PM me the domain name, somebody here can take a closer look for you.

Best regards,

Shaun

shaun.wilkinson@sedo.com

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mxm

welcome to AD mcdmda...

as stated correctly by rob, the idea of forums like this are not to judge or evolve comments or incidents from individual cases into flame or PR madness... at the end of the day IF your tale is supportive by facts and events... you have a good chance of "the power of the people" getting something done..

however... sometimes it is best to move on and even though your acting as guardian angel for your friends... life and time is too short online... by the time you have "campaigned" the DN back to the rightful owner... you could have just pushed the new .ORG site to an even better place than the original.

if you would like to PM our group with the DN in ? we can shed some light and maybe some ideas as how to move forward not back...

we feel for your friends, as luck, yours! would have it, you have support from our end... amazing how many people have been affected by CFS in the usa, so we offer a branch of support... once your 200 community members are back on track on a better site... the past will soon be the past...

we await your PM...

as for the sedo comments... you seem to be on the right tracks and will be good to see how the united internet group react to what is coming their way soon

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GreyWing

Yep not fair to bring Sedo into this, they can't be expected to investigate the history of all names that people post on their site. It just isn't economically viable.

As for are they all under the same umbrella, Volvo are under the same umbrella as Ford. So When my Volvo breaks down I can't go banging down the door of Ford.

If he was making money out of this site through donations. Just get him to install the website on a different domain. His needs and disabilities will be the same and surely people will still donate if they were doing so before.

Unfortunately some individual has seen an opportunity and took advantage. It happens in every walk of life. The fact that your friend was a software consultant probably means that he has in his life been charging an extortionate rate for his services. Taking advantage of a commercial situation and the lack of software consultants to charge a high market value rate, as you say "Top Notch" and likely got a "Top Notch Rate" from people that were in need, possibly a small business and someone trying to feed his family. Or he might have been working for a big company, one where elderly people's pension funds are shareholders. I'm not wishing to judge all I am saying is that non of us are innocent in the world of capitalism.

Sounds harsh, but life is life

mcdmda

Thanks for all the replies. I didn't expect so many of them, and I know my post seems a little over-dramatic. I also appreciate the detailed replies, it helped me think and learn quite a bit.

I've to keep this private for now, since we’re working on other options as well. Thanks for understanding. I’ll definitely post it when either we’ve given up or Domcollect has helped us out.

Yes, many people noticed it, including the previous owner. I found out the next day. The former owner wrote in his external blog the SAME night that his registration expired, that the site was gone and the domain registration has locked up and he contacted 1and1.com but said it had already been drop-caught as you call it.

The guy did make some money off of some donations, plus Google ads - he had done ok on SEO ranking. But this was full-time work and his only source of income, other than small amount of donations, he was still below the poverty line. We’re also trying to get the content up on a different domain name, but it may take him another 2 years before it blips on Google radar.

Well, it is a .org site . Since there's a fair amount of quality incoming links, it has some value. The way it’s generally appraised, one word or two, large market or small market, I can’t look at it that way. That is for the objective buyer who looks at tangibles only.

The terrorist viewpoint is his, not mine. For him, it’s probably not harsh enough.

I think it’s a little extreme as an analogy. But this definitely seems to be in bad faith. Pure business sites that drop the ball, sure, even I’d love to be in the business of catching it. Before you guys decide to buy domain, do you usually check at what an expired site was about, when it expired, etc. ?

If it's an automated system that handles this process, instead of a person actually registering it, I definitely understand. I think the buyer will probably make an exception for situations like this. So no, I don’t think any of you intend to be heartless businessmen.

I know what you mean. It's not a black and white issue. But if you are speculating and park a domain name, that is one thing. If those students didn't know enough and set it up with a registrar who doesn't have a grace period, it is a loss. I think the the 30-day or even a 15-day grace period should be mandatory. IMHO

If he had registered it for ten years and then forgot to renew it, it would probably be much worse right now. You're right about not helping the cause, but it's a "could have, should have, .." situation. He could have registered the .com and .net when he registered the .org , before someone else grabbed it (yep, that happened too, they’re still in a parking lot). He could have made sure he kept his email address current and renewed it when the notifications are sent. He could have registered with someone else who has the 30-day policy. I'm not saying he's not to blame. If he hadn't made a mistake, this situation wouldn't exist.

To me, it's the matter of a company apparently acting in bad faith to have a business model to grab it from their own customers (directly or indirectly) because the opportunity arose. I understand that it's too large a company, so the business model may not be that uncommon in other businesses. ENRON, now that's something.

I sure hope so. I'm sure media reporters would look at the education aspect of the situation as well. We do see often see on shows : "How to make sure this doesn't happen to you".

I understand. I’d say the same thing if I were you. Where’s the proof. So until I reveal the domain name, I’m definitely suspect. I say it’s not my domain name, but that's suspect, not just now, even after you find out the doman name.

Thank you for that perspective. Definitely it's a two-way street.

Thank you, mxm.

You're right. I do have to cap my time on this campaign, and hopefully hand it over to someone who thinks it’s worth media coverage.

Life and time is too short online? I’ll definitely move on at some point. But playing “Guardian Angel” is the major part of my life. Community work is all I do. Online and in-person. Life and time are too short for anything else for me. I wasn't always like this, but a devastating illness did alter my view of life. Tough luck, sh*t happens. I'm happy for you that you can look at life from a healthier perspective.

You mean you will not. Because you are interested in fixing just your Volvo. I totally respect your approach to life. I'm banging on all the doors I can find, it's kinda fun to me!

Perhaps he did. What he did in his previous career doesn’t interest me. The situation a lot of us are in, not just him, does matter to me. I am not even a close friend of this guy, I probably may not even be able to stand him in person. But I am a fan of his work related to this site. I still care that this happened to him, and to the site.

Thanks again for all your responses. I really appreciate it. In a way, you have a good community here and I’m sure that matters a lot to everyone. I hope to hang out here occasionally and learn a lot more.

mcdmda

Well, I've given up.

So as promised, here's the info:

Whois prior to drop-catch:

Whois after drop-catch:

GreyWing

Give it a year and you'll have a new site with the same membership and the other guy will have a domain that isn't worth much with visitor numbers drying up.

You've built it up once, you can build it up again.

Remember bad luck is just good luck in disguise.

All the best with it

GW

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patrickj

Based on the number of backlinks this domain has i am hardly surprised DomCollect do not want to give it up.