Web People have 'stolen our domain'

[Brian Bentley]

Please guys, we need your help. We are Doncaster Belles FC, a well know ladies football team with players ranging from 8 to 48. We are a registered charity and are now being held to ransom by our former web designers.
In brief, we needed a site and http://4ccreatives.com/ made us one (in wordpress) that crashed every time someone logged in. Needless to say, we tried to get our money back (to no avail). Now they are actively trying to sell our domain http://doncasterbellesfc.co.uk/ having managed to register it at their address (but not changed registrants details (David Booth is our chairman). Obviously, we could go down the polite route (tried that), the legal route (money and time) or simply pepper 4c with bad reviews all over. Is there a better way?

 

[Systreg]

Hi Brian, you could start a DRS proceedings with Nominet to try and regain the domain, see link for full details:

https://www.nominet.uk/domains/resolving-uk-domain-disputes-and-complaints/

 

[Brian Bentley]

Hi Brian, you could start a DRS proceedings with Nominet to try and regain the domain, see link for full details:

https://www.nominet.uk/domains/resolving-uk-domain-disputes-and-complaints/

Costs are far too much to go down that route

 

[Sean]

Hello Brian, it looks like you are the registrant of doncasterbelles.co.uk which is a better domain?

https://www.nominet.uk/whois/?query=doncasterbelles.co.uk#whois-results

 

[dee]

Did they ever send you any login details for a Nominet account by any chance when they registered the domains ? I'm guessing not, but might be worth checking.

 

[dee]

Never dealt with a DRS but isnt the initial complaint free ? Doesnt it only cost if you need expert decision / mediation fails ? Have a look here

https://www.nominet.uk/domains/resolving-uk-domain-disputes-and-complaints/

 

[Admin]

This is shocking behaviour. Contact Nominet, I feel sure they will help you gain access to your domain. The bigger issue given you have other domains is probably the fact you have lost your website, do you have access to it so you can re-host it?

Let me know if you want me to change this thread title, it will probably rank for '4c creatives review' quite easily.

 

[bonusmedia]

This is shocking behaviour. Contact Nominet, I feel sure they will help you gain access to your domain. The bigger issue given you have other domains is probably the fact you have lost your website, do you have access to it so you can re-host it?

Let me know if you want me to change this thread title, it will probably rank for '4c creatives review' quite easily.

You might want to confirm the facts first. Have a look at the Google reviews for 4C Creatives.

Bear in mind this chap is claiming 20 years SEO experience - happy to be proven wrong but none of this quite rings true.

 

[bonusmedia]

Actually scratch that, it's all utter bullshit.
http://www.doncasterroversbelles.co.uk

EDIT: I got it wrong. As below, there are two separate teams

 

[bonusmedia]

Hmm. That site was up and running 5 minutes ago.

Doncaster Belles FC changed their name to Doncaster Rovers Belles FC some time ago

Edit: and have been using doncasterroversbelles.co.uk for over 10 years.

 

[dee]

Whats the skinny @Brian Bentley?

 

[ausername]

Are you sure that Doncaster Belles haven't hired you Brian, and you've outsourced to 4c Creatives? Because it looks like you've been offering SEO services for 20 years, and once operated a business in Doncaster called 'Creative Box Ltd'?

You need to be careful that you aren't treading into 'reverse hijacking' territory if this is the case... if the club have a contract with you, and you have a contract with 4c Creatives, then that changes things somewhat.

You were trying to sell this 20 year old SEO site the other day? https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/threads/googlegeeks-co-uk-offers.150792/#post-579987

 

[ausername]

There is definitely a waybackmachine entry for 2016 and 2017 for a site at http://doncasterbellesfc.co.uk/, made by 4c Creatives.

But I don't understand what club it was supposed to serve, is this club separate from Doncaster Rovers Belles then? Who have a far superior site up on a different domain? http://www.doncasterroversbelles.co.uk/index.html

Why would they have two websites with two different club names? David Booth is the chairman of 'Doncaster Rovers Belles', which has an active website on that second domain.

All sounds a bit shady to me.

 

[Admin]

I like to start from the assumption that people are being honest and genuine, there are enough cynics about! ... I'm sure @Brian Bentley will enlighten us soon.

 

[ausername]

I like to start from the assumption that people are being honest and genuine, there are enough cynics about! ... I'm sure @Brian Bentley will enlighten us soon.

I haven't called him a liar, but further information definitely required before anybody becomes tries to a knight in shining armor and then finds themselves caught up in something nasty.

E.g. in which way are they trying to 'sell' the domain, and who to? If they haven't been paid for their services and want an invoice settled to hand over the files and domain then that's fair enough isn't it? Doesn't appear to be listed on Sedo or elsewhere.

 

[bonusmedia]

Ok - I jumped the gun. There are two teams:
https://www.facebook.com/doncasterroversbelles/
https://www.facebook.com/doncasterBelles/

The second is an amateur junior team, formerly 'Doncaster Rovers Belles Juniors', before that 'Doncaster Belles Football Club' and a registered charity.
They only became affiliated with the Doncaster Rovers Belles in 2016.
http://www.doncasterroversbelles.co...juniors_show_support.html#bboUhT2CZfWV0T0U.97
Charity accounts show around £1400/year website costs

They've had websites at DoncasterBellesJuniors.co.uk, DoncasterBelles.co.uk (previously owned by the pro club) and most recently DoncasterBellesFC.co.uk
I think renaming your team and changing your domain (and badge!?) multiple times is a bit weird, especially with the confusing similarity to the other team, obviously not a crime but does seem to be a pattern.

4C's google reviews include one from Doncaster Belles FC:
"Extremely good work, very helpful and came up with good ideas for our logo design, banner design and website design. I've already recommended them to other people I know. We will definitely be using again in the future.
Doncaster Belles FC"
That's a year old. They responded to Brian Bentley's 1 star rating (all rest are 5) by saying:
"This is a fake review from a Doncaster competitor and they are not even a customer of ours! This has been reported to google."

Anyway - I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions. Clearly someone's lying, but no idea who

 

[ausername]

4C Creatives are going to stop by this thread later and put forward their side of the story, only fair that they were informed for a right of reply. Their office is a stones throw from my wife's firm as it happens!

But they told me that they haven't been paid for hosting and domain renewal from April 2017, which adds up as the domain expires on 2nd April each year.

Seems completely fair to me that they wouldn't transfer the domain (and cover the nominet transfer fee?) if they are out of pocket for a domain renewal that they paid for in April on their clients behalf?

If I were them and that is true then I'd be turning off auto-renew and dropping the domain in April 2018. If somebody else catches it and then actually tries to extort them then completely not their problem. If the OP doesn't want to shell out on a drop-catcher to guarantee possession in April 2018, or needs the domain immediately, then solution seems to be to settle their invoice.

They also said that they were close to the point of seeking advice RE: defamation / libel. Worth noting that that there is a very positive initial review for the same site which allegedly "never worked", and no apparent evidence anywhere that they are "trying to sell" the domain. So all members here would be best advised to tread very carefully.

Mr Bentley's two contributions to this forum thus far, as a new member, are to try and sell fellow members a trademarked domain and then used the forum to dangle a thread which could have pulled members into a potential future legal wrangle. Admin perhaps ought to consider whether that bodes well for his future membership.

 

[bonusmedia]

Yes that was weird too. On his linkedin he claims he's been running GoogleGeeks.co.uk since before Google went live, but on the basis of that post he decided to let it expire?

Brian's current venture is a mini-bond in which you can invest in his successful sports betting algorithm ( https://algol88.com/) and earn 12%. If you invest over £50k you get 16% or over £100k you get 20%.
Past performance is pretty good, though nowhere near enough to cover those rates of interest.

I'm not saying Brian is dodgy, but... hang on yes I am. Brian is dodgier than driving a dodgy Dodge to Dodgeville

If I hadn't got urgent accounts work to do today I would probably have ignored this completely

 

[bonusmedia]

https://www.bentleyglobal.co/ by the way

Now, I'm not saying that their audited performance figures are inaccurate.

However, it's not beyond the realms of possibility for tipsters to set up a number of systems and just audit/tell you about the one that worked
https://www.secrets-explained.com/derren-brown/the-system

Gambling is pretty well regulated these days - tipping is not and has always been full of shysters.

 

[ausername]

Ha, good point.... claim to have founded Google Geeks in January 1998, but Google itself not formed until August 1998 when it got its first $100,000 in seed funding... they offered to sell their product to Excite for $1m in 1999... so I think Mr Bentley would be a billionaire if he had degree of foresight in January 1998.

No evidence of GoogleGeek.com existing on wayback until 2010, dodgy indeed