Be Excellent To Each Other

April last year I registered a domain for someone I work for - lets call it ambulancechaser.com for the sake of argument.

Between now and then it's just been a straight re-point to his existing website until he decided what to do with it. I emailed him this morning to ask him if he wanted to do anything with it and he said that was a wierd as he was trying to find out who had registered it as he had a new venture under that name. Told me his PA would ring me later on it.

In the meantime I logged into my 123-reg control panel only to find it wasn't there. Maybe I'd bought it under another account I thought but not on there so I checked my account history and there was the purchase with no subsequent transfers out.

I used the support thing on 123-reg to ask where it had gone and they said it was in an another account but I explained that I hadn't transferred it so how come?

They replied with;



I'm fucking livid. I've had no correspondence on this at all - they've just robbed the domain. Now as it stands it's obviously gone to the bloke I bought it for but how the fuck can they do that? Under the domain I registered there was no business trading as that name and I bought it with my credit card.

It just concerns me the way it's been handled although the end result is ok - the bloke I bought the domain for has got it now. Do I let them get away with it or leave it be?

Myp is the man with the answers here, but I'd be making some noise, that's for sure.
If someone creates a company called Beex then they can take the domain away? Get fucked.

See also, the 10 year battle over the ownership of sex.com.

I've spoken to the guy I bought the domain for and he basically said he just sent a few emails having forgotten that I bought it for him.

From what he tells me the whois information I put in was his business so they've probably gone off that. Seems less annoying but still shite.

I'm still fucking raging about the lack of correspondence though. Fuck knows when they took it - that's not a dispute that just a smash and grab.

Bloody hell, that was easy!

A client of mine had his web designer vanish from the face of the earth and I helped him recover his domain which had been registered by the web designer. Ended up taking months and having to go through Nominet, pay fees and fill out forms online.

If you register a .uk domain name and do nothing with it, and a company comes along that wants that domain name because it's their company name, they can get it really quite easily because you're technically "cybersquatting". Nominet rules, I'm afraid.

I was repointing the domain to the bloke in question's website though. On his instruction.

Also it's a .com

As far as I know there are no similar cybersquatting rules for .com domains so yes, I'd raise a stink.

Although if the Registrant of the domain when you registered it was your client, with your client's postal address, then is it your client that's taken it off you?

Yeah that's pretty much it. I registered it in his name at the time and the soft twat forgot who had registered it for him so just kicked up a stink with the registrar when he tried to find out.

What pisses me off is that they just whipped it off me without even informing me.

Were you listed as the Admin or Technical Contact on the domain?

I let this lie after venting some steam as life is too short and the eventual outcome for my client was ok.

However 2 weeks ago 123-reg had the temerity to debit my paypal account for the domain renewal having previously whipped it off me. I only just today managed to find out what the payment was for having had to open a dispute in Paypal.

They are disputing my refund in Paypal as well.

My advice therefore now becomes - Avoid 123-reg like the fucking plague.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear.

Sucks to hear, dude. But 123 are the Elysian Fields compared to GoDaddy.