Domain being reposessed??

[Togoodhlth]

I bought a domain at WHT (3 letter .net) from a veteran of their forum who I had done business with before.
After a few months I went to access it at the crappy registrar where it was registered.
I was locked out of the account.
Contacted the registrar and they emailed me and told me the account was locked as the domain was won a pool and never paid for.
I tracked the history of the domain and it was owned by 2 other people after the pool acution. The guy who won it at pool and charged back his card and the person I purchased it from.
I contacted pool and they stated that the domain was theres and if I wanted to pay the amount which was charged back by the winning bidder then I could have the name. The amount was more than the name is worth ($1xxx).

Do I have any recourse?

From what I have read about ICANN policies a registrar should never simply take a name from the registrant although i know it happens.

Should I just forget about it and move on?

Thanks for any insight.

John

 

[Domagon]

Not sure, but here are some thoughts ...

A stolen item typically must be returned to their proper owner, even if it's changed hands one or more times.

Following that logic ... here's how things could play out ...

1. The registrar (Pool) recovers the domain - appears to already happened.

2. You demand a full refund from the person who sold you the domain.

* The person who sold it to you could demand a full refund from the person who did the chargeback. However, they are likely obligated to pay you in the meantime regardless of their recovery effort with the person they bought it from.

3. You purchase the domain from the registrar (Pool).

Could you do #3 before #2 ... perhaps, but here I'm only throwing out some thoughts, not legal advice ... honestly, I don't know the exact best way to approach this situation other than to avoid it ... a reason to avoid auctions / folks flipping domains quickly, but on the other hand though, to get ahead one must take risks ... so no simple way to avoid such situations beyond researching buyers/sellers and asking many questions ... and trusting one's intuition.

Wish you the best.

Ron

 

[Mr Webname]

Not sure, but here are some thoughts ...

A stolen item typically must be returned to their proper owner, even if it's changed hands one or more times.

Following that logic ... here's how things could play out ...

1. The registrar (Pool) recovers the domain - appears to already happened.

2. You demand a full refund from the person who sold you the domain.

That's probably as far as I would want to go in a scenario like this, (obviously exempting legal action if it became necessary).

 

[Togoodhlth]

Thank you for the replies.

I am pretty sure, (90%), that the person who sold me the name had no idea there was going to be an issue with it.
The person who won it at pool pulled this scam with many auctions according to Pool so I have to believe this is happening to several other people.

I did a nomial amount of research regarding the name but since the seller has been around for a while and has a good track record I felt comfortable making the purchase.

Oh well a relatively small price to pay for a valuable lesson. Or at least that is what I am telling myself.

Incidently I am going to post the auction winners info here http://dnforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=167

Thanks again.

John

 

[Theo]

What was the domain ?

 

[Togoodhlth]

igm(dot)net

 

[Theo]

I remember that being offered for sale on WHT a long time ago.

 

[Togoodhlth]

Yes it was for sale there and a guy who ahs been around the forum for a long time and is a community leader or whatever bought it and was using it or going to use it and then after a couple of months didnt have time and we were trading some names and I asked if he had any 3 letter coms or nets and he needed money so he sold it to me for what he paid plus maybe $10-$20.
The guy that sold it to him paid over $1000 cant remember the exact amount that Pool gave me.
Obviously if he or I knew what was originally paid neither would ahve touched it.

I have found some other 3 letter domains this scamster was selling. I think one was txe dot com or something close to that. I believe it was actnow who caught him selling a name for like $250 which he had seen go at pool just a little earlier for over $1000 and he called him on it and the guy never responded. Cant remember which forum.