I have been scammed - 50 domains gone!

[ozhef]

Hello,

I put 54 domains up for sale on ********* and made an agreement through a pm. The buyer paid the money into my paypal account and I pushed the domains to his godaddy account. The next morning guess what? the paypal payment had been reversed. It would appear that the "buyer" had also hacked into someone elses paypal account to make the payment. And guess what else? his whois details are incorrect. It would appear I am not the only idiot who has been scammed this way:

http://www.nodomainscams.com/2008/02/24/paypal-and-godaddy-complicit-in-domain-scams/

If you could excuse my idiotic behaviour for a few moments can anyone offer any advice on how to catch this dirty thief who now owns all of my domains??

 

[domaingenius]

Hey

This is exactly why I praise Fabulous.com so highly. With them you can
set a number of questions, such as say "what is name of last girl I
shagged", "how many cups of tea did I have today" etc etc ,and
unless the scammer can answer those then the domains are
going NOWHERE. Plus if you can an extra special domain you
can add in excutive lock and then only can be done by
management as well.

Yes siree if you want save domains go to ....Hmm I sound like
a salesman.

DG

Hello,

I put 54 domains up for sale on ********* and made an agreement through a pm. The buyer paid the money into my paypal account and I pushed the domains to his godaddy account. The next morning guess what? the paypal payment had been reversed. It would appear that the "buyer" had also hacked into someone elses paypal account to make the payment. And guess what else? his whois details are incorrect. It would appear I am not the only idiot who has been scammed this way:

http://www.nodomainscams.com/2008/02/24/paypal-and-godaddy-complicit-in-domain-scams/

If you could excuse my idiotic behaviour for a few moments can anyone offer any advice on how to catch this dirty thief who now owns all of my domains??

 

[Stian]

I know you don't want to hear this; but never, ever accept PayPal payments from people you don't know. It's way too easy to be scammed.

The first thing you should do is to contact GoDaddy ASAP and give them the entire story. I believe you can even PM them here on DNF (username: Go Daddy).

Most of the times, people are able to get their domains back when these things happen. You should also post the domain names so others can be on the lookout and also to prevent others from buying them. Good luck!

 

[fab]

Is the scammer a member here, if so please publicise his name, and he will need to respond!

 

[exxe]

Hey

This is exactly why I praise Fabulous.com so highly. With them you can
set a number of questions, such as say "what is name of last girl I
shagged", "how many cups of tea did I have today" etc etc ,and
unless the scammer can answer those then the domains are
going NOWHERE. Plus if you can an extra special domain you
can add in excutive lock and then only can be done by
management as well.

Yes siree if you want save domains go to ....Hmm I sound like
a salesman.

DG

That has nothing to do with the scam.

Hello,

If you could excuse my idiotic behaviour for a few moments can anyone offer any advice on how to catch this dirty thief who now owns all of my domains??

Contact the Resgistrars as soon as possible and explain the scam.

 

[draggar]

If you haven't already - contact GoDaddy NOW. Also, contact the admins where the fraud took place so they are aware of it, even make a post of it (don't hold back on details) if you want / need to.

 

[steveto]

Usually when i do transactions, I call the person and ask for more details, like a valid ISP email for contact, not hotmail etc. If a deal was big enough, I'd probably fly to them and do the transaction in person....but I am weird like that.

 

[Onward]

As long as the names have not left godaddy...you should be able to get them back...Do as the others have suggestd and get in touch with your account manager at godaddy. They will freeze the names and investigate the matter.

 

[jaydub]

If you have pushed the names to a GD account they aren't going anywhere as GD puts their 60 hold on the names when any of the whois info is changed.
Contact GD with the gory details and stay on them to get it rectified. Just make sure you have lots of verifiable proof of the rip-off.

Good Luck in getting them returned...

 

[Gerry]

From Someone who has been in this situation before:

Don't waste your time with PayPal. They do not investigate "non-tangible" goods.

Gather all the information you need to present. Make sure it is factual, concise, and to the point. In other words, have everything prepared in advance of contacted anyone - receipts, copies of emails, transaction numbers, etc.

This is important. Precious time can be wasted getting back the domains because you are fumbling to gather info and having to keep calling or emailing. If you make someone else's task harder and more confusing then you may not get the help you need.

Contact the registrar you had them with. Most can simply be reached at a similar email address like [email protected].

Contact the gaining registrar's legal department.

Fill out a police report in your precinct.

These are crucial first steps.

If you know where the scammer actually lives (town etc) contact those local authorities.

 

[EGS]

Why didn't you use escrow.com ? -.-

 

[Focus]

Cut off his balls, blend them with hot pepper & tabasco sauce & make him drink it...

 

[Raider]

I know you don't want to hear this; but never, ever accept PayPal payments from people you don't know. It's way too easy to be scammed.

If domainers stuck to this simple rule, Fraud like this would be reduced dramatically.... I'd really like to know who many sellers here bother to read the Paypal Security section?, my guess is; NOT very many.

 

[mclovin]

You should publicize the scammer's name or information so that others can be on the lookout and not buy your stolen domains... cuz what happens if the scammer quickly sells off your domains... will you EVER get them back then?

Also helps to protect others in the forums. Paypal won't give you the IP and scammer info, but I'm sure forum admins won't be as laissez-faire about fraud being perpetrated through their forums, so I would also appeal to them for information. Good luck!

Btw, did you check their iTrader info, or did they have any? In general, how trustworthy is the iTrader information? Just wondering if anyone has heard of scammers with high iTrader ranks, since I'd assume they were probably newly registered with no ranks.

 

[ozhef]

thanks for all your advice. I contacted godaddy straight away and this was their response:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Online Support. Unfortunately we can not meditate between customers. Per the UDRP, registrars are prohibited from making changes to a domain name without direction from a court or arbitration forum. If you are unable to come to a satisfactory agreement with the current registrant, you may wish to go through a court or arbitration forum (such as WIPO, The World Intellectual Property Organization, [email protected]).

When we receive notice of a pending legal dispute we will lock the domain name so that it cannot be transferred or otherwise modified.

Likewise, when we receive a decision, we will update the domain name accordingly.

Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.

Best Regards,

these are the stolen domains:

ADVERTSCLICKED.COM
BETTINGONSPORT.NET
BREADTH.INFO
CHATUPROOMS.COM
CHROMEFORUM.CO.UK
CHROMESUPPORTFORUM.COM
CHROMETODAY.COM
CLEARARREARS.COM
COMPLYING.INFO
CRAG.INFO
CSSGREAT.COM
DEPICTING.INFO
DOMAINERDAY.COM
DOWNLOADINGNETWORK.COM
ECOHK.COM
EXPIREDDOMS.COM
FACEGALLERIES.COM
FREELANCERSNOW.COM
FRIENDSOURCES.COM
GOODHOLIDAYGUIDE.COM
HOLIDAYHOMETORENT.COM
HOSTAPPROVE.COM
HOSTINGYOURSITES.COM
INGESTION.INFO
INSTANTCHROME.COM
INVITER.CO.UK
MAYB.ORG
MOVUK.COM
NOWIG.COM
OAUTH.CO.UK
OHEFS.COM
PHOTOGRAPHYSWEDEN.COM
POKERMANUAL.NET
PRICELOWDOWN.COM
REALIZING.INFO
ROSTER.US
SEOGL.COM
SEOOFFER.COM
SHOWBESTPRICES.COM
SIRED.CO.UK
SLAUGHTERING.INFO
SOFUK.COM
SPORTUK.ORG
TEACHERHIRE.COM
TORRENTSFORYOU.COM
TUTOF.COM
TUTORFROMHOME.COM
TUTORSAMERICA.COM
UNINSTALLCHROME.COM
WEBDESIGNSNYC.COM
WEDCD.COM
WHOISFAIR.COM
YAWNING.CO.UK
YSAVE.NET

 

[owntag]

As long as the names have not left godaddy...you should be able to get them back...

I had no luck, I sold a domain for $630 here then got payment reversed.
Godaddy can't help in this case since I pushed the domain to the scammer's account.

 

[stuff]

well thank God the domains are not worth anything

 

[Raider]

the paypal payment had been reversed.

Juse how much money are we talking about here?

 

[ozhef]

it was only $700. As someone has already kindly stated the domains were not that great but thats not the point.

 

[David G]

it was only $700. As someone has already kindly stated the domains were not that great but thats not the point.

Unless I am missing something (such as unlikely traffic) the names are worth about $700 less than the purchase price. So it seems odd the buyer would go to such lengths as hacking a paypal acct and committing fraud over such domains :?: