Sorry to hear that. You live and learn.
Use Moniker. I recommend them.
clarification:
I do use moniker. Flawless.
My statement "Monte doesn't have to prove it" was referencing the fact that he does not need to substantiate a thing regarding these redirected searches as this happens occasionly and I think a great many of us have encountered it. It is usually some off name registration service that usually regs the more obscure TLD's and ccTLD's that I have encounter this with. My latest was with the .us.com extension.
I am trying to go back and find these re-directed search engines that I used but it is not very easy. Hopefully, I will find them and I will post them.
It would be funny if all of us entered a few hundred names that came up available, then wait a few minutes, try to reg them, and they are all taken.
Sure, they would drop in a few days but it would sure a hell keep the other end busy for a while. They would think they have hit the mother load with a few thousand coming in.
I am not a hacker, but if we all did it at the same time, maybe their server would fail like a "deny of service" type thing.