Want to make offer on domain, but owner is unreachable

[DrWebster]

So I'm facing an interesting situation and I could use some advice. There's a .com I've wanted to buy for a while that's already registered. It's not being used for anything, and based on my research, has never been used (doesn't go to a parking page, no DNS records, nothing on archive.org). I did some sleuthing and found that its owner also has several dozen other domains in the same situation, all with different, unrelated names. Seems like it's just a guy who thinks up interesting domain names and buys them if they're available -- fair enough.

It looks like the domain is on a 1-year renewal, and seems to be automatically renewed every year. It's registered through eNom.

Earlier in the year, the WHOIS record for the domain listed his name, a PO box, and email address. I sent an e-mail to him, offering to buy the domain, and the message bounced (so the e-mail account is closed). I looked up the PO box, and while it was previously registered to him, it's now registered to an unrelated business (so he's no longer using the PO box). Since then, eNom has seemingly enabled WHOIS privacy for all its domains (probably because of GDPR?) so I can't tell if any of the information has been updated. I'd send another e-mail to the administrative contact, but it's now just the privacy guard's "no-reply" address, so it wouldn't go anywhere.

The domain is up for renewal again soon, but as last year I suspect it'll just get renewed again automatically. Would a domain broker be of any use in this scenario, or would they just have the same information I do? Is there any other recourse to obtain a domain where the owner is effectively unreachable since the last known WHOIS data is no longer accurate?

 

[Biggie]

Hi

with he barriers you described in trying to reach the owner.....
i'd say, they don't want to be reached.

plenty of other domain holders out there like that, and if, and when they do open up, you can expect price to be higher than anticipated.

still, there are services like sedo or netsol that reach out to owners as well as domainagents and some others.
but any broker or domain buy service that doesn't have access to whois history tools, may not be able to get more info than you, unless they know the owner personally.


this must be a gotta have name for you, sooooo think of a gotta make me sell price that owner may ask for, if you ever reach them.


Good Luck!