I have registered my domain name with the same company since 2003. In March I paid them to re-register for two more years which they gladly billed me for. After my domain no longer pointed to my website I contacted my registrar to find out that they, which they did not deny, somehow failed to complete the registar process. So now my domain belongs to someone else. Basically I lost my domain and they could say is theres nothing they can do because it now belongs to someone else, sorry. They did refund the $13.00 registration fees, which I could care less about. Has anyone heard of this happening? I feel I should be compensated for loosing my domain, It wasnt for sale. Darin
If you have anything in written form(even electronic) I would be looking for more than the reg fee. Care to share the domain name? and the registar name?
The domain is vintagetrikes.com and the registrar is Ipowerweb. Its a subdomain, this is what it used to be; www.linnellfamily.com/vintagetrikes
Also, I do have plenty in writing. Ipower does not deny its their fault, they just dont want to do anything about it. I do want compensation, anyone have any ideas as to how much in a situation like this? Thanks Darin
You can start by reading the contract you agreed to when you signed up. Whether you feel it's worth the time and money to pursue damages, with zero guarantee of getting what you want, is up to you. Sorry to read this has also happened to you, but it happens with various providers.
This EXACT thing happened to me. I had offers around the $2k range for my site and lost it the same way. There was nothing i could do and believe me i rang every fair trade and government department i could. The host claimed he forwarded my money to another company overseas who failed to renew the domain. Sorry i dont have good news.
Man that really sucks.. I don't think there's anything you can do to get compensation. Here's a few ideas I had: -Contact ipowerweb and request some form of compensation. Threaten to make it public and bring lawyers into this. Sure it wouldn't scare them, but the negative publicity might. -Contact " ". Sure, they have 20,000 other websites on the server but maybe you'll get lucky and they'll sell it back.. -Realize there's nothing you can do and start over at vintage-trikes.com.. Sure it'd hurt having to restart, but I think all of us have been there at one point. Hope I was able to help, sorry to hear about your loss.
You should consult with an attorney. If you've been damaged by the registrar's negligence, it sounds like you may have a case. BTW, I'm not an attorney, and what I just said should not be considered legal advice.
I'm not sure how much this will help, but I am still a hopelessly positive person that thinks that all people are innately good (even if their actions indicate otherwise). So with that said, you could try contacting the person who purchased your domain name. It appears they are just using the page as another non-content related site (indicating to me that they have many many more URL's). Explain to them your situation (without divulging too much personal information) and ask if they could release the domain name back to you. They might understand. Of course, if that person has, in good faith, promoted that URL to the point where traffic has increased immensely (easy to lookup and prove), then you might want to give them compensation for their effort. But see what they say. If they come back at you with attitude, you could also put on your investigator hat and do some research on how and where that URL was obtained by the new owner. A long shot, one never knows if they had some connection with the registrar who allegedly dropped the ball. Hopefully the former attempt will work. Going in with a positive attitude and not expecting something for nothing could actually work. Going the legal route, and it appears you have a legal argument, can be quite costly. So consider that when asking the new URL owner for the name. People are generally good at heart. With kindness and respect, you might go a long way. Good luck.
The whole case would depend on WHEN you attempted to re-register your domain - which you haven't specified. If you attempted to re-register the domain AFTER the expiry date, even if only a few mins after, you essentially have no claim. If you attempted to do so BEFORE the expiry, then you may have a claim against the other party and should consult with an attorney who specialises in these kind of cases. John Berryhill who trawls around some of the other domain forums (like dnforum.com) might give you more specific advice for free if you signup at that forum and just post a kind of 'hard luck' query like you have done here. You would NEED to be VERY specific though. Dates/time is important. Like on 23rd March 2007 I filled in the online reg for at wwwebsitecom to re-register my domain name wwwmydomaincom which was not due to expire until 27th March 2007 - or something similar. I don't know if a UDRP claim would be appropriate in this case also. I don;t know how the UDRP works with regards to domain names which may have been lost as a result of negligence on the part of a registrar - (assuming it is a registrar - if it's a reseller you may be up a creek without a paddle as far as getting the name back, but may still have a negligence claim, or valid claim for monetary damages.) -