Since NC is a reseller I guess enom took the domain without to them without notifying to NC. However, I am sure that air france issued a trademark infrigment to own that domain. That's why you lost it.
There is a problem with your domain, and namecheap also told you that your domain trademark issue, it is not call a scam.
First to point out here is that Namecheap, IMO, is a great Registrar, using them for many years, plus several more. If you buy and sell domain names and websites, you are automatically get dozens of registrars to sign up with and have to wait 60 days before you can change. Second, to ask in the title "is that a scam" is overkill. You should have first researched why this happened, and to repeat what some already pointed out, the domain is a violation of trademark/copyright/service mark issues. If a domain name includes as a portion a brand name, a specific product name, or possible misleading or even 1 letter mispelled, it COULD lead to the "termination" of the domain in your account. Believe me, it is the least expensive event which happens to you. There are dozens of law firms who are searching for any form of such infringements, and if they are hungry and vicious, they even sue you and will win (because they have different resources backing them) I owned several Harley product related domain, like Harleyxxxxxx, and a few more, guess what, ebay cancelled the listings after a lawyer contacted them, I got some serious notes and had to turn all domains over to them or face a $8,000 fine (they went so far to get my adsense account cancelled because of ads generating click profits). Now, many companies do not search and do not go after these domain connected infringements, but the possibilites of a serious financial drain will linger. If they can prove that you earned any form of revenues based on the use of such domain, you might be held liable for reimbursing that company (or the "beloved lawyers") If in doubt - bail out. And yes, Namecheap is a great registrar, easy to push and transfer domains too.
Trademark mate, pretty obvious it would happen, that's just like registering googlemediaworks.com or something. I have been using Namecheap for a few years now for all my domains and they are brilliant!
I'm pretty sure it wasn't NameCheap's fault. I've got all my domains from them and so far I haven't had a single problem.
Never had an issue with Namecheap, in fact recently benefited from $2 TLD domains. Never had issues with grey-area TM domains such as Motor-Trend.org or Injen.org either, not Namecheap's issue.
The only scam here us that the OP was illegally registering a trademarked name in a domain name. Its that simple. AirFrance obviously wanted it assigned to them which is perfectly within their legal rights to do so.
No, they are not scamming users they just follow orders from above Société Air France v. Khaja Uddin WIPO Case Number D2012-2134 Domain name(s) airfrancebooking . com Complainant Société Air France Respondent WhoisGuard / Airfrancebooking khaja uddin Panelist Brown Q.C., Andrew Decision Date 19-12-2012 More information about your case: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/case.jsp?case_id=25063 Furthermore, you can see some key points in the case file:
NameCheap are definitely not a scam; almost all my domains are registered with them... You shouldn't have registered that domain. :-/
I'm not a big fan of NameCheap, but I think you lost the domain because of something AirFrance did. Still, you should have been warned or asked to turn over the domain to the trademark holder. Perhaps you didn't reply to messages or didn't have valid WHOIS information? If your name was "Mr. Air France" and you had the domain before Air France registered their trademark, then it might have been possible for you to keep the domain. Anyone buying and selling domains needs to realize that buying a domain that contains a trademark is very risky. You may not get sued, but you could. But you are likely to lose the domain one way or another. So if you like gambling, then keep buying them. But if you don't like this kind of experience, they should be avoided.
It's curious see Namecheap proclaim themseves as an accredited registrar service, when they are still ENOM Resellers and their control panel has many flaws that often brings to my mind those of the deceased RegisterFly, which was also an ENOM reseller, so wondering when a debacle may take place here. Without infringing anything, I have found domains disappearing from my control panel from time to time, but contacting support has always been the solution for me to get them back in there, as never lost control over their nameservers. However in this case problem could be that the OP setup a fake whois email or a privacy that is sending whois emails elsewhere, because big companies that take over a trademarked domain often start by sending an email to the actual owner asking to surrender the name, before using other means to get it back.
It's likely a business decision on NameCheap's part to maintain its eNom reseller account until it's fully confident (if ever) to use their own instead. Besides, there's no so-called restriction on being a reseller or registrar as long as it can deliver on its commitments for the most part. (and NameCheap's also aware of the Registerfly debacle years back...) For folks still wondering what happened in the OP's case, it's already explained in a previous post: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/thr...rom-them-domains.2624159/page-2#post-18431152 If it's still not clear, though, NameCheap and/or eNom "took" the OP's domain name because an administrative decision by a third party they have agreements with told them to do so. One doesn't have to like that, but at least be aware of what one's potentially getting into.
AH! Thank you so much for pointing me at the right thread to read on, and also for the clarification about NameCheap
As many have said, Namecheap is not scam. I use them and have had a similar experience with one of my domains. I still have my domain though, the first step with this kind of things I believe is a first contact, maybe you ignored this a while back and TM holders have just forced a takeover. I was contacted by lawyers from cincinnati reds about one of my domains and I simply replied the email with facts about my domain and what I intend to do with it. I even offered them the option to buy the domain lool The best i think you can do now is try and get a refund.
I never knew that domain registering company can take away domain like this. I was under impression that company should be contacting you to hand over the domain to them and thats how it should work. Heard this first time. Spread the word and let namecheap know about this. Fucking scammers!!!
I believe that not scam since you domain is really get deleted by namecheap. When register a domain name , make sure you need to check for the trademark while the keywords you using might be trademark and you might get to legal issues and compensate lot of money . So is better to get it clear and stay away from that.