I purchased a domain name at Snapnames on June 26th. I paid for it, the domain was put into my Moniker account. Last night I went into my Moniker account and it's completely gone. Moniker put the domain back into the prior owner's name (whois is no longer in my name) and Snapnames sends me an email: Do they have the right to yank a domain name and give it back to the prior owner 22 days after I purchased it? I have talked to Snap and apparently they "sold the wrong name" or something like that. WhaaaaaaTT????? I am concerned about buying names from SnapNames in the future. How do I know that this won't happen again--and how do I know it won't happen to YOU?
Well basically, those guys can do anything they want. It happens all the time, including me. But don't make that issue slowing you down, Bhartzer! Under Oversee, snapnames is a good company with good customer service. As long as you got your money back, then there's nothing to worry about.
So, it's happened to you? You have bought a domain name from SnapNames and nearly 30 days later they yank it back and give it back to the previous owner? I hardly think so. If that's the case, let me hear more about that. What concerns me is that there should be security measures in place so that they don't sell names to people that they're not supposed to sell.
Seems ridiculous - if you buy something from someone, pay for it and everything, and the whois registry says your information, then it is yours. Plain and simple. If the previous owner somehow manages to take it back, that's theft! If you bought a car then one day the previous owner turned up and drove it off because they sold it by mistake, you would be pretty p*ssed off right? From where I'm standing they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
Not necessarily a security measure, Bill. From what you described, it seems to be the case where the domain name was actually renewed, but it showed up as expired and subsequently listed for auction when it shouldn't have. And there actually is an "opt out" process where the registrant can email and say not to auction the domain name after expiry. Of course, the registrar does not necessarily have to say so unless asked outright. Sorry to read what happened, Bill. Oh, and answered this both in NP and DNF. Also shared in NP since I just remembered I handled this sort of case back in my past registrar life. It wasn't exactly an...enjoyable experience.
Gingerbreadweb has got a point from how I see things. You purchased the domain name at an auction, it was transferred to your account. As long as the whois information displays your name, the domain is officially yours. Disagree with you, fren. 20 days may be enough for someone to plan a business, register a trademark based on a domain name, hire a web development company to build a website up, and start running it. If after all that you get your money back one day and the domain is taken away from you, that might actually be a hard hit, just think about it. Disagree with you, Dave Zan. Bhartzer mentions whois changes, so I assume that the registry was displaying his information as registrant details at some point. This excludes the chances that a domain name is renewed but continues to show as expired so that the aftermarket businesses put it on auction. A transfer to moniker should fail in the first place if that were the case, I believe. Moniker should not be able to pass the new owner details to the registry. Now the reason why I got here. Recently ordered a domain transfer away from Moniker after taking it over from a DP member. To be honest, I do not feel confortable with Moniker, Namecheap and the like, I only go for the giant registrars for new purchases. So I ordered a transfer to Godaddy. Would have used MyDomain if they had a better deal since I trust them both equally although I wish there were a better alternative. Anyway, days past and no sign of a successful transfer confirmation after I completed all the required steps on my end. Today I log in at GoDaddy, and surprisingly my domain name is there. No confirmation whatsoever received in the meantime. I log in at Moniker, domain still shows there, too. So what is the deal, if I go ahead and order domain renewal with both registrars, what's going to happen? Funny. The whois info shows GoDaddy as the new registrar so I guess the transfer has completed. Only Moniker does not yet know about it, apparently. Another reason to think twice before buying your next domain name with Moniker.
Clive, Kjel from SnapNames eventually explained what happened: SnapNames and Moniker are now owned by Oversee.net, so they're able to fix this before it possibly got worse. While others expect SnapNames or Moniker to do more than apologize and refund for what happened, that's up to them to decide on their own. Unfortunately that can happen anywhere anytime, and it can be corrected as long as it's within the parties' ability to do so.