Shai Neubauer

January 16, 2009

Moniker Whois email problem

Filed under: News — topfetch @ 9:50 am

Last night I was randomly in my Moniker account and noticed nearly all of my domains contact email address had a misspelling in them.  I hadn’t changed anything so I knew it wasnt my error.  When I went into the backend to change the mistake it showed the correct email address.  I clicked on update anyway to see if that would correct the problem and it did.  Moniker didnt get back to me until this morning when it was already fixed so they were confused at first but now are looking into it deeper.

This is obviously a major problem due to two things.  One, potential buyers are not able to reach you for a potential sale.  I have no idea how long this error lasted but I regularly get offers through the whois.

Secondly, if someone posts incorrect info in the whois I believe that is grounds to have the domain taken away.  This is scary stuff, especially considering the response I am getting from Moniker which are basically blaming me and telling me I must have went in and changed my contact information.  I did no such thing.  I will await there response on this one to see what they come up with.  I cc’ed Monte on all the emails.

If this has ever happened to anyone please share.  In my 8 years in domaining I have never heard of such a story.

December 11, 2008

Takes.com Scare today

Filed under: News — topfetch @ 10:53 pm
As I was scrolling through domaining.com today I saw a post on my Takes.com domain on the DotWeekly blog and got a huge scare.  It said the domain Takes.com has expired and went to auction on the GoDaddy site.  I quickly clicked through the article and saw that it was an error and the name had not expired.  I am actually pawning the name through Rick Latona’s DigiPawn service and the article mentioned Rick contacted GoDaddy about the mistake so they would remove the name from auction.

I realized that I was getting emails from GoDaddy that the name was expiring soon.  I had neglected the emails because I knew the name was in my Moniker account and didnt expire until next year.  There was some sort of GoDaddy glitch because it was previously registered through them but the name is safe in Moniker with Rick Latona for now and I can sleep easy tonight.

November 25, 2008

My uBuy Story

Filed under: News — topfetch @ 8:21 pm

In 2001 when I first got into domains one of the first names I got which I was luckily able to register was the name uBuy.net. I remember thinking how lucky I was to get the name for less than $20 after it was previously dropped. I quickly asked around the forums for an appraisal on the name. A few distinct answers I can remember was that the name is not worth much without the .com. I quickly started looking into who owned the .com and noticed it was a previously publicly traded company but the name was no longer in use. I sent numerous emails to the owner which were never answered and found numerous other interested parties wondering about it as well.

I will fast forward the story to today and then go back. I received an email today asking if uBuy.com was for sale and if so how much. I quickly responded to the buyer that I own uBuy.net and he can make an offer. I can understand how a mistake like that is made by mixing up the .com with the .net. The buyer emailed me back and said he would be interested in the .net only if the .com was included. I thought that was fair enough and again reminded him that I do not own the .com. He responded with a link back to the whois which to my surprise stated I was the owner. First thought in my mind was that this was a huge mistake. I quickly looked to see who the registrar was and found it to be a GoDaddy reseller. I called them up and was shocked that they did indeed confirm the name was in my posession. I started to think back on how this came to be and started to remember something.

Back in February 2004, while I was still interested in the uBuy.com name I was getting deeper into the domain business and started learning about expiring names and how they work. I ran across a site that can backorder a domain for you in case it gets dropped and paid the $18. It ended up being this GoDaddy reseller who was now the registrar for the name so I finally realized what had happened. 5 hours later I got the confirmation that uBuy.com had been captured through this backorder service.

I am not sure what the chances are of this happening but I think it was very unlikely to say the least and I consider myself very lucky. I think uBuy.com is a pure generic premium domain name.

UPDATE: 10 days into my ownership of the name and its receiving nearly 100 visitors per day and I already have 3 unsolicited offers and 6 total offers. I dont really sell any of my names and would always rather develop. If anyone has any ideas or plans for possible co-development please contact me. That goes for any other name I own.

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