Shai Neubauer

My uBuy Story

November 25, 2008 at 8:21 pm 3 comments

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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