Wanted: Service An elusive .com registrant

[keys]

We have a client who would like to acquire a particular .com domain. Various contact details (in California) for the Registrant are easy to find but almost certainly out of date, so far no response from any of these.

The domain is not a gem and has no obvious value but it is the favoured option for a new venture. It was first registered in 1998 and used by an operational business in 2001, with several Trademarks, since expired. It appears that the last renewal was June 2012.

No set budget for the acquisition but I think there is a good chance that both parties could agree a deal, if the Registrant can be contacted. Some generous beer money on offer to progress this.

I have disabled PM's, so please use email to 630(AT)shores co.uk

Thanks, CJ

 

[daleduan]

I have disabled PM's, so please use email to 630(AT)shores co.uk

I tried emailing you but Gmail won't allow it. It says the address was not recognized. Could you please check again. Thanks!

 

[keys]

I tried emailing you but Gmail won't allow it. It says the address was not recognized. Could you please check again. Thanks!

The email address is correct. I have received replies from three members, thanks. The matter is now in hand, I will add an update later if we are still unable to contact the Registrant.

 

[keys]

We have spoken to the admin contact - he lost access to the domain years ago. An email reply from the former CEO of the corporation (domain registrant) says the company was taken over and the group ceased trading. Since then someone has evidently continued to pay the renewals.

This appears to be a dead end, but our client is still keen to acquire the domain. Can anyone familiar with .com procedures suggest a next step?

 

[martin-s]

You should be able to try a change of ownership if you can get someone senior at the firm to put together a letter to the current registrar on headed paper, etc.

Has worked for me in the past.

 

[namealot]

Sounds like it’s the property of the new company have you contacted them? You say original company has ceased trading the takeover company has it also ceased you may be able to purchase rights from the receiver etc

Has the name ever dropped or it has been registered since 1998? It could be set for auto renewal and the previous registrant isn’t even aware it is doing so? If it is the same registrar as originally they’d be able to contact them to gain access to it?
Did your offer include an amount? many if they receive offers without just ignore them?

 

[gimpydog]

We have spoken to the admin contact - he lost access to the domain years ago. ...
This appears to be a dead end, but our client is still keen to acquire the domain. Can anyone familiar with .com procedures suggest a next step?

Is it registered with one of the big registrars (enom/netsol/tucows/name/gd etc) & parked?

If it is, they are probably renewing it themselves for the parking revenue.

Try emailing the registrar's legal@... or abuse@... email address explaining that you are trying to contact the owner with a view to buying the domain, but the whois data is wrong, or, if they have an in-house brokerage dept, try making an offer through that (eg. https://www.certifiedofferservice.com/ for netsol).

If all else fails, book the name with all the dropcatchers & make a complaint of inaccurate whois data at http://wdprs.internic.net/. They will contact the registrar & it will be updated or the domain will be deleted. Worse-case scenario is the registrar will add whois privacy & you will be back to square one - but at least you can move on.

 

[ImageAuthors]

We have spoken to the admin contact - he lost access to the domain years ago. An email reply from the former CEO of the corporation (domain registrant) says the company was taken over and the group ceased trading. Since then someone has evidently continued to pay the renewals.

This appears to be a dead end, but our client is still keen to acquire the domain. Can anyone familiar with .com procedures suggest a next step?

If renewal fees have been paid, then the registrar must still have this domain in somebody's account -- either the Admin or the registrant. If they've forgotten their login information, they should be able to retrieve it.

My guess is that the Admin contact would be the person with the login credentials but is busy and feels no incentive to help. Seeing that the registrant -- and not he -- is the legal owner and would be the person getting paid, he's probably right. Meanwhile the registrant may be a businessman with no real idea what's involved in a domain transfer. He probably overestimates the difficulty and just wants to get back to his day job.

If you can offer some payment to the Admin contact, then he may be motivated to regain access to the domain. And if you can show the registrant that this Admin contact has the ability to push the domain to you in 60 seconds, then that registrant would undoubtedly accept your buyer's offer. After all, the registrant already perceives the domain as a worthless part of the past; so why not?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but this is my hunch.

 

[keys]

Many thanks for the replies and suggestions, especially from gimpydog.

This domain has clearly been an orphan for years, with no owner or admin. If we achieve early cancellation, will there be a specific drop date and would we have to rely on manual registration?

 

[gimpydog]

If we achieve early cancellation, will there be a specific drop date?

I don't think there are any hard & fast rules in these situations. Each registrar will probably have a different process.

It could go through the full drop cycle, go straight to pending delete or be cancelled without any notice at all.

would we have to rely on manual registration?

However it deletes, if the domain has *any* value at all, you are unlikely to register it by hand - the .com market is just too competitive for that!

Early drops/cancellations tend not to go through the "in-house" auctions, so why not book it at all the free-to-order dropcatchers (snapnames/namejet/pool/domainmonster) anyway? If it's not that good a name, you might not need to go to auction & you'll own it for under £50. If it is a good name, you'll pay the market price - which still might be less than the 'owner' would have wanted.

It's hard to be more specific without knowing all the registration details.