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FIB - Scams 101 - Ye Olde Archives
Posted By: Sharon
Saturday, 15 October 2005, at 2:39 p.m.
Hey Guys,
I was hoping one of you might have a clever tip for dealing with a cybersquatter. I'm helping a company create a web site and they THOUGHT they had registered their company name as a domain name. When I went to set up their hosting account, I discovered they actually hadn't registered it (not sure why they thought they had) and a company that routinely squats on domain names owns it.
On most Who Is searches, the domain owner shows as Compana, LLC. When you look up Compana's URL, it's BudgetDomains.com, a (supposed) domain reseller. If you do a Who Is on BudgetDomains, it shows Manila Industries as the owner. I've found several documents indicating Compana and Manila are actually the same company and have been involved in numerous domain name disputes (they usually lose). They apparently make it a habit of registering domains that are almost identical to very well-known names. Citigroup won a domain dispute against them for using several altered versions of the citibank domain. (Makes you wonder about all those Citibank phishing scams, doesn't it?)
It appears they own over 300,000 domains they're squatting on. They claim they're domain resellers, but as you can see, their domain selling site, BudgetDomains.com, is "temporarily closed". Apparently, however, they've been "temporarily closed" since at least a year (according to the Wayback machine).
I've emailed both the email address shown for Manila Industries, and the sales & support addresses for Budget Domains requesting they sell us the domain for a reasonable fee. Even if they ask for some outrageous amount for the domain, at least it would be nice if they'd reply and name a figure, but it's been several days and no reply.
The domain is set to expire in mid-December, but my client wants to have at least a basic online presence within the next 30 days. I'm not sure what to tell them. I realize they could use an alternate domain name -- CompanyNameOnline.com, for example -- but their original name is really so much better.
I looked into filing a formal dispute, and since my client's company has been doing commerce under this name, while Compana/Manila isn't, I think my client would probably win. But it looks like filing a dispute costs about $2000 dollars and they don't want to spend that kind of money without any guarantee they'd win. (I can't blame them.)
So what do I do? Give up and have them use a so-so domain name? Use a different domain temporarily and somehow switch them down the road if they gain ownership of their preferred domain? The client will pursue whichever recommendation I make, but I'm stuck.
Thanks,
Sharon
Mary Noble Running for State Supreme Court Justice
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