Strange Verisign tale! Need your opinion.

[mems]

This started out in the strangest DN stories. Another member suggested I put this out on its own thread so here goes.

I picked up latn.com on a drop. A week after I received this E-mail:

Dear Sir,

I am contacting you about latn.com. This domain name has been registered to
me for several years and unfortunately released onto the open market
incorrectly by Verisign earlier this month. I am currently contacting the
new registrars in an attempt to acquire them back and would highly
appreciate your cooperation.

Thank God, most of the new registrars have been cooperative and I have
already been able to recapture a few back and hope that you can understand
my most unfortunate situation and sincere appreciation for your attention to
this matter.

I am proposing to reimburse you for your expenses incurred thus far in
relation to the domain name and apologize for the inconvenience.

Please, contact me directly to my cell phone XXXXXXXXXX or by e-mail, if
you should have any comments, questions or suggestions.

I thank you in advance for your consideration and look forward to hearing
from you.

Sincerely and respectfully,
XXXXXXX

This guy said he lost 57 domain names because of Verisign's mistake and was only able to recapture 23 of the names so far.
He forwarded this as proof:

Dear Mr. XXXXXX,

Thank you for your assistance. I am confident that you will be able to correct, Verisign's, big mistake.

As we confirmed over the phone, all of my domain names have been closely managed over the past few months, to assure that what appears to have just happened was NOT going to happen. I was aware that Verisign, was upgrading and adding new services so I didn't want to be a victim of the confusion. I also have several e-mails, confirmations and reference numbers pertaining to this. I also have the confirmations and "success" status in my portal for the 57 domains we are referring to since October X, 2002.

Here is the portal confirmation for the renewal of my 57 domain names:

XXXXXXXXXDomain Renew Success 10/02/2002 XXXXEDT
XXXXXXXXXDomain Renew Success 10/02/2002 XXXXEDT

I also received confirmation that the transaction was succesful, by phone, from more than one person, because after I confirmed that my domain names were secure through the portal and with Mr. XXXXXXX by phone and e-mail, I still noticed that the WHOIS search was still not updated. Having recently learned that Verisign, had some legal issues in reference to domain names, I was very ontop of this, so I was making sure to follow up by phone and e-mail for every transaction, because the portal was new and I wanted to assure myself that everything was being managed properly and accurately. When I called the support center, several representatives ASSURED me that the status in my portal was accurate and that the systems just hadn't updated yet.

To my surprise, this morning, I checked one of the domain names via WHOIS search, and noticed that it was registered to someone else. That is when I called you and began to troubleshoot the situation.


Without waiving any of my rights, in order to help you in correcting this situation. I have registered the domain names again as you instructed, in order to secure any of my domains that Verisign, has inaccurately, made available to the open market.

Here is the portal confirmation for today's registrations:

XXXXXXXXDomain Create Success 10/11/2002 XXXXEDT


Unfortunately, I was only able to recapture, 23 domain names of the 57. There are still 34 domain names that Verisign, is liable for.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXX


-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXX@verisign.com]
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 1:11 PM
To: XXXXXXXX
Subject: domain deletions


We are aware of the fact that your domains have been deleted. I am working
on a resolution to this issue as we speak. I will be in contact with you
before the end of the day with a resolution to your issue.

I apologize for all of the concern,
XXXXXXX

I have Xed out personal info to protect privacy.
I am prepared to give this name back if the story is true. I have contacted Verisign by phone and left a message for the guy handling this case over a week ago but have not received a reply. I would think they would get back to me ASAP if they were interested in correcting this error.
What do you think of this???

[GeorgeK]

Might be a scam. There aer stories of people who were unsuccessful catching a name on the drop doing things like this.

Archive.org has no historic information for this domain, either. Do you know what the old WHOIS info was? Is that consistent with the story?

[adoptabledomains]

If in fact Verisign screwed up (which is highly likely), It should be up to Verisign to make it right. I would think that once they dropped it and as long as you have it at another registrar, there isn't much they could do but negotiate with you to get it back on his behalf. Verisign lost several of mine due to not crediting my payment once. One I was able to re-register, and they refunded my previous fees and the new reg fee at another registrar. The one that was picked up by someone else, they only offered a refund of paid reg fees which I accepted rather than fight an idiot company. I thanked them by never doing business with them since and telling my horror stories over and over.

I've never heard of one being revoked from a new registrant due to an error, and actually never heard of anyone getting one back after an error without buying or negotiating. I would probalby accept a nice but not outrageous profit from the domain as long as there's no trademark issues. After all, it costs up to $1000 or more to file a dispute.

I would also be wary of the guy who claims he owned the domain. It may be legit, but could also be a scam. He should be talking to Verisign about getting it back and they should be the one appealing to your sense of fairness in getting in back on his behalf.

[options]

Right, Verisign should contact you in that case.
Tell the guy so.
If he had it for several years he should have developed at
least something up to now.
No links at Marketleap, nothing about the site anywhere.

[Luc]

It smells like a scam.

Honestly, I would not believe a word he says about
his 57 domain names.

If he wants it back, he should be prepared to pay
whatever you think is a fair price, and not just
the registration fee, etc.

Luc L.

[mortario]

It doesn't sound right. If the story is true, Verisign suppose
to handle this not him. It is unlikely Verisign would delete
domains by mistake.

Aldo

[Drewbert]

>It is unlikely Verisign would delete domains by mistake.

Oh, the naivity!

[Togoodhlth]

I had a similar experience however the previous owner called me and asked me to simply point the name at his site until we could get it resolved. He had the Dn registered with verisign and it was registered through like 2006 or something.
I used "wayback" and sure enough there was a site that had been up for several years. He taught a course on trading stocks and some other related financial courses.
At any rate I transfered the name to him and he paid me $100 for my time and the reg. fees.

[mortario]

Originally posted by Drewbert
>It is unlikely Verisign would delete domains by mistake.

Oh, the naivity!

I said "Unlikely" not never ... their main problem is
the other way around. They don't delete domain
where it suppose to .. now this is "likely" to happen.