Something shady or just a coincidence?

[Spex]

I tried registering 3 .Co's at "RegistrarX" and after I hit the purchase button it took a few minutes to process and then my confirmation came back with 2 of the 3 names listed as "failed". So I only got 1 out of 3

The names that failed were a LLL and a current hot electronics product.

Just out of curiosity, I did a whois check on domain tools and lo and behold the 2 failed names are sitting on "RegistrarX"'s servers.

So, what do you think happened here…Was it just a coincidence that someone else registered these 2 names at this same registrar a few seconds before my order went through or did the registrar snatch the names?

I've seen threads were people were suspicious of registrars cherry picking names from people's searches, but I never believed it because I assume it would required an actual person at the registrar monitoring the searches, but now that this happened to me I don't know what to think.

I appreciate anyone's thoughts about this or any similar situation you've been involved in.

 

[hugegrowth]

Maybe they did get them for you, there was just a quirk in the process. Contact them and see if you really do have them.

 

[draggar]

Since when has a new TLD launch / open gone without any hint of corruption?

 

[Spex]

Ok, this is weird…I just checked on whois.co and it's showing all 3 names registered to me.

But my Registrars confirmation page and subsequent receipt said that 2 of the 3 names failed, and they only charged me for the one name that went through

wtf?

 

[Jilo]

check if they're in your account... if they are, don't say anything

 

[Spex]

Nope, the only .co in my account is the one I was charged for. So no freebies

I did notice that the 2 failed names were still in my cart so I tried to reg them again and got an error message saying the system could not proceed. So I emptied my cart and searched for the 2 names again and they're now showing as unavailable.

 

[draggar]

Good luck.

 

[PrimeRisk2]

There has been some strange stuff going on. I did my Landrush domains through OpenSRS and I guess I'll be experiencing the auction process. My experience with Wild West Domains has been less than stellar. At about 0600 UTC I got an e-mail stating they had pulled a number of my pre-registrations and canceled them. So I went and checked and sure enough they had been taken out by Landrush orders...fair enough. Thing is, I checked my account and they also pulled another pre-reg that they didn't send me an e-mail on and it wasn't prempted by a Landrush order. I sent a WTF message to Wild West and got the normal "We don't know why .CO denied your order..." line of BS. No huge deal...if I had really wanted it I would have paid for Landrush.

When GA opened I started pulling the whois on that domain and sure enough, Wild West snagged it...and gave it to someone else. Supposedly Wild West would only take 1 pre-order per domain and it appears that isn't true. I'm arguing with Reseller Support about what we were told as resellers and what they actually did and they keep trying to blame it on the .CO registry. (How does that hold?, .CO gave the domain to Wild West, they're the ones who are playing games.) It appears that they collected as much cash as they could knowing they could by taking multiple pre-orders for domains and just plain lied about their policy. Eventually they'll give the cash back, but they haven't yet.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

 

[Spex]

Update: Problem solved. Got an email from the registrar saying the names were orphaned but now, 3 days later, they have been placed in my account

What a relief

 

[BobDiGiTaL]

they tested the traffic and decided they were not worth it , and then gave your domains to you. coincidence - no, shady as fu(k - yes

 

[Spex]

Didn't think of that, but anyway I'm glad they finally made it into my account.

If they did pull this scam, would that require someone monitoring every domain search at the registrar and cherry picking the names on the fly? I'm no programmer, but wouldn't it be hard to automate a program to look for a wide range of names (the 2 names in question were an LLL and an 8-letter generic) and have that script pluck them during the period between searching and registering?

I mean, if the registrar had a list of names they wanted to horde for themselves, wouldn't they have gotten them prior to me searching for them? I didn't attempt to register these names until a full 24hrs after they became available to the general public so they would have had plenty of time to get them

I am in no way defending or supporting registrars or conspiracy theorists, I'm just looking to cover my own butt and avoid delays the next time I try to register during a land rush