Registered a domain - they confirmed it - then took it back!

[Rightz]

Ok I just wondered whether this has happened to any of you?

A few days ago I registered a domain through godaddy. Everything went fine and it was confirmed so I went ahead and ordered hosting for that domain.

Later that day godaddy emailed and said they'd made a mistake and the domain wasn't available in the first place.

whois says the domain is mine but godaddy says I don't own it and have taken it out of my 'manage domains' section.

So now I've paid out for a domain I don't own and have hosting for it.

If you go to the domain the folders it in where created on the day I registered the domain. I'm really confused!

Godaddy are convince I don't own this and say they'll give me a refund. Which as yet haven't seen. Problem is I REALLY want this domain name!

What a pain in the ass!

[davezan]

I hate to say this, but this is yet another thing to expect. We can be "paranoid" all day long, but that's all it is until someone takes it further.

Assuming the registrar is "honest" (which is kinda rare :D), chances are the domain name encountered billing issues. To be specific, the registrar probably believes it's got (potential) F-R-A-U-D written all over it and decided to refund rather than face a possible chargeback.

Bottom line: call the registrar right away and ask if there are indeed billing issues involved. Be ready to take the matter up higher, but brace yourself for the worst as well.

Thankfully it hasn't happened to me...yet. But I'm bracing myself.

David

[powerchuter]

something sort of like that happened to me about 6 years ago

sat up till 2am for the nightly drops to get a domain that i really wanted, registered it and went to bed

about a week later i saw that it had someone else's whois info, contacted the domain reg and found out that we both reg'd at the same time and i lost it by a few seconds.

what is funny ( sort of in a sad way ) is that i bought that very domain this weekend

- the bad news is that a few seconds back then cost me (low) 5 figures this weekend

[unperturbed]

This happened to us, with a .co.uk domain, you just got to keep emailing them to get through the first line of "support" explain it real clearly eg:

Please explain if the name is already taken please explain
1 why our details are on the whois
2 why are you the domain register

we had to sent then an email like this then they passed it on to a tecnician who came after about a week. and added the domain to the account

with .co.uk they use another register first line of support didn't know this and said it wasn't reged by us