Help me acquiring back a domain

Was legal owner since 1999 to 2006 and bang..ISP says it’s gone!

[kartiksh]

A domain name of our client is now under someone else’s control. They contacted me to check the possibility of acquiring it back for them. My first whois query hit me with strange symptoms. The whois for domain reads like
Record expires on xx-#*$!-2006
Record created on xx-xxx-1999
Database last updated onxx-xxx-2006

Now above stats make me wonder how this is possible. If the claim from ISP of client who were managing domain and they informed that it was lapsed and someone acquired it how come the record created date is still 1999. it should be 2006 as lapse mean deletion process and then reregistration by someone. Is my understanding correct here?

Also I found strange is the current registrant in WHOIS having .org email id as admin and the .org site is down for maintenance since very very long. The whois of .org shows registrant as domain by proxy i.e. anonymous registration.

The domain registrar is Network Solutions. Any help, thoughts, views from you all experts are welcomed.

[Webwork]

NetSol now moves expired domains that have passed the redemption period into an auction process, by-passing the delete cycle during which time they couldn't be renewed anyway. As a result the domains aren't "deleted" from the registry and therefore they will show the original registration date.

They have been doing this for at least a year.

It would appear that someone failed to timely renew the domain name.

[kartiksh]

thanks.

if thats the case i am sure its grabed by someone using netsol process.

[Webwork]

Another possible explanation is theft by deception: Someone gained control of an unused Hotmail account, etc.

[stu2]

Yep. Many (desireable) domains never get deleted these days. They go to auction before they get deleted from the registry. Hence the old registration date.

I'm not sure I entirely understood the 2nd part of your question regarding private registration and the website being down. Technically, you don't need to have any website at all to run email on a domain.

Are you asking some other question? Like, Q:how to contact the domain owner of a domain with privacy? A:You could send an email/fax/mail or call to the privacy contacts.

[wmuser]

Its a usual practice for NetSol to let the expired name be sold to another owner and leave original creation date