I have been in the process of buying a nice 4 letter .com domain since 04-03-2008 that I was hoping to use. I made what I considered a fair offer for the domain at $475 USD. The owner of the domain said he has had higher offers, but considered it and ACCEPTED my offer, but bumped it up a little to $500 even. I was ok with this, since it was close to my offer and we agreeded to the deal.

I asked and presented a couple ways we could finish the transaction. One way was threw Escrow.com and the second was threw NetworkSolutions.com Certified Offer, since the domain was registered threw them. The seller came back and asked that we use the Certified Offer service since the domain was registered there, which I agreeded.

 The service cost $19 to send "the offer", then 5% of the sale price of the domain. So I first paid the $19 for the Certified Offer on 4-9-2008 and expected to hear back with an accepted offer the same day since we had already agreeded on the price.

After a couple days of not getting an accepted offer, I was a little worried and recontacted the seller to verify that he got the email from NSI with my offer. He replied back, Nope, not yet. Hmmm, so I asked the usual, did you check your spam folder etc. So another day goes by and nothing, so I decide to send an email to the Certified Offer Service and find out what’s going on. I sent this 4-13-2008, which is now 4 days after I had sent the offer. So like always, NetSol takes 3 full days to reply and I get my answer on 4-16-2008.

The domain name had expired and like NSI always does…. They automatically change the registrant information, server info etc on the day the domain expires and put in NSI info. Now keep in mind that the owner of the domain STILL owns the domain and has nearly 36 days to renew it, before it would go to auction at NameJet. So my answer that I got from the Certified Offer Service, was…

"We have researched your Certified Offer order for DOMAINREMOVED and have found that the domain had expired at the time the offer was placed. Because of this, the WHOIS database did not reflect the current Registrant’s contact information. We have updated the information in your order to match the current WHOIS information and have resent the offer email to the Administrative contact."

So I sent the offer on 4-9-2008 and the real owner Finally got the email offer on 4-16-2008 (clearly no phone call follow up etc). Now in the 7 days the seller was waiting to close the deal and get his offer that we agreeded upon, he must of got thinking…. and went out and got a Domain Appraisal… Well I think you know where I am going here, as domainers know what most domain appraisals look like. If you are not aware, most domain appraisals are a far cry from what the domain would really sell for on the open market.

 Well, now the owner has decided that the $500 that he accepted before, must be to low and now want’s $2,000 USD. Just maybe the "Domain Appraisal" he got while waiting could have something to do with this?……

The moral of the story here is, the email of the seller accepting and agreeing to the price of $500 would hold up in court if I wanted to go that route. Now keep in mind, lawyer fee’s etc, this would get pricey to "make a point" and get the domain. Now I do not know if NSI was in the wrong with the offer not getting to the owner, since they change whois info instantly at the expire date, but the real owner still really has control of the domain for another 70+ days after the expire date. This changing of whois info and servers is really a whole ‘nother story and the registrar being able to sell the domain only 36 days after the domain really expired…. What happened to the 1-45 days in Expired status, the 30 days of Redemption Period?

Now the owners email had nothing to do with the domain name that I was purchasing. So even if the servers were changed, and if NSI were to send Renewal Emails, the original registrant should be able to get those correct? Well, it’s my guess they use the same email address (Registrant on file) to send the Certified Offer? So what gives?

Well, for one, Do not ever use the Certified Offer Service, since they do nothing more then send an email to the registrant on file. They are a bit more helpful if they can ever get the offer to the owner, but I think it’s just best to use Escrow.com . Secondly, tomorrow, I am going to look deeper into the "Pre-Release domains on NameJet. If you do the numbers, it appears to me, they are selling domain names they do not even own"…. but again, I will look into this and do a post tomorrow.

Jamie Zoch www.DotWeekly.com