sneaky namecheap employee has a side job

[Deleted member 1333509]

I found a perfect domain worth at least mid $x,xxx on Namecheap.. searched it, came back to buy it for reg fees 20 mins later.. what do you know, the bastards stole it.

Now because of that thieving company I'll never be able to get www.big-booty-biatches.xyz after all and missed out on the opportunity to make a quick flip for a few k.

They're watching all the premium hidden diamond-domains in the rough with advanced machine learning I think.

 

[AngelSeo]

They have the technology to do that. Their system can pick out a good domain in second. if the same system can return info in seconds for thousands of domains checking, it can equally get them registered in a second

Registering the domains is easy. I can do that. You can do that. Registering GOOD domains however is the tricky part. How their system know that the domain is good?

 

[AngelSeo]

Ok, I will give you the full story of my most recent experience with this.

I was looking into a domain name maybe 18-24 months ago for a project I was considering. I know I checked the availability of the domain a number of times over a period of say 6 months. Then one day I checked it, and the domain name had been taken. I think the trigger was me checking for it multiple times whilst being logged into my Namecheap account. I have no idea whether this is done by the company itself, or by some rogue employees.

Roughly a year later, I started receiving emails asking if I wanted to purchase the domain for I think it was $99 (or it might have been $199). The email did not come directly from Namecheap, nor have any branding related to Namecheap.

But, the only company where I had searched for this domain was Namecheap, and they obviously had my e-mail contact details.

Over the next couple of weeks I received more emails, but they started to reduce the asking price, until I think it came down to $25. Then the emails just stopped. I checked for the domain again, and it was now available, so I bought it (not that I had any immediate plans to push forward with the project, I just wanted the domain!)

So this is what I think is happening. If a registered user searches for a domain name on multiple occassions, they see the user is interested and they register it themselves for a period of 12 months. Next time the user checks the domain name, they get the usual response of the domain not being available, but that you can "make an offer" for it. As they reach the end of the 12 months registration, they start sending emails asking if you want to purchase the domain name. If they don't manage to sell it within the 12 months, they don't bother renwing the registration, and the domain becomes available again.

While this indeed is possible, let me ask you - how many people do you think do this - checking multiple time for a domain name without register it for a months? You and one more dude per year? Do you seriously think, that company as Namecheap or Godaddy are going out of their way to MAYBE win $200 for a year?

 

[Cratos]

We need to setup a class action lawsuit. Lets contact a good lawyer guys to fix this crap

 

[thetrustedzone]

Godaddy, namecheap,and other big domain business running AI bot in background for user domain search will analyze catchy domain name searched by user and register it for them if user didn't buy it in 24 hours time period.

 

[moonshine7000]

write your own whois checker case solved.

 

[inserte]

This is done automatically by a script. There is no employee with a side job

 

[moonshine7000]

This is done automatically by a script. There is no employee with a side job

It is very simple just count the amount of times a domain is being searched.

 

[inserte]

It is very simple just count the amount of times a domain is being searched.

Exactly. And this is nothing new. This was done even in 2000s.

 

[specialseo]

It's called "Domain Tasting" this practice is old and nothing new to be surprised of.

They also get some kind of credit or grace and they block the domain if it is in the cart. They don't have to pay the registry for this. (Don't know if it is happening nowadays) Many years ago netsol was the one doing this and they would block it so that you have to register it with them only.

I actually took advantage of this greed of theirs and in early days when there were many available domain names and I didn't had money to register them all. I would pick 4 or 5 good ones and get all other blocked and then head onto forums for selling the ones I had for $20 a pop. People would then search for similar names and find nothing available and they would think this niche is hot. That way it was easy to turn 20 into 100 within some hours.

Would like to add that I tried for fun searching for 1273636jdhehdhrhejdblahblahblah.com and it also was not available for registration for whole week.

 

[AngelSeo]

It is very simple just count the amount of times a domain is being searched.

So the registrars are waiting for dozens and dozens of users to check the domain name and DID NOT REGISTER IT to count is as valuable. I mean this is great idea. Dozens of people doesn't register the domain so it must be valuable. I see now.

 

[metatransmission]

I can confirm this has happened to me and one time I was ready to head for someones house and umm... give them a stern talking to.
It's infuriating, and it def does happen. FUCKERS. If you're worried about it, use whois for you domain name research. That is all.
(I disagree with the automation part. I think that they have people on staff that do this constantly)
-M

 

[RAP]

Guys, are you sure what you are saying.

Have you made a whois search of your "stolen" domain after write these assumptions?

If you've checked domain 123456789.xyz on 09-29-2020 and after 20 mins has been stolen whois query have to return as Creation Date the same day and hour.

If you use linux / mac launch a whois command in your shell, don't use any 3rd party cached whois sites in order to have the real stauts.

I say this because there are many false positive around registrars.

PS: if your domains have been already registered, you DO NOT own and you've nothing to loose / expose feel free to share some domains you think have been stolen. I'll do a search.

 

[SamLewis]

Guys, are you sure what you are saying.

Have you made a whois search of your "stolen" domain after write these assumptions?

If you've checked domain 123456789.xyz on 09-29-2020 and after 20 mins has been stolen whois query have to return as Creation Date the same day and hour.

If you use linux / mac launch a whois command in your shell, don't use any 3rd party cached whois sites in order to have the real stauts.

I say this because there are many false positive around registrars.

PS: if your domains have been already registered, you DO NOT own and you've nothing to loose / expose feel free to share some domains you think have been stolen. I'll do a search.

Yeah, I searched for the .com but it was taken, the .co.uk was automatically added to basket.
Checked the .co.uk on ahrefs, no backlinks, no history. Checked wayback machine, nothing.
Less than a week later the .co.uk domain was registered by the same registrar.

I've had it happen several times in the last few years.

 

[groundboy]

I once found and purchased the domain titanium.club and was very happy with the purchase, everything went fine. The other day I got an email that the domain purchased was not really available for purchase and it was gone from my domains list and the amount got refunded. Big corporations have many a trick under their sleeve. Can't do much, these things happen regularly.

 

[shiboshy]

Go and search 100000+ domains. Use a VPN & repeat.

 

[metatransmission]

Guys, are you sure what you are saying.

Have you made a whois search of your "stolen" domain after write these assumptions?

If you've checked domain 123456789.xyz on 09-29-2020 and after 20 mins has been stolen whois query have to return as Creation Date the same day and hour.

If you use linux / mac launch a whois command in your shell, don't use any 3rd party cached whois sites in order to have the real stauts.

I say this because there are many false positive around registrars.

PS: if your domains have been already registered, you DO NOT own and you've nothing to loose / expose feel free to share some domains you think have been stolen. I'll do a search.

I have, and yes, confirmed through some osint work that they did indeed steal it (they did NOT make that easy)
I don't see why people have such a hard time believing that registrars would do this.

-M

 

[stelios0]

Υeah this is true, they must have some filters + third party stats acquired from the years they operate.

It reminds me of the plane ticket industry, you search for a flight and you are given a price, then you search another flight for the same destrination. Now if you go back to the first one it's 10% more expensive, it has happened to me multiple times.

 

[metatransmission]

I found a perfect domain worth at least mid $x,xxx on Namecheap.. searched it, came back to buy it for reg fees 20 mins later.. what do you know, the bastards stole it.

Now because of that thieving company I'll never be able to get www.big-booty-biatches.xyz after all and missed out on the opportunity to make a quick flip for a few k.

They're watching all the premium hidden diamond-domains in the rough with advanced machine learning I think.

bruh... if it makes you feel any better, that is NOT a 4-figure domain. Just sayin.

 

[metatransmission]

bruh... if it makes you feel any better, that is NOT a 4-figure domain. Just sayin.

Also.
Not likely that a registrar would steal that one.