I was reading this post on Pocket SEO, and think that I should share it with my readers.
Basically, a friend of the author was checking the availability of a domain name. It was available when she looked it up. When she wanted to register the domain name the next day, it was already registered by an entity called UltraRPM.
Fortunately though, the domain was only held for five days, the standard grace period for anyone purchasing a ICANN sanctioned domain name.
So please exercise extra care when hunting for domain names, especially if you’re using an IE/Windows setup.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:29 pm
wow… this sound dangerous. Will using FF safer?
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:37 pm
If by safer you mean “reduce the risk of this happening to me”, I’d say yes.
Because FF and other non-IE browsers don’t do weird Active-X magic tricks.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:51 am
I encountered the same problem- this company called UltraRPM stole my domain name few hours when i failed to buy it. i truely don’t know what to do. Indeed i don’t know why the practice is not being punished by the law. I am suspecting that a sort of datamining was used to pick the domain name i wanted to purchase, since this domain name is not an english name at all. The domain was registered by UltraRPM on May 25, we are already May 29. I just hope that they’ll release it in the 5 days period, otherwise i’ll consider leagl action since the name of the domain is my company’s name that is fully registered and protected.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:06 am
I don’t think it has anything to do with IE. I searched for mine on goDaddy.com using Firefox 2 and the same day (a few hours later) it was registered by that same company UltraRPM.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I have heard of this too with godaddy. I would like to think it is just a coincidence but who knows. Best thing to do is write out a bunch of domain names that interest you and then do your searching for them and immediately buy it if it’s available.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:31 am
I checked for mine using NameCheap.com and on the same day, it was gone! This is indeed frustrating… It was taken by UltraRPM too.
December 24th, 2007 at 10:42 am
I have had it happen with a domain name i paid for 24 hours previously with some slow registrar. i really need the domain. people should not use godaddy.com