WHAT IS A DOMAIN?
A domain name is the fundamental block of business. A domain name is pretty much responsible for everything including websites, in-house applications, managing official emails to brand building and creating a reputation across market.
ABOUT VICTIM
The company has rapidly built a significant competitive presence in the area of Corporate Advisory. It has since earned a reputation for providing value to its clients by focusing on personalized advice that is innovative and practical in each field. Providing organizations with the advice they need through highly qualified and experienced professionals, with personal touch and care has helped them to build long term relationship with the clients.
The problem
The problem occurred when a domain of such a high-profile business gets transferred across international boundaries without any authorization. It is up for an auction at an immensely vague amount on a public hosting provider. Noting that the domain was timely renewed with having proof of all renewal invoices and email acknowledgements from the hosting provider, it got transferred in an instant of a moment.
Initial statement by the hosting provider
(Not disclosing the name of hosting provider as it is a big brand since the start of the internet)
The hosting provider denied the accusations and blamed the fault on us repeatedly. Every time they feed our queries with a lame reason on why the domain got unauthorized transferred. They were taking too long to respond on tickets, their support was not at all helpful.
The communication with their support team was good for nothing. We needed to talk to an actual person who understands the depth of this issue and can suggest a possible resolution. They were least bothered in getting us reach the concerned team.
Meanwhile, the business was impacted in the most disastrous way possible. The website and all the allied services were down. Fortunately, the new buyer didn’t change the MX records that kept our mailing services running and saved us a lot during that phase. Had the MX records been reset, the impact would be unimaginable for the business.
DIGGING DEEP
We have had no option left but to file a complaint. The legal team was also clueless, since this case was “first of its kind” and they’ve never encountered such a case before. On doing more R&D across web, we were able to find that ICANN governs the domain marketplace and web. So, we documented everything and filed a complaint.
We’ve lost hopes. Fortunately, after a week, we received a communication from a parent company of the domain provider and our problem got acknowledged.
Root Cause
The domain was originally purchased in early 2011 from a US-based domain registrar. The company got in transition multiple times and got split in multiple child companies, a few acquisitions and again some split for country-wise branches during which this domain information got misplaced, rather lost. Someone exploited this flaw and somehow bought the domain and put it up on an auction.
RESULT
After 3 months of head-hunting communication, mind boggling e-mail trails and follow-ups, the domain was finally returned to its rightful owner with an additional year and an apology. However, the company lost a fortune during this unintended circumstance.