Update #5: The domain appears to have been sold without the authorization of its previous owner, Rebecca J. Burns. New article here.
Update #4: The owner of ComQuest Designs who registered CQD.com 22 years ago, denies that she sold the domain to James Booth. Her statement from Facebook follows:
“my domain, CQD.com which i created over 22 years ago for my graphic design company has been STOLEN! i will now embark on a legal battle to get it back. i hope to start a movement to protect our domain names better. it was sold to a domain reseller who will make 5x what he spent on it. it was decided by one man who never ever interviewed me, callee me, usps mailed me, NEVER SAW MY BLUE INK SIGNAUTURE. this sale happened though bogus emails. somebody cashed a check for my domain, and it was not me.”
Update #3: James Booth told us that the domain CQD.com was returned to his possession by the legal department of Web.com, mother company of Network Solutions.
Update #2: James Booth clarified that the transaction occurred outside of Afternic, after he was contacted from a CQD.com email address. The seller was verified by Escrow.com. The domain was reclaimed by Network Solutions after about a month. The case is currently under investigation at NetSol.
Update: Joe Styler of Afternic contacted us with the following information:
“We looked at it pretty closely and we don’t see any reason to believe cqd.com is stolen. […] We don’t have any record of 26k coming in on this domain so maybe it was somewhere else and maybe someone else is pretending to sell the domain they don’t own but this listing looks to be from the real owner and the floor offer is 150k so I don’t think anyone would be able to try and send in 26k on the name. There is also a lot of other evidence that seems to a few people here who looked at it including myself that the domain is listed by the rightful owner correctly.”
It appears that the person who facilitated the $26,000 dollar scam did so outside of Afternic, pretending to be the real owner.
This article will be updated with new information, when available.
— Original post follows.
The domain name CQD.com has been listed for sale on Afternic, but its seller isn’t the real owner.
Domain investor and broker, James Booth, chalked this one up as a loss, after transferring $26,000 dollars believing the seller was legitimate.
The transaction was apparently reversed.
James Booth shared news of his monetary loss on DNForum, in a warning thread that involved the sales reversal of PDD.com.
The buyer of PDD.com lost $42,000 dollars in that case, after trusting a seller whose mailing address was that of a grocery store.
Always use the services of a reputable domain escrow provider to facilitate domain transactions; if the deal appears too good to be true, it probably involves a domain with dubious ownership records.
Thanks for sharing
This kind of stuff is getting way out of control. There needs to be more policy and enforcement when it comes to identifying, detaining, and prosecuting these types of people. For anyone interested, James Booth shared a lot more details about this on NamePros: https://www.namepros.com/threads/domainer-scammed-for-26k-on-a-stolen-domain.1068888/
Update: Domain no longer stolen, per https://domaingang.com/domain-news/cqd-com-domain-no-longer-stolen-returned-to-owner/