The registrant of the domain igroutka.net lost access to his asset on July 23, 2020 – the domain was transferred to Namecheap. Igroutka.net is a busy web site with thousands of daily visitors, primarily from Russia, looking for free online games:
As I found out, on July 21, 2020, my mail was hacked, which was indicated in the contact information of the domain administrator. With the help of mail, the scammer received an auth code and transferred the domain. Also in the mail were scans of my old invalid passport, with their help the fraudster forged a scan of my passport, and presented a fake scan of my passport to my previous registrar Webnames.ru.
At the time, the Russian registrant decided to file a UDRP to reclaim the domain, although he was advised that it’d be a fruitless process. The thief had already grabbed the content of igroutka.net, creating a legit-looking web site:
Also, in parallel, I filed a claim with the WIPO Arbitration Court. Later it turned out that filing this claim was a big mistake, I lost a lot of time and money. About a month and a half later, Namecheap’s technical support informed me that they are terminating their investigation because I initiated the UDRP procedure, and they have no right to interfere with the arbitration court’s investigation. I had the choice to either cancel the UDRP procedure or wait for the arbitral tribunal’s decision. I decided not to cancel the UDRP procedure and wait for the court’s decision, and as it turned out, this decision was also a mistake.
Igroutka.net was stolen, according to the UDRP filed
Apparently, the domain thief in control of igroutka.net respondent to the UDRP as if he were the legitimate registrant, forging identification information:
In the course of the proceedings, the arbitration court asked the fraudster to prove the legal possession of my domain. The scammer told them that he bought a domain from me during a personal meeting, and confirmed that he had a receipt from the bank that proves that he had bought the domain. After a while, he was asked to provide proof of domain purchase. In response, he sent them a fake receipt, in which I allegedly received money from him and gave him my domain.
For my part, I passed a handwriting examination, in the conclusion of which the expert made a decision that the handwritten text and the signature on this receipt were written not by me but by another person. I sent this examination to the judge, but it did not help me.
The victim in this case discovered that he wasn’t the only one whose domain was stolen by the same thief. The following domains were also stolen:
- onlajnigry.net
- oldmerin.net
- orgtech.info
Despite the UDRP loss, the legitimate owner of igroutka.net shared this information for three reasons, in his own words:
- Firstly, my goal is to publicly report that my igroutka.net domain has been stolen, perhaps the scammer will try to sell it to someone.
- Secondly, I want the employees of Namecheap.com, from the “Risk Management” department, to turn their attention to this article, I have not received an answer from them for more than 3 weeks, I really hope that they will help me and return my domain.
- I am desperate, I found myself in a difficult situation, my site was my only job.
To read more information on the theft of igroutka.net visit Reddit.
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Similar happened to me, my domain (business of 11 years) jixhost.com was hijacked from my registrar (GoDaddy) and moved to Namecheap without my authorization. It was discovered my email was hacked, and the hacker used the “forgot password” to obtain access and transfer out my domain. Namecheap took months after I opened the dispute to only state it was a valid transfer. I hired an attorney and we are in the midst of a wipo process.