The auction for WTL.com ended at an eye-watering $15,300 dollars at DropCatch today. As we pointed out, the domain was listed in auction by a private seller – it was not a drop.
Before the auction closed, we received notification that the domain WTL.com is most likely a stolen asset.
The information came from established domain investor and broker, James Booth. According to James, the current registrant of WTL.com sent him a PayPal invoice to verify their acquisition; Booth said that the invoice appeared “doctored.”
In addition, according to James, both Escrow.com and DAN.com would not vouch for the domain seller’s identity. In that context, WTL.com appears to be in the possession of an individual other than the legitimate owner.
The question is, who really owns WTL.com. Here’s an ownership timeline.
Until January 2, 2020, WTL.com was registered at GoDaddy; on that date, it was moved to Namecheap. The transfer did not unveil the WHOIS information, that remained under privacy. On that date, the domain was listed on DAN.com for sale.
Around March 13, 2020, WTL.com was moved on Uniregistry Market DNS, while still at Namecheap. On March 15, 2020, WTL.com was moved back to DAN.com for sale.
On March 18, 2020, the domain WTL.com was transferred out to Epik. On March 23, 2020, WTL.com had its DNS changed to Cloudflare, and two days later the DNS changed to Afternic, where it was listed for sale. And on March 29th, it was listed for sale on DropCatch.
Until September 14, 2011, WTL.com was in the possession of California based, Dr. Geoffrey H. Smith, with an address matching that of Wesco Technologies Ltd.
It’s quite possible that WTL.com is an orphaned domain that somehow ended up in the hands of the current registrant, perhaps illegitimately.
If you have additional information, please contact us.
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