Domain thieves eventually end up behind bars.
The stolen domain name Lightly.com was not removed by 4.CN officials, despite their notification by its rightful owner, Ms. Patricia Clason, about its status.
After reporting the theft, the founder of the Center for Creative Learning gave the domain thief a taste of their own medicine, by placing a bid on 4.CN for her own domain.
Naturally, the thief seized the opportunity to make some quick money from the stolen domain Lightly.com and accepted the offer. And now the fun begins!
Ms. Clason emailed us with the correspondence between her and the 4.CN auction system:
Dear Customer,
The seller has accepted your offer of domain lightly.com and initiated the transaction. Please submit the payment to 4.cn in 7 workdays.
We will inform the seller to precede the domain transfer after the confirmation of your payment. Pls log in the following links for more details.
http://www.4.cn/buyer/view-offer/nid/333074
If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to email us at support@goldenname.com.
Best Regards,
4.CN Team
www.4.cn
Tel: +86 571 89986888
Email: support@goldenname.com
Obviously, paying even a cent to a thief for a domain that is rightfully hers, is out of the question.
The theft of Lightly.com has already caused extreme duress and financial loss to Ms. Clason and her company, and not only she deserves a prompt return of the domain name but ample compensation from the parties guilty of this domain theft.
Ms. Clason responded thus to the 4.CN officers’ email:
I have no intention of purchasing a domain which was stolen from me after over 15 years of being in my name. It was paid for and current with GoDaddy and was stolen from us.Please advise the seller of same and that a complaint has been filed with the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center and the FBI in the United States.Patricia Clason, owner, Center for Creative Learning, LLC
Way to go, Ms. Clason!
- It is about time that domain thieves, domain registrars, and domain auctioneers realize that by hindering or not assisting with the resolution of the theft, they become conspirators.
- It is about time that ICANN gets involved more actively and suspends the licenses of domain registrars that provide safe harbor to thieves, or those that do not actively assist with the reclaiming of the domains.
- It is about time that the domain thieves themselves lose sleep over their criminal act, no matter where they are located – in the US or in Europe, Asia, Africa; they will be prosecuted.
We will publish more news about the stolen domain name, Lightly.com, once we have an update.
4.cn should have suspended the listing once there was doubt over ownership …….period
Seems that an auction for the domain ended on the 30th of July:
http://www.4.cn/auction/detail/aid/157473
Did Ms. Clason manage to stop that auction?
Richard – There’s an update at http://domaingang.com/domain-news/lightly-com-update-domain-thief-accepted-offer-4-cn/