25/04/2019

The curious case of Dustie.com

This one is very interesting. So Dustie Meads posts on Namepros that’s her first name, Dustie.com sold for $450 on GoDaddy.

She said she had the name listed for $20,000 for many years, not $450.

The ironic part about posting on Namepros resulted in seeing that another member Maxtra was the buyer of the name. They had it listed in their sig line and they were being called out as to what happened? Maxtra simply explained that the name was for sale and he bought it.

Maxtra then posted that he would try to work out a deal with Dustie and while Dustie has been offline for a couple hours, Maxtra sold the name for $5,000 to MapleDots who posted he would give the name back immediately and take the loss if GoDaddy stated anything happened such as a hack or an error.

Keith had posted before the news of the $5,000 sale that Dustie should just get GoDaddy to reverse the transaction if there was a pricing error. Keith is correct GoDaddy has done this before, some members were upset at the notion of suggesting a sale reversal.

There are many posts but here are the one’s that stand out in the timeline.

Dustie posted:

Hi All. I’ve not been in here for a number of years, but a week ago I had my domain of 20 years (dustie.com) stolen and I have to tell the story. it looks like I’m out of luck here, and out a lot of money, but maybe my story can help prevent this happening to someone else. This happened at Godaddy, though I don’t blame them, and i still have all of my domains with them, as well as my websites. I blame the no good slimy thief who stole my domain name!

Here’s the story… First off, my name is Dustie, and I’ve owned Dustie.com since 1998.
Sometime in 2017 (I think) I decided to go ahead and list dustie.com as a premium domain for a high price. It being my name, I wasn’t real keen on selling it, but, as they say, everything is for sale for the right price. I’d had someone offer me 5,000.00 for it, but after taxes (it would have put me in a higher tax bracket for the year) and commisison, it wasn’t worth it wasn’t worth it to sell it for that amount. However, I figured that if someone were willing to pay that for it, maybe someone would pay even more. So I listed it as a premium domain for 20,000.00. I seriously didn’t think it would sell but it woudn’t hurt to list it (or so I thought).

All was well, until a bit over a week ago. I had been out that evening and didn’t get home till nearly 10:00 PM. It was 11:00 before I was able to get onto the computer. That’s when I saw the 5 emails from Godaddy…. I’m sure you can imaging my reaction when I saw that, within 20 minutes, my domain name, dustie.com, which I have owned since 1998, sold and transferred for a mere 450.00? I was sick…simply sick. How could this happen! First off, I’ve never had a domain name sell and transfer inside of 21 minutes and then be paid for it a little over a day and a half later. That’s unheard of!

Immediately after reading those 5 emails and realizing my domain name had sold for less then 5% of what I’d had it listed for on Premium Domains, I was online with Godaddy help. Though they were sympathetic, no one there could help. They said I’d have to wait till morning and call auctions help. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well and was on the phone as soon as they opened their office. Though I was on the phone for a good 30 or so minutes with them (a good part of that time on hold), I was ultimately told there was nothing they could do for me. My domain was bought, paid for, and transferred and that was that! (Oh, and this even though they found the price had been tampered with twice that same night, long before I got online). They said this had to be me because no one else had access to that account! That was proof to me that someone was in there messing with my account and screwed me over big time, but not to them.

So I’ve been sick all week…trying to forget that someone illegally reached into my pocket and stole a lot of money , as well as my NAME! Needless to say, even a week later, I’m just sick about the whole thing.

Today, on a lark I looked up dustie.com on godaddy and was sick all over again when I saw that it is now listed as a premium domain for 12,000.00 (by the person who stole it from me?). That’s just wrong, in so many ways! How do I get over this? I want to know how this could have happened!!??

I am posting in here as a warning to you all, as well as wanting to go on record that this did happen, regardless that the guy at [email protected] said that dustie.com had always been listed at 450.00 and it was a legitimate sale! I know how to use GoDaddy. I’m a long time user and have over 50 domain names with GoDaddy, more the half listed as premium domains! Ever since Dustie.com was originally listed as a premium domain at 20,000.00 that was the price that showed up whenever I went to maintain my premium listings. It always stuck out like a sore thumb, because most my other domain names are listed below 1000.00. There is simply no way Dustie.com was ever listed for as little as 450.00. Even go daddy suggested a price of nearly $5,000 as a premium listing starting point for dustie.com.

Without a doubt, my godaddy account was hacked and my domain name of 20 years stolen from me and relisted for 27 times what they paid for it! That burns me to the core!!!

I’m sure that, since this happened to me it will surely happen again. If any of you hear about such a thing, could you please have them get in touch with me? If I can find others that this has happened to, maybe we can do something as a group?

In the meantime, if you have a valuable domain name on Godaddy Premium domains, then you might want to take screen shots of the listed prices. Also, I was told that if I had the original email when it was listed that would be proof that it was listed at 20,000.00. Alas, I did not have it…I had, not long ago, deleted emails that were more then a year and a half old. If you don’t have emails for your most valuable domain names, then remove them from listing, then relist them to get a new email and save those emails just in case!!

And Thanks for listening to my very long rant!

Dustie
(was [email protected] for over 20 years…now I am [email protected] and my site is dustie.art … cool name, but it’s certainly not worth what I lost in dustie.com!)

Keith posted:

I don’t believe for a second that it was “always” listed for $450. Would’ve been purchased long ago in that case. It also seems very unlikely that this was an account hack.

The more likely scenario is that the OP simply listed it wrong and didn’t realize. In this case godaddy should reverse the purchase and give the domain back. It wouldn’t be the first time this type of mistake happened.

Zilla posted:

really？ if OP list it wrong, then should reverse？ no….if this is the case, buyer have nothing wrong….

NyJimbo posted:

No way. You should not be able to take back a domain that was sold legitimately. There is more to this story.

BTW – He says Godaddy says there was price manipulation before the sale. If you dont believe them about it always being $450, why believe them about the price manipulation ?

Keith replied:

I don’t believe that godaddy knows jack sh*t about how it was priced before it sold. Have you ever talked to support?

You can research for yourself but they have in fact canceled sales where the buyer said they priced the domain wrong.

Maxtra posted:

I bought the domain after seeing it listed at a BIN price of $450…

Seller received the funds, I have nothing to do with a price change…

Like I said to OP I would be willing to sell way below my asking price for this name just because this happened…

Send me a DM @Dustie and lets resolve it privately

This could happen to anybody…

Thanks

Keith posted:

Wow @maxtra just sold the domain for $5,000. What a shady move…

There’s clearly an issue here which will be further complicated by a sale and additional account change. Unreal!

MapleDots posted:

The deal done and the funds have transferred, the domain is mine.

If there are any shady dealings here and the domain was truly stolen I will personally donate it back to the previous owner.

Nothing more to see here until the investigation concludes.

I will address the OP personally…

You have nothing to fear here, if the domain was truly stolen I will transfer it back to you no questions asked.

Consider it my gift.

He then added

I will second up this….

The op can buy it back from me at any time for his original selling price.

I will take the loss no questions asked.

So there you have it, everyone have a nice day and consider the matter closed.

JoshR asked the question on many members’ minds: