What do you think of this?

[Wot]

I sourced and then "registered" a premium name Weather.id with OnlyDomains.com.

It is not real time so knew I had to wait for final registration.

Received confirmation from OnlyDomains.com that the process was ongoing and I needed to supply documents which I did by return.

Turns out that OnlyDomains.com is associated with Instra.com a very well known registrar so the docs were sent directly to them as requested.

Waited one day and then checked and the name was still not registered so I emailed to five different accounts that were related to OnlyDomains.comand Instra.com and asked what was happening.

About 2 hours later I checked and the name was now registered via Instra.com so felt quite comfortable and waited for it to hit my OnlyDomains.com account.

Today ,being the next day, I get an email saying that the name had been registered by a third party and they would credit or refund my registration fee.

Not so unusual perhaps? This was, the name was registered in the name and company of the very well known CEO Tony Lentino whose company,Instra.com, was supposed to be registering the name on my behalf,just a short time after I sent the email asking what was happening!

This occurred between the 26th and 29th of this month.

I asked both OnlyDomains.com & Instra to comment, I heard nothing from either.

There is more on my blog in my signature relating to the association between OnlyDomains.com-Tony Lentino and Instra Corp if you are interested.

If so I would appreciate your comments

[123]

in such cases people often get too paranoid and think someone stole their domain idea. In that case however something does not seem to be right. I would try to get them to reply and if they don't maybe post the story on a more popular domain forum.

maybe there is an other explanation for what is happening but i can understand very well why you are concerned.

[techguy]

Interesting. I lost a beautiful 3 letter domain hack registration through Instra in 2007 in the same way as of you, and it was my first and last time using their "service". :rolleyes:

[Wot]

in such cases people often get too paranoid and think someone stole their domain idea. In that case however something does not seem to be right. I would try to get them to reply and if they don't maybe post the story on a more popular domain forum.

maybe there is an other explanation for what is happening but i can understand very well why you are concerned.


They, OnlyDomains.com,Instra, did/would not, reply after being asked on 3 occasions! And having been sent copies of what I finally posted on the blog.

I asked a couple of other domainers to review before I posted in case I was too close to the matter, they were in agreement with what I thought.

It is now on all the major domain forums.

[mdw]

ICANN gives near autonomy to ccTLD operators, and they often collude with registrars, or actually operate the registrar, and they game the system. I remember registering creditcards.vn years ago, only to have it taken away a month later and my money refunded. It was registered to a friend of the guy in charge of the registry.

When control is held by small groups of people, corruption ensues.