I got a good one

[cain12]

Well long story short, I am switching web companies for my dealership. Did all the ground work, ready to take the new site live and BANG! The old web service I used refused to transfer my domain name, saying they have the rights to our www. URL domain name. He's says he will sell it, and claims $10,000 to $15,000 would be an adequate enough. NOBODY else would ever care to have this webaddress but us!!! Has anyone here ever gone through this before?

[fburrows]

I am not an expert on this but this never holds me back from expressing my opinion <g>. Go to www.neworksolutions.com and look for WHOIS at the bottom of the page. Put in your Domain Name and it will tell you who registered it and who controls it. You might want to call them and discuss this issue.

There is a dispute procedure over Domain Names. Here is a link to a site mentioned by Network Solutions: http://www.icann.org/udrp/

I believe this is the official organization to resolve issues like this. If the name is your dealership name then I would think you would win easily. If it is something like autoguy.com then you might have a problem.

First, I would get your company attorney to write a letter to the company that is holding your name hostage and threaten them with all the bad thing that are on his word processor. This will probably get the guy to release the name. This would be a lot quicker than the resolution process.

Good luck


------------------
Frank Burrows
fburrows@absdata.com

[wellzy]

According to my research the registered owner is Cal Auto Mall. If this is your company, than you own it. If not you are out of luck. There has been problems with Network Solutions in the past and it could be expensive to get the URL back. I see they have taken the site down.

[fburrows]

Keep us posted on how you make out. Another thing you could do is register a new domain name with Network Solutions and put up your new website under that name. Submit the new site to the search engines. This would cost under $100 and might be a good back up plan. Holding your domain name hostage is terrible. I would get their customer list and send a letter to each one describing what you have gone through. Don't call them crooks but just tell the facts.

Good luck

[sellcars]

Please let me know the name of the company you dealt with and if you got the matter resolved. I deal with a number of dealerships regarding best practices for internet departments and keep a "list" of those providers that are less than "friendly" with dealerships.
Thanks,
slingsby@sellcars.com