How to "steal" an abandoned, locked domain registered at networksolutions?
 

For the last nine years I've been running a site which I kind of "inherited" from someone else.
I control the DNS, but the previous owner never transferred the actual domain registration.
Now I need to get the registration in my name and I'm been having trouble finding the owner.
I think I probably found his phone number and email address a couple days ago after spending
several days looking, but no one is responding to my several phone messages and emails.
He lost interest in the site nine years ago, and either the numbers I found are old or he's now
lost interest to the point where it's not worth five minutes to him to transfer ownership so the
site doesn't go down.

I checked for some of the most common security vulnerabillities at NetSol, such as possibly
using the "lost password" form, but I don't see any way to transfer it. Does anyone know any tricks?

hope you enjoy jail.

Did he pay for it for 10 years? Or is he still renewing it?

Wait for it to expire and backorder it at snapnames, namejet, and pool.

I hope he registered it for a number of years and just forgot, rather than is renewing it each year and you are basically working for him without knowing it and he could sell it to somebody else at any time.

You may control the DNS now, but its a lot easier for him to take that back than it is for you to get ownership of the domain transferred.

If you have a purchase agreement, you could pursue a legal route of course.

Anyway, good luck. I certainly wouldn't want a headache like that on a site that was worth money. Hope you get it resolved.

Is GFY now a place for criminals to educate each other on tricks of the trade?

You can report to icann that the whois info is wrong/bogus and they will forward that to the registrar which will try to contact the owner through the listed info. If it is in fact wrong information, or if the owner is unreachable, they may release the domain.

Report tool: http://wdprs.internic.net/

I've been paying for it for the last nine years.

You read the subject line and not the message, didn't you? Or did you miss the part of how
it's been my site for the last nine years and I'm just trying to get the registrant information corrected?

Why don't you ask Steve Cohen? :-)
http://www.sexdotcom.info

LOL
Just kidding Steve.

I can assure you that as sure as night follows day, you're screwed on this. I've seen this happen before, the only way you'll get the domain is to either (a) get the owner to transfer it to you or provide you with access to NETSOL or (b) wait for the domain to drop and try to snap it up again.

Your best bet is to contact the account owner and have him push it to you. Network Solutions might be able to help as well, have you tried calling them?

Failing that, you can let the domain expire and backorder it.

So wait why you pay for that domain, because you are in control of dns that is pointed for domain and you use that domain?

So you dont want to drop it and risk a chance somebody get it...

Yeah I don't want to let it expire because for all intents and purposes it's my site and I neither
want it to be down for two weeks during the grace period, nor do I want a domain speculator
to grab it.

I should have redirected it to a domain I was the registrant on years ago, but I didn't and
now it's kind of too late.

I had a very similar situation a long while back after I had worked for an ISP and ended up in charge of a boatload of abandoned domains.

You are pretty much going to have to find the owner and schmooze him out of it. And obviously this can be very difficult because as soon as he senses it's worth anything he will extort you.

This didn't go well for me.

If you have access to the registrant emails involved in the domain you can call the owner up and ask if they want it to drop, then just switch the info and that should be legal.

Otherwise it's quite a quandry...

I had a similar situation some years back and got it resolved fairly easily.

It wasnt networksolutions though.

the key to my success was that i had the email address domain at domain dot com

so it was very clear that I was running the site and I explained that the registered owner had left the country, I jumped through a few legal hoops and the domain was transferred to me.

hope this helps

If you have access to the domain to renew why don't you have access to change the registered owner or push it to yourself?

That doesn't sound logical.

Just because you have been using it and paying for it --doesn't make it yours.

I walk through a vacant lot every day and once in a while pick up litter on it, but that doesn't give me the right to go to the town hall and forge a deed.

Actually under US and and UK law, it DOES give you some rights to the land, if you use an
maintain it for several years.

that would be my question too :)

how can you renew it all those years if you don't have control over it.

i dont think the internet is land...

Are you retarded? I'm not trying to be insulting but I'm really curious if you have some kind of mental deficiency.

but if you also mowed the grass, it could be yours... :thumbsup





.

Oh Anal Hobbit, what are you gonna try next you try next?

No, that would be the Internet itself. :thumbsup

Usual retarded post from DaddyHalbucks. at least you're consistant! :thumbsup