Complaint Review: HugeDomains.com - Denver Colorado

I found that a domain name that I've been watching for several years was coming up again for renewal, and as I do each year, I watched to see if it would be renewed.  It wasn't.  I tried calling GoDaddy, the registrar of my other domain names, and also the registrar of the woman who previously had the domain.  Both were very evasive about when the domain would go back into the registry.  There were estimates of 30 days, then 90 days, but someone referred me to a website, FreeWho.com to see when it would expire.  The estimate was May 23rd.  I waited patiently.  On the afternoon of May 22nd, I called the registrar again to see WHEN it would be available.  They told me "midnight." I asked what time zone, they couldn't tell me.  I tried registering the name up until midnight MST, but it never came available.

The following morning, when I woke up, the domain was taken.  At first it showed being registered to a person named Andrew Reberry, under NameBright, in Denver, CO.  I tried calling the company and got no answer, and sent this person two emails asking what was going on.  I never received a call back or any email response.  

The domain name was MY NAME.  Not something common at all.  

As I waited patiently for a reply, I found that the domain had been transferred to HugeDomains.com, and now had a price tag of $1595.  Ridiculous.  I also saw that when I went to their site, they were "featuring" my domain name as a "hot property" and "shopping" it for several different categories.  Careers, Trucks, Radio, Crafts...every time I refreshed, a different category would come up.  I could tell from the refresh on the page that they were able to tell I was checking, because you can see another domain appear first in a flash, then my domain shows.

A couple of days later, they raised the price to $1695.  I can only assume because I was refreshing so much.  

I learned that there is a law that was passed in 1999...the federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.  It states "The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), is an American law enacted in 1999 and that established a cause of action for registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, a trademark or personal name.  The law was designed to thwart “cybersquatters” who register Internet domain names containing trademarks with no intention of creating a legitimate web site, but instead plan to sell the domain name to the trademark owner or a third party."

ACPA covers "registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price."

This company has no interest in this domain name, except to make a profit by selling it back.  And if cybersquatting is illegal, then this company that likes to boast that they have 350,000 "premium" domain names for sale is a legal company WHY?  If you look at the BBB complaints in Denver, the company responds to complaints in a very snarky way...in one response they say that the complainant "doesn't understand" the "secondary domain name" market.  

The only way to do anything about this is to file a complaint with the ICANN, but you have to agree to mediation that starts at $1500.  The domain name is (now) $1695.  So if someone wanted the domain name badly, why would the file a complaint when they can spend a couple of hundred bucks more and avoid the hassle?

This is WRONG.  It's illegal, it's unethical, and it's time that someone do something.  HugeDomains, you are NOT above the law.