Recovering a Domain Name

I had a call from a potential client yesterday through a referral from a friend.

She had a website designed a few years ago to sell her husbands art, unfortunately the local company that did it for her have since went bust and she hasnt been able to contact anyone she dealt with. They have all dissappeared, and so has her website.

She wants me to redesign the site for her, but most importantly under the same domain as it is on all of her shops carrier bags and all other promo material.

The problem obviously is that I have no idea where I would go to retrieve the details for the domain.

I did the WHOIS search and got this:

Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
Whois Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
Referral URL: Public Domain Registry | Home
Name Server: NS1.DSREDIRECTION.COM
Name Server: NS2.DSREDIRECTION.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 31-may-2009
Creation Date: 24-jan-2009
Expiration Date: 24-jan-2011

It looks to me like it was re-registered this January. The referral URL says the domain isn't available. Not sure where to go now.

Has anyone dealt with a similar issue, or have any suggestions how I could go about recovering the domain for my client.

I dont think telling her to get brand new promo materials, shop singage and carriers is going to go down too well!
 
Hi Iain,

On first glance it does appear that it has dropped from the previous company's ownership & has been drop caught by a domain trader. I've had some dealings with domain names over the past few years, including domain trading, if you'd like to PM me the domain name I'd be happy to try and find out what's happened for you :)

Thanks,
Greg
 
Sorry Iain, as I have replied in my PM, looks like the domain has been drop caught and the new registrant details have been protected with WHO-IS protect, so chances of getting in contact with the new owner, let alone getting a reasonable purchase price are extremely slim. You could try a domain acquisition service from someone like Sedo.co.uk, but even then there is no guarantee and their charges are quite high for such a service.

I would recommend your client gets the .co.uk and then either replaces the items with the old domain on, or some sort of sticker to change the .com to .co.uk?

Sorry I couldn't deliver any better news!
Greg
 
I've had to look into this recently too for a family members new business venture. His partner owned an address but for whatever reason let it go and then later realised it was taken by someone (a cyber squatter).

On the web address home page theres often an email link to the 'owner' where you can ask about buying it back, in my case it was going to cost a good couple of hundred to get back - I advised them to basically say sod off and just change the address slightly (not an issue) and they agreed with me :)

The sooner some sort of regulations regarding squatters is brought in the better the internet will become
 
Just a quick update...

I spoke to the client and she doesn't want to be held to ransom either. So I've just secured the .co.uk for her.

The sooner some sort of regulations regarding squatters is brought in the better the internet will become
- Definitely!!!
 
Good to hear they went for the easier option Iain, I think the acquisition route would have been drawn out and disappointing in the long run. Now the client can draw a line under it and move on, just remind them to take a note of the expiry date, as you might be able to use a drop service like snapnames.com, where they charge $60 (I think) for a successful catch & get it back in several years time! :)
 
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