Thank you, Teri, for having my back on this and explaining to the
uninformed here that this can happen and it us not due to my
ignorance, as has been inferred.
Several people don’t seem to comprehend the fact that this is a
completely unregulated thing.
I do have gmail. My gmail addy linked to that site is still good
though and Istill use it. Odd.
I hate social media sites b/c I had SOO many problems there. Having
my “business” on FB made me open to major scam attempts, constant
trolls, and I ended up with bogus “followers” from suspect countries
as well as lots of folks in the porn industry. I am STILL trying to
scrape that filth from the remnants of my social footprint in social
media.
I see folks that use blog hosts for their websites. That is my next
step should I even want to keep a web presence. I’ve had a blog site
for eons without a single problem.
My work on website was my only project since I went on disability.
Losing mydomain was devastating. Thankfully, I had all my content
since I did my ownsite design.
It’s called sniping. Just like the folks that use “bots” to snipe
sakes at the last millisecond on eBay.
We did change hosting comps after this. My husband couldn’t get a
decent answer as to how they let this happen. As I said before, we
had NO problem for 7yrs. we also had a second hosting company look
into it. They r the ones that explained how the domain theft works.
If the hosting company is 1 second too late in renewal, you are
vulnerable. The laws that govern this also allowa grace period -
but, this did not matter one iota. We were allowed to try and get it
back - thru the 2d hosting company and they were unable to secure it
due to the fact that wherever these thrives are, the time zone diff
or something allowed them to secure the name for good, There is a
woman in Texas with the same business name as I was using. it could
have been imitated by her for all we know.
Believe me, if we could figure it out, we would have. We wrote to
and called every possible place to try and find out. All we got was -
“too bad. You want it back - you pay this company.”
There are no internet police - we are at the mercy of tech savvy
nutjobs - and there is no recourse. There is no governing agency for
this stuff.
All we know I’d that the thief company/person has an web addy that
pings back to China. My husband has been a webmaster since Al Gore
invented the interwebs (ha ha). This has never happened to him
before. He has handled the registrations and domains for many sites
for many, many yrs. In other words, this isn’t our first carnival.
To have this happen was mind blowing.
Just like there are 2 other people with my exact same name in the
Midwest that have tried to hijack my email address thru gmail, and
have also managed to get into several of my accts at different
websites despite password changes, it all remains a mystery.