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Comment by kwanbix | Hacker News Reader

Squatters are delirious, so many times. I didn't renew my wife's last name .co domain. I regretted it and wanted to get it back. They are asking for 9000 dollars. She is non-famous, her last name is not a famous last name, and there is no one famous with that last name. Still, they want 9000 dollars. 450 times the cost.

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The problem is that it costs almost nothing ($150-180 over 10 years) to keep it registered vs the anticipated payday from selling it (over $9000!).

A former friend has been doing a ”trick” for a few years with godaddy domain auctions. He finds a domain that is quite good on Godaddy auctions whos registration is expiring soon (most people set the auction end date to when it expires) and uses a back order service or two to capture it if it were to expire. Using one of a number of alternate fake Godaddy accounts, he bids absolute bonkers amounts that he has no intention to pay for. When the auction ends, he ignores payments demands, the next guy in line won’t pay their bid because they’ve already moved on. Domain expires without a winning bid, owner doesn’t notice that it wasn’t paid before it gets released. His backorder provider will then snatch it up. He’s made about $50,000 from reselling domains he got for cheap this way, even though it costs his about $1000 per year to maintain all these accounts. As scummy as it is, his rule is that if it doesn’t sell during the next two registration years, he will let it expire.

Ah yes the old make a fortune with fraud routine. Works every time.

There is a reason why I said Ex friend. Turns out, people who pull crap like this are not the best to close to. I just didn’t realize the extent of what he did until just before (and being the primary cause for) me cutting off contact with him.

My reply had no judgement against you or your choice of friends. Only that the friend was committing literal fraud to make their money.

It’s a pleasure to see that your choice seems to have benefited you and your conscience in the end.

Tell me about it! I accidentally let [my first name].au lapse. Shitty registrar, all that was available during the initial .au sale period, their renewal emails went to spam. Whatever. I still get that it’s all “on me” and someone has the right to register an expired domain. I don’t have a common first name. The other .au derivatives of my first name are silly early Internet era sites for local businesses that probably barely exist anymore. I know what the market is like for my first name on most public namespaces. Alas, a squatter wants several thousand dollars for it. I didn’t bother responding to the email. They’ll hopefully realise that they’ve bought a dud and let it go.

One of the weirder things I’ve seen is that many of the squatter sites include a “moral justification” page for lack of any better description where someone from the squatting agency handling the domain has written how their customers have made smart investments and deserve to be paid, replete with all kinds of analogies comparing domain names to other investments.

Is that really the stated argument?! "We put money into this, therefore we deserve to earn money off of it [regardless of the fact that it never did anyone any good and is purely rent-seeking behavior]" certainly encapsulates a particular investment ethos.

It was pretty weird, I am 100% sure it was inspired by real conversations the author had. In general everyone needs to justify their behavior to themselves at least. I've heard people blatantly ripping people off say things like "if I don't take their money someone else will", just usually these are not things they put on their website.

I got a multi-thousand dollar domain name for a few hundred dollars, I just kept up a regular dialog with them and made it clear what I was willing to pay. They kept negotiating, I kept to my number. Eventually we came to a reasonable compromise and it's mine. It wasn't something others would be interested in so it was clear after a couple of years years I was their only buyer.

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