Fraud or Help?
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I bought my domain through wordpress, and I PAID $26 for a few offered services, such as ‘automatic domain renewal’ and ‘notification prior to the domain expiration.’ I have email(s) documenting this agreement.
My domain name expired on August 25, 2013. I did NOT receive notification of my domain expiring, and my domain was NOT automatically renewed. INSTEAD, it was purchased by someone or some entity OTHER THEN MYSELF.
I need my domain name back under my ownership, immediately. It is “www.worldyogaproject.org.”
What assistance can you offer me before I take legal action?
If I do not receive a response to this matter within two business days, I will move forward assuming ‘wordpress’ and/or affiliated companies will not provide the service(s) for which I paid.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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I am extremely sorry to hear that you have lost your domain name. That is a very frustrating situation to be in and I wish there was more that I could do. While it may not solve the current situation, I have added $26 in credits to your WordPress.com account so that at the very least you can register a new domain to use for the near term future while you try and sort this out.
We send all upgrade related email notifications to the email address you used when you registered with WordPress.com (or whatever email you have updated it to since then) as described here:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/email-notifications/
Your registered email address is a gmail address. It may be worth looking to see if gmail has hidden some of your email under the “social” tab in your inbox as described here:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/3055016?hl=en
Renewal notifications are sent out 90, 60, 30, 14, 5, and 2 days before the domain is set to expire. There is also a notification that appears onscreen when you log into WordPress.com.
Auto-renewal is not automatically set up when you purchase a WordPress.com upgrade. You must choose to set it up when paying. If you did not do so, we would not have charged you when the expiration date approached.
At this point, your best course of action is going to be to talk to the current owner of worldyogaproject.org and discuss the possibility of purchasing it back from them. The current whois data for worldyogaproject.org is here:
http://who.is/whois/worldyogaproject.org
Please let me know if you have further questions or if anything is unclear.
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I have also responded to you via email. Feel free to respond via whichever method you prefer.
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Thank you for your response.
I did pay for AND intentionally set up the ‘automatic renewal’ feature.
The following is copied from an email TO the associated worlyogaproject email address FROM (email visible only to moderators and staff), dated 6/13/12:
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“worldyogaproject.org will be renewed automatically.worldyogaproject.org is about to be automatically renewed on June 14, 2012.
You will be charged US$26 for this upgrade in 0 days, on June 14, 2012, at noon UTC.
You don’t have to do anything — this is just a reminder.
If you don’t want to renew this upgrade, you can disable automatic renewal under Store > My Upgrades in your dashboard.
Please reply to this email with any questions.”
*****Although I received alerts stating my domain would expire on 6/14/12, the domain WAS AUTOMATICALLY RENEWED as it should be with the ‘automatic renewal’ feature.
I have a screen shot from the Word Press website (http://en.support.wordpress.com/my-upgrades/) stating the following:
“If you’d like your domain to renew automatically each year, you can Enable Auto Renew.”
I NEVER disabled this feature as offered as an option in the copied email.
With or without expiration notification(s) my domain, http://www.worldyogaproject.org, should have been renewed this year, 2013, automatically.
I still need my domain back under my ownership, immediately.
This is a troublesome and time-consuming process as a result of WordPress breaching our agreement. This dialogue should be considered an opportunity for WordPress to promptly resolve the wrongdoing by returning the said domain address to our ownership.
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After two business days, I have not received a response from my follow-up correspondence, directing attention to a breach of contract and return of the domain, “www.worldyogaproject.org,” to its rightful owner(s).
UNLESS there is promise to resolve this matter, resulting in returning to us the ownership and rights of our domain name, “www.worldyogaproject.org,” this will be our FINAL correspondence in this thread.
Our NEXT STEPS will be contacting Automattic, Inc. (owner of WordPress) directly and/or filing complaints, disputes, and/or court proceedings. (For public reviewers of this thread, contact ICANN to begin learning your rights and domain name regulations.)
This is a matter of great consequence. While speaking with the representatives of Go Daddy last week, they advised me of Go Daddy’s association with WordPress.
Again, WordPress, was our hosting domain company at the time of selling rights to domain name, “www.worldyogaproject.org.” WordPress did NOT AUTO RENEW our purchase as my account was set up to do this past year and the year prior.
The point being, that the actual expiry of the domain was due to negligence and breach of contract on the part of WordPress (Automattic, Inc.), which makes the subsequent sale of and purchase of our domain name void.
Any part whatsoever that Go Daddy, Wild West Domains, WordPress, Automattic, and any other associated or sister companies continue to play in keeping the worldyogaproject.org domain from us will be found as interference of the fair non-profit practices act, as well as trademark and copyright infringement. Worldyogaproject.org is our intellectual property. The grouping together of those words did not exist prior to our inception of a legally sound and federally registered entity.
Additionally, as webspace and domains are very much considered cyber real estate, we would have grounds under domicile law as well, which states that we would have the right to continue jurisdiction of a domicile even if we have left it (which we did not), so long as we have maintained sufficient links with that jurisdiction. As mentioned, we do in fact CURRENTLY operate under this name, provide services under this name, and perform any and all typical non-profit organization practices under this name, including filing taxes with the IRS.
Since the sale of our domain name legally should not have taken place that would make the responsibility of WordPress (Automattic, Inc.) to retract the recent sale immediately. As WordPress (Automattic, Inc.) does have to follow due diligence under the law and related policy to ensure that products (including domain names) that they sell are actually, legally for sale.
Currently, we are requesting, again, that our domain name “worldyogaproject.org” be released back to us, the original creators of this domain name. Further non-compliance from WordPress (Automattic, Inc.), GoDaddy Domains, Wild West Domains, and its associated companies/sister companies will be considered aggravated interference of our lawful right to operate as a legally registered organization and we will seek damages.
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My apologies for the delay in replying over the long Labor Day weekend. However, that time did allowed our backend folks to look into the situation a bit further.
The domain name worldyogaproject.org was registered initially on July 14, 2011. Auto renew was enabled, and attempted on June 14, 2012 ( 30 days before expiration ) and failed. The domain was renewed manually July 25th, 2012, 9 days after expiration. This could not have been an auto-renewal because we only run auto renewals 30 days before expiration, as mentioned above. A domain renewed past the expiration date would have had to be a specific action taken by the domain owner. Finally, subsequent to that manual renewal of July 25th, 2012, auto renew was not set up again.
Thus, worldyogaproject.org expired on July 14, 2013 and was purchased during the expiration process. The speed of that purchase indicates a strong possibility that it was purchased through GoDaddy’s domain marketplace. Aside from reaching out to the new owner as I previously mentioned, it might be worth waiting a week or so, as sometime these snapped domains end up for sale for a moderate price on GoDaddy’s marketplace.
Again, I really do sympathize with the position you are in. I myself have lost domains to expiration before and it is not a fun experience.
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