Stolen Blog

  • Unknown's avatar
    maximumadventure · Member ·

    A couple of years back I noticed that someone else had taken over our URL, maximumadventure.net. I assumed that we hadn’t renewed and had lost the address. Instead, we’re still being charged for this domain and yet are publishing someone else’s content (which is nonsense SEO, by the way). I would like to put this situation back to where it was and have the content of maximumadventure.wordpress.com under that domain name again.

    I don’t know how they accomplished this (I pay but it is their content) but something is wrong with this process.

    Thanks,
    Chris

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    themagicrobot · Member ·

    Domain:maximumadventure.net
    Registrar: United-Domains AG
    Name Servers:
    ns1a.dodns.net
    ns2a.dodns.net

    That domain isn’t registered at WordPress.com. If you let the domain expire then someone else will be paying for it rather than you. Perhaps you are being charged by WordPress.com for some other upgrade/plan/redirect for your site? If you can’t see anything in “manage purchases” are you sure you don’t have another account for your WordPress.com site?

  • aleone89 · Staff ·

    Hello there,

    It looks like there’s various subscriptions still active on the account and these can be found here: https://wordpress.com/me/purchases

    A billing history can also be found here: https://wordpress.com/me/purchases/billing

    As above, I can’t see that WordPress.com is above the domain registrar for maximumadventure.net, but instead: https://www.united-domains.de/

    Do you have control over this domain with that domain registrar? If yes, it can be reconnected as per: https://wordpress.com/support/domains/connect-existing-domain/

  • Unknown's avatar
    maximumadventure · Member ·

    I don’t have any control over that domain. I never asked to transfer it to that domain. I’m paying for that domain but someone was able to take it out from under the control of wordpress. I’m being charged and someone else has taken control. How do we fix this?

  • Unknown's avatar
    helper-heroponriki · Member ·

    I’m paying for that domain but someone was able to take it out from under the control of wordpress.

    There seems to be some confusion here. The upgrade that you have here at WordPress.com for maximumadventure.net is a Domain Connection. This upgrade allows you to use a domain registered elsewhere for your site hosted here at WordPress.com. This domain connection is free with your WordPress.com Personal plan.

    A Domain Registration – which you have under your account for the domains maximumadventure.blog and travel-family.blog – is where you pay to register the domain here at WordPress.com. These domains renew every year for $22 per domain and are current in their registration.

    What happened here is you failed to renew the domain maximumadventure.net that was not registered here at WordPress.com.

    When a domain expires, it enters a redemption period where you have the chance to recover the domain from redemption by paying the renewal fee and the redemption fee set by the domain registrar. Your domain registrar should have notified you multiple times about the status of the domain and your options to recover.

    If a domain is not redeemed by the original registrant within that redemption period, the domain is returned to the pool of available domain names and can be registered again on a first-come, first-served basis by anyone.

    Looking at the current WHOIS information, someone else registered the domain on November 30, 2021 through United Domains AG.

    Since this other person bought the available domain from that domain registrar, they are now the legal owner of the domain. You could try to contact the domain owner to see if they want to sell it back to you. Or, the most likely scenario here is that you will need to wait and see if they abandon it so you can register it once it expires and reenters the marketplace.

    If you trademarked the domain, you may be able to dispute the trademark but you would need to consult your own legal counsel for advice.

    I hope that clarifies things. Let us know if you have further questions or if anything is unclear.

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