| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Chris C |
Posted - 11/08/2007 : 19:54:45
Benj
I just clicked on one of Salopian's fwfr.co.uk links in the "My Accolade Collections" thread, and the domain seems to have gone missing.
Were you aware of this? |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Salopian |
Posted - 12/24/2009 : 16:16:28
Very good news. I'll be going straight back to using this, my preferred, domain for all links. |
| benj clews |
Posted - 12/24/2009 : 13:47:24
Well, after two years of silently biding my time, I'm pleased to announce fwfr.co.uk is back in it's rightful hands again- sending folks to fwfr.
I can only assume Seb Clark's outlay made him next to no money whatsoever to have so readily let the domain drop. Naturally, being the generous and thoughtful gent the earlier poster talked of, Seb didn't bother contacting me in any way to let me know the domain was going to be available again.
I won't go over the lengthy chain of events of incompetence that led to this happening in the first place again, but it goes without saying that I'm no longer entrusting the bloody useless company that is 123-reg.co.uk with the job of remembering to get off it's arse and automatically renew this (or indeed *any*) domain name. |
| benj clews |
Posted - 01/06/2008 : 14:43:46
Hi Rory,
Cute story, but I find it hard to believe Mr Clark makes any kind of a living from buying up expired domain names and then freely handing them back when the original owner enquires about them. In fact, if he were such a good samaritan, why doesn't he send you an email BEFORE he buys the domain? (He freely admits he has software that automatically checks for domains about to expire, so why not have that do the emailing?)
I don't doubt the truth to your story, but... you clearly run a not-for-profit site and Mr Clark would be a fool (which I think we've already established he is not) to think he could extort a serious amount of money from you for your domain. I'm in a similar boat (this site has never paid for itself and I'm not under any illusions it ever will, but damn does it help in job interviews  ), but I'm not sure Seb would be quite so easily convinced what with all the Buy This buttons around the site.
Don't get me wrong, it's great to hear Mr Clark has a conscience every once in a while, but there's a heck of a lot of bad press about the guy around the internet if you look.
benj. |
| Rory |
Posted - 01/06/2008 : 10:41:10
Hi All.
I found this site and indeed this thread when I discovered that my own domain (rorybecker.co.uk) appeared to have shifted ownership to one "Seb Clark".
I did a search and as I say I found this thread. This was on Friday 4th Jan 2008. Apparently the domain had expired back in August of 07
I contacted Seb through the email address he provided on this thread that very afternoon saying.
---------------------------------------------------
Hi Seb
As you can probably tell from my name, I am writing to you to enquire about the domain 'rorybecker.co.uk'
I recieved a comment on my blog ( rorybecker.blogspot.com) this morning, to the effect that a link I had placed there was not working.
The link in question was to a configuration file which I felt might benefit some of the people in a programming community that I frequent.
I did some research and it seems that the domain expired back in August of 2007.
However I was completely unaware of this and had not recieved any warning by post or email from my registrar (QuidNames)
Now the domainname itself is not particularly valuable to me except that it is quite possible that I have quite a few links spread around my blog pointing to things which are now unreachable.
I could trawl through them and redirect such links but I would really prefer to not have to.
Additionally I have posted enumerable times on various forums indicating files and pages which (used to ) sit on this domain.
I am a programmer by trade and I would have expected that anyone reaching your site though my name woul know me as such and would be unlikely to follow such advertising links as you currently have present at this domain.
I wonder is there some arrangement that we could come to?
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...Late last night (Saturday 5th), Seb Emailed the following...
---------------------------------------
Hi Rory,
Thanks for the email. I have deleted this domain name, please register it asap before someone else does.
Kind Regards
Seb Clark
CentraServe Ltd
---------------------------------------
Now I have done some checking and it seems that my gmail address had been sending expiry warnings to spam. So I never got them in and real sense.
So Seb was well within his rights to snap up such a domain when it did become available.
Everybody makes mistakes. I am clearly one of these :)
But I think it's worth noting that Seb definitely isn't all bad.
After all he could have made things very difficult/annoying/awkward for me, but he didn't.
He didn't even try to charge me for a transfer or anything even remotely similar. All this was gratis.
True I had to reregister my domain (this time with fasthosts) but I would have had to do that anyway since it had expired.
Also, for those who care, Fasthost's default is to start renewing your domains 30 days before they expire (although you can turn this off) so I shouldn't suffer this again. It's not like I wouldn't have paid the �6-�8 if I had known the domain was on the way out.
Anyway the basic point is to express my thanks to Seb for being so good about this.
--
Rory Becker
http://rorybecker.blogspot.com
http://www.rorybecker.co.uk
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| Sean |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 00:29:21
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
I apologise.
Apology accepted.  |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 11/24/2007 : 23:45:19
I apologise.
Apart from the facts that your analogy is, in different ways, demonstrably confused, misleading and just plain wrong, it is, in every way, perfect.
How could I have got it so wrong?
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| Sean |
Posted - 11/24/2007 : 23:21:25
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
No, Sean's analogy is not perfectly valid. Actually it's perfectly crap.
It mixes criminal law and civil law and is probably wrong anyway.
Chopping off someone's hand with their agreement would still be a criminal offence, at least here in the UK, but I don't think it would lead to a successful civil action if there was a genuine agreement between the two parties.
With fwfr.co.uk we are just talking about civil law - no-one has committed any criminal offence as far as we know so don't confuse the two situations.
Oops, I missed this.  An analogy works if it helps someone understand something that they didn't completely understand without the analogy. (Whether or not the analogy is 'correct' in every detail is irrelevant). My 'hand-chopping' analogy works because someone with little or no understanding of law (criminal, civil, statutory, whatever) instinctively understands that a clause in a contract that allows the chopping off of someone's hand must be invalid, which makes it easier to understand that a clause removing one's liability for failure to register a domain may also be invalid.
I could have replaced the hand-chopping clause with something like "I hereby give XXXX permission to detonate a 50 megatonne thermonuclear device in Melbourne and I exempt him from all liability" (that's where foxy lives  ), an analogy that would also work as people instinctively know that if XXXX carried out that act multiple laws would have been broken, so XXXX would be liable, hence the liability exemption is invalid.
It's also not important whether you understand or like the analogy, as you, like I, understood that 123reg's clause was invalid and that they're still liable - without needing an analogy.
The analogy worked, hence it was not "perfectly crap" as you so nicely put it. Extreme analogies usually work as people instinctively understand them. |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 19:47:51
Well, here that would not work without a reasonable prima faciae case that fraud was being committed.
To allege fraud would simply make the balance of probabilities test harder to satisfy. That's why, generally in English civil law, it doesn't pay to allege the other side is being dishonest any more than is necessary to win the case. (Punitive damages are very very rare here.)
In this case, it is pretty clear that however honest or not 123reg were, they are liable for their failure, so to allege any dishonesty would be both unnecessary and counterproductive.
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| RockGolf |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 19:29:24
The point, Whippersnapper, isn't really whether such a conspiracy exists or not. It is whether 123-reg are willing to go to the lengths of meeting the discovery requirements, or would prefer to settle. |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 14:48:34
quote:
Originally posted by R o � k G 0 1 f
There may in fact be a criminal aspect to it, although that cannot be proven at this point. If there is collusion between 123-reg and another party or parties so that they "fail" to register certain domains and that those domain names are then grabbed up by the third party, in an attempt to extort higher prices for the product which they had already purchased.
Yeah, and maybe they were in Dallas on 22NOV1963?
Maybe, maybe, maybe, but, eh, maybe not.
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| RockGolf |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 14:29:15
There may in fact be a criminal aspect to it, although that cannot be proven at this point. If there is collusion between 123-reg and another party or parties so that they "fail" to register certain domains and that those domain names are then grabbed up by the third party, in an attempt to extort higher prices for the product which they had already purchased.
If this were the States, there could be a class action lawsuit, requiring 123-reg to divulge any and all complaints they had on "failure to renew", or an even wider requirement that all renewals submitted to the company be reviewed to see how many were not renewed (with or without complaint) and how many then fell into third party hands. |
| Sean |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 01:38:06
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Someone was paid to do something, they failed to do it, their failure has consequences and they are responsible for compensation. End of.
Precisely. |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 11/23/2007 : 01:08:15
"May" is the operative word. However, you have absolutely no proof and neither is it particularly likely.
It is in no way useful to think of this as being in any way criminal. Someone was paid to do something, they failed to do it, their failure has consequences and they are responsible for compensation. End of.
Mr Clark is, in business terms at least, an amoral opportunist who, whilst unlikely to make a lot of friends out of his activities, is probably doing nothing wrong legally. It appears to be 123reg who have failed Benj. We all know that if you don't reregister a popular address someone else will snap it up, so blaming Mr Clark is like blaming an alligator for eating the odd tourist. It's only what you'd expect to happen.
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| Chris C |
Posted - 11/22/2007 : 21:35:50
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
With fwfr.co.uk we are just talking about civil law - no-one has committed any criminal offence as far as we know so don't confuse the two situations.
Sounds to me like an element of fraud may have been committed.
Would a consumer programme like the BBC's Watchdog be interested? If Mr Clark has caught a number of people/businesses/charities like this (with or without the assistance of 123-Reg) it would be nice to see him squirm in front of the cameras. |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 11/22/2007 : 13:36:25
If your last post has any useful meaning, please explain what it is.
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