Details Emerge on Sofa.com Heist
Here’s a follow up to a story Reglike covered in August 2007.
In 2007 it emerged that the sale of Sofa.com for $200,000 in 2005 was not approved by the actual owner of the domain. An employee sold the domain to what is now an online sofa firm. He managed to have the buyers wire the money directly to his personal account. (See $200,000 Sofa.com Domain Name Stolen by Employee)
An article in RealBusiness gives more juicy details regarding the purchase. There were warning signs everywhere, counting the seller asking the buyers to show up in Fresh York with the $200,000 in cash:
“He asked to meet in Fresh York to complete the deal. But he wanted me to bring the money in cash!â€
When Reeves turned up without a locked briefcase, Galstad became very jumpy. The lawyers convinced him to sign all the legal papers and he eventually agreed to have the money wired across. Two weeks later, the domain name technically belonged to the entrepreneurs, but when they tried to transfer it from the States to the UK, they found a block.
The buyers got to keep the domain name since the seller had “apparent authority” on behalf of the selling firm.
It’s not as exciting as the Sex.com story, but at least the seller did manage to skip the country with a stripper.
