Is worse than I expected — LittleAcornsFostering.com case
Perhaps saying this domain was held for ransom is a fair characterization.
In September I wrote regarding a UK foster agency that forgot to renew its domain. It stated the person who bought the expired domain was holding it for ransom by demanding £9,000 for its return.
The foster agency opted to file a UDRP instead of pay for the domain. It won the case, and the details certainly don’t make the person who bought the domain look good.
Little Acorns Fostering dug up dirt on registrant Al Perkins, and alleged that he frequently buys expired domains and then puts porn on them in an effort to get the former owners to buy the domain back.
As stated by the foster agency, Perkins pointed out that the foster agency’s emails could be captured. Ostensibly acting to be a broker for the fresh owner, he wrote:
For example they just reset the mx records to obtain your clients details then approach them with a better offer.
Then you have to question the value of your business and brand, is your business worth more than £8700 ?
It seems that the foster agency leaned toward paying a reduced price of £5000 but changed its mind. At that point, the panel writes:
“…Perkins” appeared to be upset by this turn of events claiming that the Complainant was behaving unethically in operating a business that made money from “poor little kids”, accusing the Complainant of “threatening and blackmailing” and stating that the Complainant would be noted to the police and the council “so you have your licences taken away from you immediately”.
4.13 Following what would appear to be a phone call, “Perkins Perkins” sent an email in which he accused the Complainant of being abusive, and then became abusive himself. In the penultimate paragraph he wrote:
“Tell your foul mouth wife to f[…] herself and you will never get the domain back on principal [sic].”
4.14 There then followed what can perhaps be characterized as a tirade of threatening emails one of which stated:
“Your firm will be exposed along with you as abusers, kids ought to not be around that foul language under any circumstances.”
The decision states that at some point thereafter, the website resolved to a page with the word “Abuse” struck out in a red circle. (That page still resolves as of today, and it appears to be an unpaid stock image from FeaturePics.com.)
Some shenanigans ensued with Perkins saying the domain had been transferred to a different owner.
Yikes.
