Name hijacking in CreditHero.com dispute — Reverse domain

Misleading citations used as part of a domain name hijacking attempt.

A National Arbitration Forum panelist has found Daniel A. Rosen, Inc. d/b/a Credit Repair Cloud, to have tried reverse domain name hijacking the domain name CreditHero.com.

Credit Repair Cloud filed the UDRP despite claiming common law and registered rights gained following the Respondent registered the domain name. This fact alone made the case dead on arrival.

The Complainant tried to get creative to overcome the issue that the domain couldn’t have been registered and used in bad faith. It claimed that the Respondent renewed the domain name in bad faith in January of this year since it must have been aware of the Complainant by this point since the Complainant sent offers to buy the domain and sent a cease and desist letter.

But the broker that reached out to the Respondent regarding buying the domain name told the Complainant that it was unable to get a response from the domain name owner. And it sent the cease and desist letter only 13 days ahead of filing the UDRP. (Nevermind that “renewed in bad faith” isn’t generally viewed as a valid argument in UDRP jurisprudence.)

Panelist Alan Limbury also noted that the Complainant made some misleading quotes from previous cases to try to bolster its own case.

In one citation, the Complainant conveniently used ellipses to exclude a portion of the citation that invalidated the citation as it relates to its argument.

In another citation, Limbury stated that the Complainant made it look like a panelist had written something in a prior case, but it was actually quoting a complainant’s argument made in that case.

Panelists certainly don’t want to feel like they’ve been misled.

Andrew Skale of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. represented the Complainant. Michael D. Pogue of Michael Pogue Law, P.C. represented the Respondent.