Hello and Assalamo Alaikum everyone,

Recently I received a transfer request from registrar 123Reg/Webfusion which I personally have never used for domain purpose. I was bit surprised to receive such email from them because I never had any domain there or wanted to transfer out to them.

So in actual what happened was the former domain owner first tried to get the domain from me by contacting through DNS parking platform and the offer was somewhere near $100 and of course the deal wasn’t going to be successful at that price and it was declined.

After few months I received the transfer request which goes something like this:

“Attention: abm@AbdulBasit.com

Re: Transfer of xxxxxxxxxxxxx.com

123Reg/Webfusion has received a request from xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@me.com on xx/xx/2014 for us to become the new registrar of record.

You have received this message because you are listed as the Registered Name Holder or Administrative contact for this domain name in the WHOIS database.

Please read the following important information about transferring your domain name:

• You must agree to enter into a new Registration Agreement with us. You can review the full terms and conditions of the Agreement at http://www.domainterms.com/.

• Once you have entered into the Agreement, the transfer will take place within five (5) calendar days unless the current registrar of record denies the request.

• Once a transfer takes place, you will not be able to transfer to another registrar for 60 days, apart from a transfer back to the original registrar, in cases where both registrars so agree or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs.

If you WISH TO PROCEED with the transfer, you must respond to this message via one of the following methods (note if you do not respond by xx/xx/2014, xxxxxxxxxxxx.com will not be transferred to us.).
Please go to our website, https://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to confirm.

If you DO NOT WANT the transfer to proceed, then don’t respond to this message.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact http://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/.

Kind Regards

123Reg/Webfusion”

It was quite surprising and funny because the former owner might have thought to give this option as try and she might get the domain back. I am using “she” here because the domain was a two word female name and it’s her name too. I responded back to 123Reg/Webfusion informing about this unauthorized domain transfer request.

Not sure if this practice is being used by people to gain someone’s domain

Have you received similar transfer request from the former owner or someone trying to hijack your domain using this method?