Domain name register

Last week on the 23rd I went to whois to double check if my domain stevecorson.com was available, which it was. So I went arishost.com to register the domain. Filled my information and paid for it. The next day I received verification via email which I sent in 25. Having not received any info I called them on the 28 to find out that it was taken by a company on the 26 in Kenya.

How is this possible or how could I have registered it 3 days prior and then have it taken by this company? Is this legal for them to do this? Who am I to contact in a scenario like this?

What seems to have happened is that their automated domain registering service has failed. Have you tried contacting them? Essentially nothing can be done about the name now that someone else has bought it, but it's possible you could get some compensation as they haven't fulfilled their role.

It probably isn't illegal for them to screw up and leave you high and dry.

Did the company in Kenya register through arishost.com? It seems to me that this whole verification email thing that you had to send in is the policy of arishost.com (I've never seen such a procedure). If the company in Kenya registered through a registrar that does not have these kinds of policies in place, then I'd say that you're **** out of luck.

What did you send in on the 25th? Was it an email thing that you had to reply to or was it something that you printed out and mailed in? In the case of the latter, they probably didn't get your reply until after a few days after the 25th. At this time, they probably processed your order but it was too late.

You say you paid for it on the 23rd. Did you get a refund?

I don't think anyone broke any laws. Perhaps arishost.com should implement a domain hold while the verification process is going on rather than trying to finalize your transaction with the domain still for sale and freely available. If anything, you should be entitled to a refund of the money you paid on the 23rd, but I don't see any laws being broken or anything like that.

I don't see why you had to send a verification email after you paid for something. Can you find any links between arishost and the Kenya company?