I recently came across this site.

For $35, they claim to be able to (as their name suggests) snap up the domain name you want the moment it expires and gets dropped off the Internic DB.

After the disappointment of seeing a domain that I've been watching closely for more than a year finally dropped two days ago and immediately snapped up by some squatter in Hong Kong, I'm desperate for a way to ensure that does not happen again for the few other names I'm watching.

Has anyone tried their service or heard anything about them?

I sure would like to see an answer here too. I have been reading their site, but I am skeptical. Anybody???

Maybe they are "able to" do it, but there is no guarantee. You simply will have to decide the domain is worth to spend additional 35$ which you might loose.

I'm sceptical too, but remember someone here on WHT saying that the domain he was watching to drop got snaped away by SnapNames.

It should not have shown that information.

If I was to pay them to put it in my name, then it should show my name. There name would not show up.

Now I am more skeptical. Perhaps he was simply advertising.

Yep, I have used them - and no, I didn't get my domain..... but that wasn't Snapnames fault. The girl on the very very last day renewed it ...... damn it! No refund for me.....

Here are some bits and pieces have received from them via e-mail:


We wish to apologize for our low success rate for the drop on 6/11/01. The registry informs us they were hit with what amounts to a denial of service attack against those of us who play by the rules. One or more registrars took almost all of the registry connections blocking out other registrars. We were only able to get a fraction of our normal connections. The registry is taking steps to prevent this from happening again. We trust these steps will be quick and effective. You will see some indication of the offenders if there is a pattern to where names you were monitoring land.


When we launched SnapNames at the beginning of this year we set an introductory price of $35 on the SnapBack service. During that time the efficacy of our patent-pending technology has been dramatically enhanced, and it will only get better. It had been our intention to re-price SnapBack on the day that the ratio of deletes-to-additions exceeds 1:1. That day now appears to be around the corner. On that day, we will be raising the price of SnapBack to $49 per name

Anyone else noticed how all those deleted domains are being snapped up in Korea? Wow, those guys are FAST!:eek:

Originally posted by astra4
I'm sceptical too, but remember someone here on WHT saying that the domain he was watching to drop got snaped away by SnapNames.

I'm not sure, but you may have been talking about my comment? I was watching a domain and posted that I lost the name to snapnames (I'm not advertising for them, just mentioning that I didn't get the domain, and found out that it was 'backordered' by snapnames).

Again, not sure if this was the comment you were thinking of.

Yes, I guess that was your post then

I tried to get a name through them, but somehow a reseller got it instead of me. However, I sent an email to customer service inquiring how this could happen since I was "guaranteed" to get the name. They apologized and refunded my $35 to my credit card with in about a day. So, it was kind of frustrating but I didn't actually lose anything. Customer service seems to be good.

You would be better served driving down the highway and throwing 35 one dollar bills out the window. Much more effective......

It's only fair that someone speaks up for Snapnames!

I've just used them to secure a .com I've been waiting to drop for over 6 months.

They had the thing registered for me before whois was even showing the domain to be deleted!

I think it's $35 well spent if there's a domain you just don't want to miss.

Well, I agree. If they don't get your chosen domain you DO get your money back (as long as it was dropped and not re-registered by the person) --- only problem is so many people are using their service now, a lot of those "onhold" domains have already been reserved at snapnames....

Doh!

I just found out today that dotster had just got the domain name I was intending to get (note: I have been waiting for this domain to drop for over a year on NSI)
I used snapnames, snapback feature for added security to get this domain, but after seeing dotsters info on the whois, that made me quite sick.
People using snapnames thinking the domain will be guaranteed to belong to them, think again, but they do their best I must say.

Originally posted by neilest
I just found out today that dotster had just got the domain name I was intending to get (note: I have been waiting for this domain to drop for over a year on NSI)
I used snapnames, snapback feature for added security to get this domain, but after seeing dotsters info on the whois, that made me quite sick.
People using snapnames thinking the domain will be guaranteed to belong to them, think again, but they do their best I must say.

what was it