Thanks and cheers to you too!
A couple months ago, I began helping someone get their domain name back from a web designer who had wrongly (fraudulently?) registered it in their own name instead of the name of the client they were working for.
His name is Mike Corrales, and he founded a web design/hosting company named First Web Media. This company has a fake "suite" from "Rent-A-Mailing-Address" and has an 800 number listed on their website that has long been disconnected.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecorraleshttp://www.crunchbase.com/person/mike-corraleshttp://firstwebmedia.comRent-A-Mailing-Address
https://www.mailnetwork.com/cgi-bin/orderone.cgi?action=gola&goodcitykey=200Google Search for 1050 Bishop StreetWe originally politely contacted Corrales for weeks. After we realized that he was not willing to cooperate (something that would cost him nothing to do except literally 2 minutes of his time), we continued by seeking remedy from the registrar (SRS Plus), but it was in vain. They were completely unwilling to help at all. With no options left, we finally threatened to sue Corrales and report him to the State Attorney of California, the state in which he lives.
Within two days after we made this legal threat against him, email accounts on our server were signed up for every possible spam house you can imagine. Our server has been flooded with mailing lists, spam, backscatter, bounces, false bounces and everything else ever since. It's secure and protected, but it sure has been busy.
Of course, this does not definitely mean Corrales did this, but it sure looks suspicious, especially considering that this kind of thing has never happened before.
The woman I was attempting to help has worked tirelessly building a successful business on her domain name for several years and is now completely unable to get the name back from Mike, even though she paid for it. She is unwilling at this time (although on the fence) to put the time and money forward to follow through with the lawsuit and filing reports. She is being forced to change all her literature and re-market her business with an entirely new domain name and email addresses. She is very upset about the losses she has suffered as a result.
When I spoke to SRS Plus (the registrar who has the power AND authority to EASILY correct this situation), they said they were unwilling to do anything about this situation because they were concerned about their contract with their client Mike. I clearly and politely explained to them how Mike had wrongly taken the domain name that was paid for by someone else into his custody and would not release it. They simply don't seem to want to be bothered with doing what's right.
For this reason, I hope anyone considering doing business with SRS Plus will carefully consider using another company, such as GoDaddy, which seems to have better policies and a better record of moral behavior in these types of situations.
Mike Corrales is also associated with Greenest Host:
http://www.greenesthost.com/He is the founder and CEO:
http://www.greenesthost.com/team.phpAll I can say is I hope people who use this company to host their websites make sure the domain names they pay for are correctly registered in their own names so they can be sure they don't lose it like my friend lost hers. Or better yet, don't use Greenest Host at all. Use GoDaddy or someone else.
Sorry this is so long. I just think it's important to get the truth about these things out to protect people against this kind of injustice.
It makes me sick seeing people like this market themselves as wonderful—"caring for the environment"—type people when they obviously don't give a darn about their own customers (once they have their money).
