Regaining control of a web domain?

[elwesso]

My family has a long-time business (est 1946). As most of my family is getting older, they were working with someone to buy the business from them. This fall, the sale went south and they had to kick this guy out. Overall it's been a pretty big hassle for my family.

One of the things that I'm trying to help with is getting our website domain back. During the process of the sale, they gave this guy access to our website so he could add items for sale/etc. When things went south, he changed all of the username/passwords related to our website/email addresses (all of which hosted through go-daddy). Further, he redirected our domain to his website, and as far as I know he has control of some of our emails and stuff.

It's really not hurting us, because that website is clearly not my family's business (and that website is probably one of the worst websites ever). I think he's only stealing our domain out of spite. It's really just confusing our customers, and it would be nice to get our domain back (that we still have every right to have) because we have billboards/other advertising that has that domain.

According to who-is, we still own the domain. This is my family's business/contact info/address...

https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name= ... marina.com

The last time someone from the business tried to contact go-daddy, they said that he renewed the domain and hosting subscription, and I guess changed all of the go-daddy account information into his name from ours.

If we lost all of our website data/etc that's not a huge deal (would prefer if we could get that back, it's probably still on go-daddy's server somewhere), but the most important thing is that we get back control of our domain. Next most important would be getting the email addresses, not a big deal if we lost any previous emails, we just need to make sure that he can't access those emails. Least important is that we get back our website data and either get it fixed with go-daddy or move the data to a new hosting service.

Any help appreciated!

[ArmedAviator]

Unfortunately this is a problem that can only be rectified with either a) gentleman's agreement or b) court order. An old friend and business partner who made millions during the MySpace boom had hired a company to help with SEO and marketing and had to allow the company access to get domain registrar account. They changed passwords, email, etc. Effectively destroying get web based business. Only a court order was able to fix it.

With access to the change the DNS records of the domain, this person can redirect any incoming email to his own email server and can affect outgoing email from your server as well.

If he had access to your website data as well, he may have wiped it out or altered it.

Good luck.

[Jesda]

Yes, what AA said above.

I'd also contact James H. He used to work for GoDaddy in Phoenix and might have some bonus info.

[Ilya]

Agreed...most likely a lawyer needed.

I had much the same situation for much of 2016 (started in January). Was paid to build a custom wordpress site (down payment rather) and then the rest of the payment never came. After waiting months, I shut the site down. The guy logged in and brought back online (might have actually had the host help him because he wasn't technical) and changed all the passwords on me...luckily I had ALL of the data backed up locally to prove it was my work.

After some more running around and threats of lawyers, he finally paid the rest a couple months ago.

[darylzero]

ICANN has a process for this called UDRP. https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en