Details Emerge on Sofa.com Heist
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Here’s a follow up to a story Domain Name Wire covered in August 2007.
In 2007 it emerged that the sale of Sofa.com for $200,000 in 2005 was not approved by the actual owner of the domain. An employee sold the domain to what is now an online sofa company. He managed to have the buyers wire the money directly to his personal account. (See $200,000 Sofa.com Domain Name Stolen by Employee)
An article in RealBusiness gives more juicy details about the purchase. There were warning signs everywhere, including the seller asking the buyers to show up in New York with the $200,000 in cash:
“He asked to meet in New York to complete the deal. But he wanted me to bring the money in cash!”
When Reeves turned up without a locked briefcase, Galstad became very jumpy. The lawyers convinced him to sign all the legal papers and he eventually agreed to have the money wired across. Two weeks later, the domain name technically belonged to the entrepreneurs, but when they tried to transfer it from the States to the UK, they found a block.
The buyers got to keep the domain name since the seller had “apparent authority” on behalf of the selling company.
It’s not as exciting as the Sex.com story, but at least the seller did manage to skip the country with a stripper.
Tags: sofa.com
“but at least the seller did manage to skip the country with a stripper.”
Now we have to wait and see if she “stripped” him of his $200,000.
Patrick
Actually, it sounds like it. He ran out of money and became a bartender. Apparently he won some bartender award and got some press for it. The authorities saw his picture and caught him.
next time use an ESCROW!!!!
Sadly, escrow may not have helped in this situation. The guy clearly had control to transfer the domain to the buyer and he could have just used his bank account with the escrow.
Nice story, Andrew. Thanks!