I think we should definitely buy it. It'd make a big difference; the current URL is kinda crappy.

I can pitch in a little bit as well. Who can organize a fundraising site to help everyone interested pitch in $5, $10, $20 or whatever they can?

As much as I would like to get the .com, I'd be incredibly cautious when dealing with crooks like these.

Also, the domain is coming up for expiry on 09-AUG-2010.

I'd wait until then, then grab it quick from your favorite domain registrar for the normal $10/a.

So just to be clear. Let's avoid giving this cyber-squater any incentive to renew the domain. Don't visit qcubed.com, don't e-mail them, nothing. Just stay away until they let go of it in a few days, and then buy it out normally.

Awesome. If he has it set to auto-renew or something, then we can go back to the donation strategy.

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/03/how-to-snatch-an-expi...

So it sounds like it will be available somewhere between 35 and 75 days after Aug 9th.

I think we can wait that long.

If you think it's a popular enough domain that there are other interested parties, it may be worth using a "snatch" service, but I have a feeling that's unnecessary since no one has bought it yet.

Alright, fair enough. Let's hope they don't renew the domain on August 9th. I'll put a reminder for myself to check on Sept 10th. If they do renew, I think we have nothing to do but pay the damn squatters.

It's been up for sale for that same price for over a year. I don't think there is much demand. When you first branched the project to Qcubed, however, I typed that in accidentally every once and a while. So hopefully they don't see too much traffic to it.

I dealt with a squatter one time. He wanted 500 for a site that I owned the .org and he had the .com

I offered 250 since it looked like he had zero traffic and 250 seemed pretty good for a site he paid 15 bucks for. He laughed and said, no thanks, 500 was a 'sweet deal', he'd rather just collect the click through. He was pretty rude about it. I said, ok suit yourself.

About 4 months later he emailed me back asking if I'd still give 250 for it. I said no thanks. About 2 months after that he was nearly begging me to take it for 100. I had moved on so wasn't interested.

The point is, that sometimes these guys get into the game with the promise of making big bucks with no work. They are as much scammed as they are scammers. Some of them have large portfolios that cost money to maintain and get very few click through dollars and fewer people willing to pay a premium. So, if it is listed at 400, he will probably part with it at 50-100 if we negotiate correctly.

I agree though that we should take at least one shot at getting it at expiry before engaging. But when we engage i say we low ball him and let him think about the money he is wasting every year with no actual income. He will certainly refuse at first, so then we just walk away and let him think about his 'investment' for a month or two.

Granted, that strategy works a little bit better a month or two before expiration, as he has to dig his credit card out and has to make tough decisions about renewal. "Waste another $15, or take that $100 offer on the table?"

Please tell me it was this project that grabbed the domain http://www.qcubed.com/.

Nope. Guess we forgot about it, and it got bought by another cyber squatter.
This one seems slightly classier, though who knows if they'd take a reasonable offer.