Off Topic: what is pendingtrd.com Nameserver?

[Simon Hobson]

Tim Evans wrote:
>I realize this is off topic, but I'm hoping some of the expert folks 
>on this list can answer a general, DNS-related question.
>
>I have been monitoring a domain for expiration for some time, 
>knowing the listed admin contact, who registered the domain for an 
>amateur theatre I also work with, was deceased.  We're hoping to get 
>control of the domain name. (I do control other domains for the 
>theatre.)
>
>This week, the expiration date came and went, and there was some 
>sort of automated renewal.  Now a few days later, the whois data for 
>the domain shows it's name service has been transferred to 
>'ns1.pendingtrd.com'. This is a NetSol-owned domain, and I'm 
>wondering if it's some sort of parking lot for orphaned (or 
>to-be-orphaned) domains.  Can anyone comment on what this might mean?

I would suggest you've gone about this the wrong way - letting a 
domain expire, especially .com, is a very bad idea as there are 
outfits that specialise in buying them up the second they do and 
squatting on them. I would suggest you should have contacted the 
registrar as soon as you knew the admin contact had dies, and put in 
motion their procedures for transferring the domain.

We handle domain registrations for customers at work, and we've seen 
several times where a domain has not been renewed on time (mostly 
customers fault) and before you know it there's an advertising page 
gone up (which may or may not be for material the customer is 
comfortable being associated with !). Yes, the new owner will sell it 
back to you, but as they know you cannot buy it from anyone but them, 
they will price accordingly - yes it's a form of legal blackmail.

I think you should contact the registrar immediately and try to sort 
this out. You may be lucky in this case as it sound like your 
registrar actually parks expired domains before allowing them to be 
sold to someone else (Nominet do the same for *.uk domains). That 
works really well because the owner (should) get some warning because 
their site will disappear, but they still have a grace period to 
renew and get their domain back.

The registrant of pendingtrd.com is listed as being "Network 
Solutions, Defensive" which does sound promising - though I've never 
actually had anything to do with them. With luck they've defensively 
parked the domains and you're in with a chance.

-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.