One of the rare times that I have some relevent information
to provide Opranauts...
I have dealt with the same situation about a year ago...
Where are you located? It would be advantageous to use
a lawyer who is admitted to the bar of the state you live in.
The lawyer I used is David J. Amkraut, who is located
here in Los Angeles. If you are located in California,
I can recommend him highly. Email me for contact info.
A couple of points. If you are thinking that there will be
a quick resolution, don't hold your breath... it took about
5 months for me. You will have to get your lawyer to
write the ISP where the domain has been transferred to.
Hopefully, they will immediately lock the domain down,
so it can not be transferred any further.
Once that is done you will need to submit all relevent info
including any historical whois data showing you previously
controlled ownership of the domain to your lawyer.
This information will then need to be submitted to an
independent domain dispute arbitration board, who will
decide whether or not you have enough evidence to
prove your claim of previous ownership. (BTW, you will
need to pay the arbitration board approximately $1250.00
for their services, above and beyond your lawyer's fees.)
Altogether, my case ran about $5000.00 total.
If they rule your favor, the other party will have 14 days
after the ruling to provide information disputing their ruling.
After all of that the domain will be transferred back to you.
I recommend to all webmasters to do the following...
contact your current ISP and lock down all your domains,
so they cannot be transferred out without prior telephone or
email contact from you. Also do a whois on all your domains
and take a screen capture to show your current ownership of
the domain. Print the screen capture(s) out and mail them to
yourself via certified mail. Do not open the envelope, and the
postmark will act as proof of the prior date proving ownership.
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