stolen domain?

[charrison]

I bought a domain name through Weebly when I was setting up my online store. I purchased the basic plan in order to buy the domain. I just published my website to my domain, and according to Weebly/Square, my website is linked to the domain. When I click on the domain or type it into the search bar, I am brought to the domain site, but it is not my website. It goes to an entirely different company that did not exist when I purchased the domain. Is it possible someone stole my domain name?

When I look up (lookup.icann.org) who the domain is registered to and when, it is the purchase date from my receipt, but linked to a company out of Canada, not me. It appears it was "modified" 2 weeks after the purchase.

Anyone have experience with this? Any way to get my domain name back? Or to get a refund from Weebly? The only reason I upgraded was to have my own domain name that was available at that time. Thank you,

[sayra]

Hey @charrison. 

Welcome to our Seller Community!

Can I please get your website URL? Are you referring to this site website address: www.maukadesigns.com? 

[charrison]

Yes, www.maukadesigns.com. This shows as my domain in Weebly, but when I click it or go to it, I am brought to a completely different website (selling marketing/apartments) that now exists with my domain.

[sayra]

Thanks for your website address @charrison. From what I can see the domain attached to your website is registered at Google. I would suggest to log into your google account here and see if you can find the domain. If you continue to have trouble accessing your domain you would want to contact google. Once you have access to your domain, follow this guide to attach the domain to your site.

If all fails, please contact Weebly via phone and chat support. They are available Mon-Fri 6am-6pm PST and Sat-Sun 8am-5pm PST. Email reps generally respond to support tickets within 24-48 hours depending on queue volume. The button to contact the reps can be found at the bottom of our help center.

[charrison]

Thank you, I appreciate the help. I never actually registered the domain on Google, so I do not have access to it. I only registered the domain when I bought my Weebly website package. Maybe that's where I went wrong and someone else was able to register over me? If I bought the domain through Weebly, could this have happened? It's just odd that it is showing as a registered domain the day I bought it on Weebly.

[charrison]

Thanks! I was able to speak with a Square/Weebly rep. For those of you needing help too: When you purchase a plan to "buy" a domain through Weebly for your website, you do not own the domain until you register it through another entity, like Google. I did not know this (new to this website thing).

Apparently exactly the same date I purchased by Weebly plan for my website and searched the available name "maukadesigns.com" someone else bought it through Google and created a website. This is why I wasn't sure I had owned it because it was purchased the same date in public record.

When I finally went to publish my website to the domain I thought I had purchased, it directs me to the other website with the current domain holder. Crazy because that's not a common website name, but I guess that's life.

[sayra]

@charrison. That explains it all. I was about to mention that someone could register the Domain name the same day. Glad you were able to speak with a Weebly Team Member and get more clarity. We appreciate you posting your reply here for other Sellers to see.

Happy to have you as part of our Seller Community!