Can anyone work this out?

[joepublic]

I'm probably in the wrong section here. I'd like some opinions as to someone's behaviour. We run a tribute band and were recently advertising for a keys player. Amongst the replies was this one guy, we sent him off an email giving him all the info. He was due to come and rehearse with us a week later. In the meantime after a recent band name change, we go to register a new domain name to find that this guy has gone and bought it. In all our conversations by email and phone he never once mentioned it.When we ask him why he claims that he did this because he thought it was unsafe to leave as someone unconnected with the band may snap it up, and because of him they did, didn't they? After all the annoyance of being denied our .com there comes the question WHY? This guy registered our domain name before he had even contacted us to reply to our ad. Is this me or is this bizarre behaviour? I still find it difficult to understand his reasoning and so would be very grateful for anyone else's take on this. Needless to say, no he didn't get the job.

[joko]

i have heard of this, but i have to say, a relatively unknown tribute band is not usually the target - usually its bigger businesses

either he's genuine, wants to be in your band and thought he was doing you a favour that would endear him to you, and ensure him the job - or, he wants you to buy the name off him...

ask him.

however there are many different domain endings - org, net, co.uk, biz, etc etc, so just choose a different one... unless he's bought them all!! in which case - stalker/weirdo - avoid!

bigger companies will pay for a com or a co.uk, but with a band people will search the name of the band, so i doubt it matters

[joepublic]

Well of course we have asked him, but apart from what I have already said that he thought it was unsafe to leave, we have no idea why he would do it. If he had told us what he had done we'd have thought better of him. But it was the underhandedness that immediately made us distrust him.

Yes we have registered a co.uk

That wasn't what I was asking, I just wanted to know what people thought about why he did this?

I have read up on the stealing of domain names and I believe it is called Cybersquatting

Thanks for your reply.

[sense4all]

So that he could hold you to ramsom to buy the name off him if you did not pick him. My mate had to approach an owner on behalf of a third party, and he was tripping for the sum he wanted to sell. Guess he( your guy ) could have thought it thro' a bit better and bagged all the endings if he was clever with it. What a plank!