Occasionally I spend time on Bustaname.com looking for domain names that might be of value. I've found a few winners and quite a few losers but today my heart stopped.

Using the word combiner, I entered a long string of words and clicked the "add" button. To my suprise "loyal.com" was available. My first thought was "yeah right...there's not a chance in hell".

False positive are common on Bustaname, but I had to check anyway because, who knows, maybe...just maybe the name expired and no one caught it. So I clicked "buy it" and said a little prayer. Again, I was not optimistic and really just going through the motions.

The screenshot below is what I saw after being redirected to Godaddy.com:

Talk about an "Oh Shit" moment. I registered the domain and then started researching brokers, auctions sites, and appraisal services. I'm no expert but I do know that domains like this could easily fetch mid to high $xx,xxx...if not more.

After a bit of researched I opened Gmail and found the following email:

Dear Me,

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

LOYAL.COM

Error: LOYAL.COM: cannot register - already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration if appropriate.

If we are unable to successfully register the domain name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please allow one business day for the refund to be processed.

Sincerely,
Godaddy.com, Inc

What a bummer! So I called Godaddy to enquire, they said it was a clear mistake and refunded my money.

So for those of you who use Bustaname be sure to double check a domain that seems to good to be true.