How My Spouse’s Name.com Turned Into a Porn Site (And We Got It Back for $59)
When Identity Slips Through the Cracks
There are times when calls come into Snagged and we don’t know exactly where they’ll lead. Sometimes it’s a brand or startup looking to land the perfect domain. Other times, it’s someone trying to reclaim a name that slipped away, often for reasons that hit close to home.
Last year, a client reached out with a pretty unusual problem. He had let his wife’s personal domain expire, and when he typed it back into his browser, it no longer pointed to her site. It now redirected to a porn site. Like seriously hardcore porn.
Rob Schutz, Snagged’s founder, took the call and began exploring options to get the name back.
A Ransom in the Domain Game
The first step was contacting the domain owner. Their reply was blunt: ten thousand dollars, or the name stayed put.
That is how this game is played; the ransom is not outrageous enough to dismiss, but it is painful. Too much to ignore, not enough to laugh off. And every day the domain redirected traffic to porn, it gained more leverage over the couple.
“I’m not paying $10,000,” the client told Snagged. “But I feel like I should have to pay something...it’s my wife’s name. And I messed up.”
Waiting Out the Clock
There was no deal to be made with the domain owner, as the client refused to cave. The owner refused to lower the price, so the name sat in limbo for eighteen months.
“She doesn’t even care about using the site,” the client told Snagged. “She just doesn’t want that on it.” A blank page that didn’t load would have been perfectly fine, but hardcore porn was a real punch in the gut. But with the client unwilling to pay $10,000, there was nothing to do except watch and wait, while Snagged monitored the domain’s status and prepared for any opening.
The $59 Redemption
Patience finally paid off. Shockingly, the owner didn’t renew the second time around, and the domain hit DropCatch. Because Snagged had a backorder in place, and no one else did, the client picked it up for fifty-nine dollars.
“Fifty-nine bucks,” he said with a laugh of relief. “After all that.”
His wife put up a clean new site, and the long, humiliating chapter ended not with a ransom, but with persistence and timing.
From One Story to a Pattern
What makes this story more than a quirky one-off is that it is happening more often than people might think. Over the past eighteen months, Snagged has seen at least five personal, firstnamelastname.com domains fall into the same trap: a lapsed renewal, a porn redirect, and an owner suddenly negotiating (or trying to negotiate) for their own name. Sometimes with no idea who to reach out to or how to get in touch.
Sometimes the ransom gets paid, sometimes the name drops, and sometimes it disappears for good. It has become a recognizable playbook, and opportunists vacuum up expired personal domains and point them at adult traffic. And when it is your identity on the line, it feels like ransom.
Why It Hurts Some More Than Others
Not every name carries the same weight. If you are JohnSmith.com, you might shrug. But if you have a unique name, like MateoGreenberg.com (which, at the time of writing, is available), the domain is unmistakably yours. (Mateo, if you’re out there reading and need a banging .com, hit us up).
The stakes are higher if you are a professional whose name is tied to a career. Realtors, doctors, performers, public figures, (people who live by their reputations), cannot afford the embarrassment of a name redirecting to porn. And if you have ever used your domain on business cards, resumes, or email, the urgency is even greater. Your audience already associates that domain with you.
That is why the client in this story felt trapped. He had once used the site as a gift for his wife. Now it had become a liability.
How Snagged Helps
Stories like this are why people reach out to us. Snagged has built a reputation for untangling domain messes, from buying back expired assets to running down ownership records to navigating awkward ransom scenarios. Taking on the complexity of acquiring (or re-acquiring) a domain name is what we do.
Sometimes the solution is patience and a well-timed backorder. Other times it’s negotiation. But more and more, people are realizing they need help securing the digital equivalent of their full name.
The Lesson
The overarching lesson here is simple: if you already own your name.com, treat it like the heirloom it is. Renew it early, lock it down, and never assume you will get another shot. Because once your name slips away, you may not like where it lands.
Related Reads from Snagged
- How to Know When a Domain Expires — and What You Can Do About It
- How to Find the Owner of a Domain (and Contact Them)
- How to Acquire a Domain Name: A Step-by-Step Guide
- How Nik Sharma Acquired the Domain Nik.co (Branding Persistence and a Little Bit of Luck)
- Why Customers Are Choosing Snagged.com as an Alternative to GoDaddy’s Domain Broker Service
- A Wicked Domain Fail: How Mattel Linked Dolls to a Whole Different Kind of Magic
- Whitehouse.com: The Accidental Internet Scandal That Shocked America
