None taken Jeff, genuinely none taken. It was a weird set of circumstances that came together that were unlikely to ever happen on any other name.
For example, there were emails from regulators and the Financial Ombudsman attaching penalties to QuickLoans.co.uk because they thought we were the same brand. QuickQuid were offline, so people were complaining about us for things QuickQuid did, and if we didn't respond to each one, then you risk getting a fine of about £650-£750 from the Financial Ombudsman. Having a guess, I'd say between 600-800 standard complaints from the Ombudsman between 19-23. There were emails from the Financial Ombudsman apologising for getting it wrong. Letters from the insolvency agency most days asking for breathing space for QQ customers. The quality of the evidence of confusion was pretty decent and when it comes from regulators. Only the Independent expert who handled it ever really saw it, about from a couple of people this end.
I'd have to dig out the old DRS but I think from memory I said something along the lines that them being offline were hurting our reputation. Customers who were looking for them were finding us, customers looking for us were finding the website offline and it was hurting business. Similar with our customers who wanted to make complaints couldn't. It was along those lines.
I know some believe I said Quick Loans sound same as Quick Quid, give me the name - but it really wasn't like that, and that wouldn't have worked. The complaint was genuine, all of the facts in it were genuine. Had the other side responded, depending on what they said, it would have been difficult to get through no doubt about it. But we were suffering negative effects of the confusion, and that's what the rules allowed. Right now Nominet are sticking to every single hard rule regarding making it as hard as they can for me to appeal in a coherent way, so sticking to rules works both ways. If the rules say it, then use it.
Out of interest, since the .uk was under the the same ownership as the .co.uk, why didn't you DRS the pair at the same time?
I thought they were the same registrants too. I was told in 2023 that it was owned by a different registrant. I paid for the GoDaddy team to connect with them, the £70 thing. They said do I want to reach out to the .uk owner at the same time - I said is it the same Owner/Registrant, they said no and that I would have to pay 2x £70 - so I just left it. One was with GoDaddy, the other with 123-reg.
That's why it was never on the original DRS, I was told it was a different entity - and it was. When I DRS'd it this time, they transferred it from one Registrant to another - GoDaddy's privacy shield thing and then started the DRS. I checked before I started this and it said the Registrant Data Quality thing had been validated. If it was validated, that means it couldn't have been a company dissolved almost 3 years ago. I guess that validation thing on the Nom registry is just BS then.
That's why the expert is wrong, he is assuming without fact that I knew who the Registrant was - I didn't - how could I have? Plus it wasn't the same Registrant that initially registered it 2014, he's wrong on that too. I now believe that to be Enova International who then at some point must have transferred it to the Respondent at some unknown point later in time.
But even then, it doesn't matter. The Registration date is a UDRP thing, I'm not an expert on it but from what I know, in UDRP the registration and the usage have to abuse someone rights, in DRS, the abuse needs only to happen at some point. The chap is a UDRP expert, let's just say I think he's got very confused between the rules.
The rights thing is baffling, we've been trading on that name for almost 3 years and don't have rights? He then says that we need to show goodwill to get rights, and we didn't show. That's not the DRS standard. That's just weird and in our opinion should be relatively easy to be overturned.
He also says that our sole complaint was 5.1.6, when we listed abuse under 5.1.2 and 5.1.3 - so even by his own admission, he hasn't read our complaint, or hasn't considered those points. That's an appealable error on it's own, never mind the rest of his errors and assumptions.
I didn't enter the same evidence in this as I did in 2023. I think the Expert here believes I did and that is all I had in 2023, it wasn't. 2023's DRS had evidence of confliction between QuickLoans.co.uk v QuickQuid.co.uk. In this, I don't have evidence of confusion between QuickLoans.co.uk v QuickQuid.uk - that's why I never submitted it here.The confusion here is between QuickQuid.co.uk and QuickQuid.uk. Completely different circumstances. I think that's why he's got a bee in his bonnet, he thinks this evidence won the 2023 DRS - it didn't.
At some point in this, the Expert ceased being an expert and started to be an advocate for the Respondent. He's invented theories and assumptions out of nowhere and we never got the chance to answer them back. He thinks the business went into administration in 2022, fecking Google stopped working has it ole chap? He's findings have factual errors all over then place. The expert is trying to settle the score for what happened 3 years ago. He's publicly accused me of misleading the Experts, and must have done so knowingly. That needs to be addressed.
I think this is worse than the manage.co.uk summary decision, which was successfully overturned. At least the expert didn't have motivations from outside the DRS, she just got things innocently wrong. This guy, well.
I'm limited to 1000 word appeal now to show why he was wrong. Usually a Complainant gets 2000 words or something to respond to these accusations, but because the expert is acting like the respondent - I get nothing other than the appeal. How do I quote him and explain why he was wrong factually and procedurally in 1000 words or less? Nominet won't budge.
This appeal reads like CeeFax from the 80's. It feels like trying to get 1kb of savings whilst programming a Sinclair Spectrum by deleting a word here and there where I can.
The funniest thing is, I spoke to Enova.com back in 2012 about them leasing QuickLoans.co.uk - they contacted me asking about it, they wanted to buy it rather than lease it. They raised the possibility of DRS'ing me if I didn't sell. I can't believe I missed that before, I vaguely remember them trying to buy it and we spoke on the phone, but I missed submitting that in the 2023 DRS.
Cheeky feckers
Anyway, the question is now. Even if the appeal experts say this chap was wrong - can a name be an abusive registration when the registrant has been dissolved? If not, Nominet have knowingly took all this money, the DRS and the appeal fee when I never had a chance of winning.
Interesting to see where this goes.
