I stumble across the strangest things on-line. This time, I was trying to get to the Farmington Civic theater’s Web site in order to determine whether the current movie selections have changed. Instead, I found an open letter to theater manager Bill Richards, who probably wishes he’d been just a little more cordial with this person:
http://farmingtoncivictheatre.com/
It isn’t often that someone buys a domain name (or two) just to send you a message.
PS, here’s the real Farmington Civic Theatre web site: http://www.farmingtoncivictheatre.org/
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I doubt he wishes he’d been more cordial, and I’m sure his response was appropriate.
Looks like just a local squatter trying to unload the domain name.
Pretty common scam, actually. Surprised you weren’t aware of it.
I am very familiar with squatters, but I don’t think this should simply be dismissed as a case of someone trying to make a buck on a domain name. Taking the writer at his or her word, there was an attempt made to provide some constructive advice about the Civic Web site. And I have since learned this person is not the only one to have made the same suggestions.
There are two ways to reject that kind of advice. One of them gets you a letter like this posted on-line for everyone to see. I just don’t think that’s a good way to deal with people, no matter who they are or what they’re selling.
I guess anyone who wants to can look up the whois data and decide for themselves. I’m sticking with “squatter” and it sounds like the response was appropriate.
I didn’t read any “constructive advice ” either. Just some whining from a squatter who realized he isn’t gonna get any money!
I also took a look at the Civic website for the first time; it seems to be pretty well designed and it took me about 5 seconds to get to the showtimes. I like it! Dunno what people are complaining about.
The site info has a local phone number, a Farmington Hills PO box and a web site for the business business.
I think the person loves the Civic and would like to see it do better.
Jonster, should we call and interview the person?
I gotta say it…PT Barnum was right!
I don’t want to put THAT much work into it, Hill – although I am keeping this information for future reference. Who knows? I might want to pick up those three URLs. Looks like the domain names expire in September.
A squatter’s only goal would be to sell those domain names. Squatters don’t publicly humiliate potential customers; they wait them out. The longer the wait, the more valuable the domain name becomes. So I don’t think this is quite so simple an equation.
We weren’t privvy to the original conversation and the note on the Web page is open to interpretation, so let’s just look at the outcome: bad PR. In a private business, a manager who handled a conversation with a potential customer or vendor such that said customer/vendor felt compelled to put up a Web page like that would not be excused because he was dealing with a squatter.
OK, you pick up those three names and I’ll grab “mcnutbuilding.com” et al (yep, it’s available!). We’ll form a downtown Farmington domain name racket…if anybody refuses to pay us protection for their namesake, we’ll put up a crazy web page about them!
Dave K,
FARMINGTONCIVICTHEATRE.NET is available!
FARMINGTONCIVICTHEATRE.INFO is available!
FARMINGTONCIVICTHEATRE.BIZ is available!
And more…
“squatter”?
One thing we agree on is that I doubt he (Bill) wishes he’d been more cordial.
Bill’s reputation for rubbing people the wrong way is pretty commonly known actually.
Surprised you weren’t aware of it.