Anyone know much about ABN's and business names?

[KingBob]

As most of you know i'm into photography. Last year i started making a bit of money from it doing real estate stuff (stills and 360deg panoramas for tours), so i registered and set up a domain to use. All good no problems, that was in october.

Today i get home from the interclub, and find an email from a bloke who says he has that name as his registered business name, and wants to sort things out.

I check the ABN website, and he does in fact have one, and the name i used is registered to him.

I got an ABN years ago, but never really used it, only made any money last year so never had cause to put it on my tax return or anything. I looked my ABN up, and it says it was cancelled on Feb 26. The very same day his was activated.

I looked up the business name and sure enough, he does have it registered.

Anyone know what I can do? If anything? Since i have the website i wonder if i can just register the same name with ".com" on the end since most of it is web based anyway.

[Matt]

So he only wants the domain name AFTER someone else buys it.

Sell it to him, for twice the amount of $

Mua-a-a-aaa.. (Dr Evil type laugh)

[Maxd out]

No you cant rergister the name with a .com its to similar , in a word your stuffed
Tis also happened to me with a past buisness

[obzELiTe]

i got around that little problem by actually called the . dot
so i had digi dot com

but if you have the domain name I'm pretty sure he cant get it from you. if he tried you can always claim he hijacked your business name, and when the dates line up the way you say they do then it does look like he waited for the right time.

[KingBob]

Yeah i know, it seems a bit coincidental with the dates.

I'll email tonight and see what he says. Worst case scenario for me is i sell him the domain for an exhorbitant fee, he cant claim i was squatting on it as i am legitimately using it and registered before i had any idea he existed.

[KingBob]

Well i got a reply, eventually, he says he didn't get my first reply, so he sent me another one saying "he will track me down and serve me notice through the courts" lol.

I asked him for proof he owns the business name, and got him to send me a scan of the business registration certificate. He does own it, but it was registered in february as i mentioned. I registered the domain in october.

Unless he specifically asks for it, i'm keeping it, bugger even offering to sell it. I'll just keep it and redirect any visitors to whatever new one i set up, which will be a very similar name :D

[James]

You can keep your .com

this dude doesn't stand a chance getting it off you and I doubt would waste his own cash trying to in the courts.

If it was a .com.au it would be a different story, maybe. But because it's a .com NO chance.

He can buy it off you if he wants. Name your price. $5k, $10k... screw this punk.

I've have cybix.com.au registered, it matches my business name 100%, in fact, to get it at the time, I had to prove that I was the business.

cybix.com however, some punk in Korea is holding it ransom, wants some crazy USD for it.. what a tosser. The thing is, company's will pay if they want the name badly enough!

I would politely tell this dude that your keeping your .com domain name and if he likes he can buy it off you.

[remotebandit]

yeah that reminds me now James when i registered my .com.au for the business , i needed to prove abn and registered business name to get the same name as my business , in fact they even did a search to see if it was too close to another .com.au name .

The .com dont matter , the .com.au is a bitch

[KingBob]

Well i tried to register the business name with "dot com" at the end but they wouldnt let me, too close to the existing one. But i was able to register it with 1 letter difference. Instead it being "RJ" (my initials, i got "RAJ", 1 whole letter difference. I'll just redirect anyone going to the RJ one to the RAJ. simple :)

And i'm not even going to offer to sell him the domain, if he wants it he'll have to ask and offer! bigtime!

[jrs]

I believe he can't do anything but offer to buy it from you whether its a .com or a .com.au. The only way he could get you to shut your site down is if he had the name trademarked which is a totally different thing (and takes a long time to do) to registering a business name which is only a state government thing...