No. It’s definitely my own fault. Notifications was sent to another domain that expired that was created using the “google get a domain, email, docs, sheets whatever at the same time”. Forwarded emails stopped getting forwarded.
Sadly, I usually check my domains every now and then, but because the new owner copy-pasted my site, I couldn’t tell when doing a quick visual check.
It was after the 3 months grace period I realized there was some spam on the page. I reached out to godaddy to get told someone else bought it through their “auction service” once I missed my window and that was it.
So I deserved it, for sure. Just never thought I would end up getting bamboozled, someone copy-paste my site to make it look legit past the grace period.
It might be worth talking to a lawyer about this who is familiar with domain ownership issues and with IP.
I wasn't able to find any registered trademark (in the US) for "brand-colors", "brand-colors.com", or "brand colors", but a very brief look at the ICANN trademark dispute rules did not turn up any requirement that it be a registered trademark. Maybe I just missed that part, but if I didn't you might be able to get it back on trademark grounds.
The usual hard part of this is showing that the person who has the domain registered now is using it in bad faith. In your case, the fact that the first thing they did was put up a copy of your site, almost certainly in violation of copyright, and then changed links to ones to make themselves money from people thinking they were at your site should be enough to easily show bad faith.
Sadly, I usually check my domains every now and then, but because the new owner copy-pasted my site, I couldn’t tell when doing a quick visual check.
It was after the 3 months grace period I realized there was some spam on the page. I reached out to godaddy to get told someone else bought it through their “auction service” once I missed my window and that was it.
So I deserved it, for sure. Just never thought I would end up getting bamboozled, someone copy-paste my site to make it look legit past the grace period.