Dealing with theft

[dantmurphy]

Hi I paid for a listing on the page below about 3 months ago, I still haven't received a listing. Any suggestions on what sort of action to take?

http://www.melbournedirectory.com.au/

[Mont]

If follow up is not effective and you paid by credit card, you can always dispute the charge.  It appears the dollar amount is not very significant and the bigger question is whether the value from this site (either traffic or link value) is really worth the time anyway.  You are probably better off spending your time on better prospects.

[RobertFisher]

One rule I try to follow before paying online (paypal is best) is to do a whois on the domain to see where they are and if they are hidden. If you go to onthesamehost.com and do a whois reverse IP, you will see who is hosting. I went to http://whois.melbourneit.com.au/ and the Registrant is Duncan Edwards. The Host is DreamHost.com. On looking at 6 other domains one was registered in a way that gave more info:

Duncan Edwards, 61.398331067, organization is DMedia, in Malvern East, VIC 3145. any of this can be found unless the domain is privately registered. I found the main info by whois on the other domains. Name matched the melbournedirectory name.

Since the site is on DreamHost, I would contact them and be very persistent about what has happened. I have seen hosts kick people off because they did not want to deal with complaints.
Hope this helps.

[dantmurphy]

Thanks guys great responses!

[ShaMenz]

I also checked Whois records, but interestingly, the record I found using domaintools does not mention DMedia, but much more significantly for the site owner, it actually provides details of the Aussie registered company Lockstock Technology Pty Ltd  ACN 113992322. Between the contact info that Robert provided and public records for the company, I would:

1. Attempt to contact them in person and see if you can come to a good faith agreement to resolve the issue (either get the link in place or return your payment)
2. Failing resolution, write direct to the company, making it clear that you are in possession of sufficient information to make it possible for you to pursue them, request that you require them to resolve the issue and that the consequence of ignoring your correspondence will be that you make a complaint to Consumer Affairs Victoria and to ASIC about their business conduct. It is amazing how quickly the involvement of Consumer Affairs, or even the threat of involving them, can suddenly improve a company's customer service in this country
3. Run a quick search to find any citation sites where they have a profile and add an accurate review.

If none of that gets you a resolution then I would  chalk it up to experience and not spend any more time, effort or energy on it.