[stanislavb]

I had that bad experience recently. I've been putting a lot of work into thinking the details of a new project. A year! Then, I decided to buy the domain, finally, this January. I knew it was free. Only to discover that someone had bought the domain 20 days ago. That felt sore. I had to come up with a new name.

That's life. Lesson learned.

[meindnoch]

You knew it was free because you did a lookup with the registrar's search tool? Scummy domain registrars are known to buy up domains that their users search for if they don't buy it immediately. Always use the ICANN whois tool and nothing else.