Peter Goodwin, an administrator with Brooke Bird and Co told ZDNet Australia 945 customers were owed AU$187,166 for payments for registrations that were not completed by the reseller. A further 591 customers were owed AU$199,708 for having their 10-year domain name management contracts truncated.
Including trade creditors, who are owed AU$46,000 and a related party creditor owed AU$9,000, the present number of creditors is around 1,600. However, Goodwin said this may change, as the original number of creditors was 2,300.
"There have been many creditors who think they're creditors but they're not actually creditors, so it's been a pretty exhaustive process," said Goodwin, saying that around 700 of the original creditors had received the domain they had paid for. "Melbourne IT has been helping to tell whether there is actually a debt there or not."
"The hardware that they used predominantly was leased, the owned hardware has in fact been sold by me, so it's all gone," said Goodwin. "The premises-there are no premises any more, it's totally gone."
All the physical assets of Internet Name Protection, which traded under the name of Internet Name Group, have been sold, including two premises which fetched AU$2.6 million, most of which was taken by debts to Westpac. Most of the hardware had been leased against personal guarantees and was reclaimed by the guarantors, according to Goodwin. He said there was negative equity in the hardware.
As for those who had their domain names registered through Internet Name Group, they have nothing to worry about. Their contract was with Melbourne IT, when it was the registry, and spokesperson Tom Valenta told ZDNet Australia they will receive a letter when their domain name is about to expire, and they can then decide who to renew it through.
"They don't need to do anything until their subscription runs out," he said.
