Lawsuit: Wine Blog Became Porn Blog via Fraud

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – If you have a valuable domain name in your portfolio, be very careful who you partner with when developing and/or seeking to sell that domain – especially if you don’t want your longtime mainstream wine website to suddenly become home to a porn blog without your consent.

This is one ‘moral of the story’ behind a lawsuit by Jacklyn Wilferd, the former owner of the domain wines.com, in which she alleges her Georgia-based business partner “simply swindled” her out of the valuable domain name.

Wilferd claims the defendant, Khuram Dhanani, paid her a relative pittance to transfer the domain to his company, Digital Equity, LLC, so it could facilitate the sale of the domain – but then did “basically nothing to develop the website, except post pornographic content under Wilferd’s name,” according to the complaint.

Wilferd originally purchased wines.com in 1994, then spent 24 years developing the domain prior to establishing profit-sharing agreements with Dhanani and Digital Equity in 2018, according to the complaint. Prior to entering the agreements with Dhanani, Wilferd “had either rejected or did not complete offers or agreements to purchase the domain ranging from $700,000 to $2.5 million, as she wished to maximize the value of her sale as a 68-years-old senior seeking to retire.”

In partnership with a woman named Lisa Consani, Wilferd developed an ecommerce wine store on the site in 2017, the complaint states. It was Consani who later introduced Wilferd to Dhanani as a potential business partner who could “help further develop wines.com, as Dhanani claimed to have substantial capital he would contribute to the business and experience in developing domains for sale as commercial products.”

In her complaint, Wiferd claims that during phone conversations in July 2018, Dhanani told her that as part of their joint venture arrangement, he would “invest $200,000-$300,000 of his own money” into further developing the site, “had a ‘team’ who could help further develop the website to a $3-5 million valuation ‘fast,’” and that in the arrangement, “they would split all profits, including from the sale of the website and domain.”

“Wilferd—who was 68 years old at that time—was clear that, having received other offers for wines.com, and even one as recently as March 2018 for $700,000 from a broker (and another in July 2018 that she did not explore), the website was essentially her retirement fund, and in partnering with Dhanani, she would need at least $1,000,000 from their arrangement, which he claimed was achievable,” the complaint states.

The complaint further alleges that to “induce Wilferd to sign the agreements,” Dhanani claimed “prospective buyers would not work with him unless the domain was transferred to Digital Equity” that he already had an company lined up to pay $200,000 for advertising on the site and that Wilferd would “receive $100,000 within thirty days, in addition to further payments for product sales, which would only increase as the Christmas season approached.”

According to the complaint, in the months that followed the execution of their agreement, “Wilferd discovered that Dhanani did not have any advertising agreements for the website, did not have any money to invest into the website, and did not operate the website or develop its content for sale.”

“Indeed, Wilferd discovered that Dhanani did not even drink wine,” the complaint adds.

Dhanani then allegedly told Wilferd that the “best way forward and to generate revenue was to find potential investors to fund the development of the website and manage its operations.” Then, sometime around September of last year, Dhanani “attempted to bring on a company called Underground Cellars to invest in and operate the website (with an option to purchase the website and domain),” the complaint states. “But after months of delay and inaction, Underground Cellars failed to make any investment or complete a purchase of the website and domain.”

It was in April 2019 that Wilferd alleges “a series of blog articles started appearing on the website, attributed to Wilferd (which she did not author), filled with basic grammatical errors and broken sentence structures, and salacious, pornographic topics such as ‘PORN STAR SYDEY COLE CALLED HER FAVOURITE WINES’,” according to the complaint.

In her lawsuit, Wilferd states that she complained to Dhanani about the posts, but they “continued to appear until July 2019.”

“After repeated attempts by Wilferd to coordinate with Dhanani on a plan to develop wines.com for sale, Dhanani said he would develop a strategy and respond by July 15, 2019, incidentally, the one year anniversary of the sale, after which applicable capital gains taxes would decline,” according to the complaint. “Dhanani responded to Wilferd… suggesting that she write articles for the website and submit a plan to him. After she did, however, Dhanani then suggested she merely edit articles he had developed by foreign workers who could create content.”

After their exchange of messages last July, “Dhanani refused to respond to Wilferd and her repeated inquiries until October 8, 2019, when Wilferd discovered that wines.com had been sold to Brent Oxley, on August 27, 2019, as reflected in the WHOIS registration of the domain.”

When Wilferd confronted Dhanani about the sale of the domain, “Dhanani admitted that he sold the website and domain, but refused to provide any details regarding the sale, claiming he had no obligation to pay any of the profits to Wilferd, because he claimed the sale was a ‘corporate level’ sale of

assets, not sale of a ‘product’ and therefore purportedly outside of the scope of the Profit

Agreement and any other agreement,” according to the complaint.

“During the entire period, Digital Equity failed to pay any profit-sharing to Wilferd under the Profit Agreement or any other agreement,” Wilferd added in her complaint.

All told, Wiferd’s complaint asserts “causes of action for an accounting, breach of contract and the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, financial abuse of an elder, defamation and for a declaratory judgment, seeking… compensatory, punitive and trebled damages, attorneys’ fees and costs, as well as a declaration of the rights of the parties related to the claims.”

Dhanani has yet to file a response to the complaint, which was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Wine stock photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels