Anyone ever lose and buy back a domain name??

Anyone run into this and can advise me? The company that hosts the domain name for my business website had sent me the annual renewal notices but they wound up in the Junk Mail folder of my email and I never saw them, so my site ownership ran out and was cancelled.

A scavenger company grabbed the domain name and will sell it back to me for $488. I could really use that domain name back because I've had it for years and have links to it all over the place. I've already registered the same name as a .net domain but I'd be losing customers who know me under the .com domain.


Do you know if it's expected to negotiate for a lower price? Here's some excerpts from their site:


"Our organization receives a great deal of domain name price requests and offers each day on our properties. Simply said, offer amounts such as $10, $25, $50, $100 and any minuscule offered priced will simply be deleted in our system."

and

"We understand that scenarios may arise when our organization acquires domain names that were previously an operational web site. Sometimes situations may occur when your web hosting company or domain manager negligently fails to renew your domain name for whichever reason and the domain name is placed within our possession. If this occurs, we would be happy to negotiate directly with your organization in helping you retain your previously operated domain name."

I'd like to hear from anyone with experience in this sort of thing.