Guy who bought Google.com from under Google's nose gets a big payday

5 stunning stats about Google

Google.com, one of the most valuable domains on the Internet, was mistakenly sold for $12 last fall.

Google paid $12,000 to get it back.

The buyer was a former Googler, Sanmay Ved, who discovered Google.com on the list of domains available for sale on September 29. He bought it, charging the $12 fee to his Discover card, never really expecting the transaction to go through.
"I was hoping I would get an error at sometime saying transaction did not go through, but I was able to complete purchase, and my credit card was actually charged!" he wrote in a post on LinkedIn last fall.
The transaction did go through - for about a minute. Then he got an e-mail from Google canceling the transaction.