I was looking forward to registering my first name to make a portfolio/blog site, so I pre-registered dre.au
A month or two later, today, I got refunded my pre registration fee and the domain got snagged. The only way someone could undercut me was if they had a .com.au domain, which they do:
So now both dre.com.au and dre.au are taken, and they are both spammy parked pages. I can make an offer for the .com.au but I cannot for the .au (probably due to bug, .au is new and a lot of whois tools fail to check it)
I found the registration belongs to some guy in South Sydney, should I just try and write a letter to ask for the domain? Is there anything else I can do about the domain? seeming it looks fairly illegitimate
You may be able to negotiate a price where you and he agree of a mutual value. However given that this is a 3 letter domain, and it's a vanity project (ie presumably not commercial) I expect you'll find the price too high.
Alas there is no "right to ownership" - domains are served on a fist-come, first-served basis (with a few exceptions for registered trade marks.)
The solution is creativity, not cash. Something like drewashere.au