A slightly different story, but a lonnggg time ago (around 10 years ago or probably a bit more) I registered a domain name giftworld.com.au for a friend's "real life" business, and had a full on e-commerce site including our own merchant account (pre paypal in Australia), shipping our own stock etc etc. Was my first foray into developing a "real" website after a couple personal ones.
Anyway it ran for around 2-3 years with some success, then we gave up on it due to a change in his business direction and the fact it wasn't making the big bucks, and i'm guessing let the name lapse.
I then noticed a year later advertisments in a newsagent window for giftworld.com.au as a much larger and more general online shopping site. Went and had a look, and it was quite a nice site.
Checked back just now, the name is registered but doesn't even resolve! So clearly it's been the site of TWO failed online ventures!
On the other side of the fence I hand registered startpages.com.au and joom.com.au late last year after someone had let both lapse. I'm working on a business directory site for startpages and another "web 2.0" type idea I won't mention yet for Joom, so hopefully i'll be one of the ones who make better use!
Matt
http://www.marketingweb.com.au