I was at the TRAFFIC domainer show.. well actually just the Namecheap party the night before, and I had some pretty interesting chats with some registrars over there that all claimed that depending on which country you're located in, volume of .com domains you process annually, and other factors you can definitely secure .com domains through some loopholes for $2-$3 per .com domain per year. Could have very well been drunk talk, but from the magnitude of some of these guys' portfolios of just so many damn domains and typos, you gotta be wondering if it's true or not.