Domain Name Company Gone Bust - and my domain is expiring

[Bones]

Hi,
I've just discovered that my domain name company has gone into liquidation.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I need to do next. I have 3 .co.uk, 2 .com, 2 .net and 1 .org with them. One of the .com's is already on Registrar-Hold. I did renew it last month - not realising that they were in trouble, but it seems they just took my money and didn't register it. Now it looks like it's days away from expiring! Eeek.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've tried contacting the company (obviously), to no avail.

TIA,
Chris

[edited by: engine at 10:33 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
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[dmorison]

Have you found this page regarding your .co.uk's:
[nominet.org.uk...]

[Bones]

Thanks for that link - I'll ring Nominet on Monday to see if they can clarify a few points. Any ideas on the other domains?

[Bones]

Ok, it looks like I'll be able to get the .co.uk's sorted, probably by having to pay the £15+vat on each of them. :-(

On the other domains, I've found that the company were a Tucows reseller. I used the Opensrs management tool they provide and updated all the Admin Contacts to myself (they were previously set as a ISP contact).

I also Locked the domain, then Unlocked it again - which had the effect of removing the Registrar-Hold. I've now transferred it to another Tucows reseller and it seems to have gone through OK. The expiry is showing as December 2005 and the Nameservers are updated on the Whois.

The only thing is - it's flipped back to "Registrar-Hold" again. Is this something I should be worried about? Is it too early to say that the transfer has gone through OK?

Thanks,
Chris

[edited by: engine at 10:34 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
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[engine]

I'd take a look on the tucows site for their help info regarding the com

Also, if you paid using a credit card you may be able to recover the money.

[Telf]

Bones
I am in a similar situation to you and only discovered a few days ago that the company had been liquidated when their web-site disappeared. I have also tried to contact them with no luck by email and telephone.
I am now writing a letter to the Official Receiver in the hope of finding out what is happening.
Can we combine resources on this one and pass on any information and progress to one another?

[edited by: engine at 10:35 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
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[Telf]

Bones

I spoke to the office of the Official Receiver at Cambridge who dealt with this, and was informed that the company is no longer in liquidation (since 2nd December 2004). The web-forwarding still works so it seems their servers are working. Just need to make contact with them now!

[mikecupcake]

I have one .CO.UK registered with the isp and only just found out they're offline. My email forwarding is still operating, but with occasional delays.

Hassled a contact number for them out of Nominet, it's an 01954 code. Spoke to them and was told

- the company will be back online for domain admin ASAP

- they plan to get everyone back up and running, but to sell off customers in the next few months and close the ISP business

- all this trouble is over one unpaid bill, which flagged FV as insolvent

I think the phone number was a home line so seems unfair to post it here. If anyone needs it call Nominet

On a side note: Nominet seem very eager to process domain transfers and charge £15+VAT! I think I'll be waiting to see if they will release my domain, as that shouldn't incur any costs.

[edited by: engine at 10:38 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
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[Bones]

Telf, if you'd like to sticky me with your email, I'll help as much as I can.

Last time I checked, some of their servers were down - presumably because no-one is around to reboot them.

I'm still stuck with my .co.uk's being tagged as 'the ISP' - when I spoke to Nominet, the helpful chap told me that they'd withdrawn access to the company to update any details on Nominets databases. So even if their website does come up - it seems like the changes won't actually happen.

Fortunately in my case, my co.uk DNS isn't with the company, so my websites are still up.

[edited by: engine at 10:39 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
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[mikecupcake]

They're now back online

If I understand the wording correctly a domain transfer is possible using one of the online forms - can anyone confirm this?

[edited by: engine at 10:40 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2005]
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[mikecupcake]

Yep I've successfully transferred my .CO.UK to another registrant. Hope everyone else has managed it without too much hassle.

[Telf]

Me too. I moved a .INFO and a .COM but to 2 different companies (spreading my eggs, but I suppose also doubling the chances of it happening again! ).

Only 2 days ago I finally managed to complete the transfer of the .COM domain. The .INFO went through a week before. I found it a frustrating experience partly due to MY lack of knowledge but also the lack of good instructions on the new companies' website's. I sat waiting for days and only repeated emails seem to push them on another stage

Having looked at the Tucowsinc web-site and viewed the opensrs system I am sure the procedure is far simpler than they make out.

One thing, it seems definitely easier to transfer to another re-seller which uses the same Registrar, Tucows in this case,(can be found in the Tucowsinc.com web-site). Otherwise it also involves a transfer of Registrars which is what happened to me at first until I backed out. I didn't like the Terms and Conditions I was committing myself to with a company on another Continent who I didn't have any contact with!