I have recently had a VERY similar experience to Philosopher in the recent "Have to Vent" post, wanted to keep this separate as there will be varying advice due to different position I am in, thus:
I have had a good experience with *My Registrar* until a recent issue which has meant I have lost all confidence in their ability to manage my domain portfolio. I am not going to refer to the domain name in question for obvious reasons, however can confirm this is relevant to a published patent application and was to be the front-end for my developing e-commerce site.
History:
1. 04-Oct-07 X.com domain is not pointing to my web host although the DNS servers are setup correctly? I checked *My Registrar* control panel and the domain did not expire until June 2009, I had therefore received no updates\reminders from the system nor identified this as a domain that needed to be renewed by reviewing my domains in the control panel?!? The domain now appeared to be pointing to a registrar parking page? Contacted support after looking on another WHOIS service to find the registrar was no longer *My Registrar* and the registrant no longer myself...
2. Support responded they were indeed no longer the registrar but the domain was still listed in their DB however must have been transferred to the newly listed registrar\registrant. They apologised for the confusion and removed the record from the database, so it disappeared from my control panel...
3. 09-Oct-07 I then spent my time on identifying the issues that had occurred here seeing as the ticket was unsatisfactorily closed! I advised support: "The initial problem I identified as per the original ticket log and attachment was my *My Registrar* control panel showed the domain as registered and expiring in Jun-09. I understand you have "rectified" this by removing the domain from my list, obviously I still have the screen capture of the panel I posted showing this as a domain I own(ed). The issue I have with this is if the domain I have registered had indeed expired I would not have been advised by the system nor aware from checking on my domains that it needed to be renewed and take appropriate action by 26-Sep-07 when it seems this domain was registered..."
(Although the domain was registered by me initially in Jun-05 and updated for another 2 years in Jun-07 so its anybodys guess where September comes from based on annual (multiples of) renewals!)
4. From further investigation (and a fortunate piece of record keeping) I was able to confirm my position and advise support thus: "Regardless of the initial investigation, it has come to light the control panel date appears to have been correct i.e. expiry Jun-09! The reason for this is I can confirm that in Jun-07 I legally renewed X.com with *My Registrar* thus:
WORLDPAY TRANSACTION:
Transaction for the value of: #*$!
Description: Domain Name
From: *My Registrar*
Merchant's cart ID: *********
Authorisation Date/Time: **/Jun/2007 **:**:**
Transaction ID: *********
This is not a tax receipt.
I have both a *My Registrar* tax invoice and Worldpay CARD transcation receipt confirming that I paid £X to renew X.com for 2 years. Hence this domain should not have expired!
*My Registrar* INVOICE:
Renewal success: 'X.com' was successfully renewed.
Payment reference number: "******** ¦ ********"
I have no idea why or how we have come to this position wherein domains I have been paying for are not being renewed since the expiry date in non-*My Registrar* WHOIS was 26-Sep-07...
5. 16-Oct-07 *My Registrar* contacted me to say the domain should be working now, listing my usual DNS server entries and stating "If the above DNS server are correct then any email / website service that was connected to the domain should be working fine." It is possible that somebody with a lesser understanding of the situation could\would have believed after visiting X.com that everything was working ok again and closed the ticket. However as I am sure you will understand this is only the DNS being changed, I still no longer own the domain.
6. I replied to *My Registrar* thus: " I understand that this is an attempt at an interim fix, unsure if you changed the DNS servers and this propagated out or if you contacted registrant or Registrar and somehow they agreed to change this back to my name servers for you, but this is not acceptable and is a very high risk situation as I no longer own the domain! If I were to advertise and trade using X.com, the new registrant could change this at any time and re-point it elsewhere taking my business as they have done with the domain! Therefore this has unfortunately not achieved any resolution. This has caused severe ramifications to my intellectual property and commercial position due to the failure by PD and your systems to manage clients domain portfolio's successfully.
7. I was then advised the "admins" were looking into this complaint, but this seems to be to rectify the root cause, not to return this domain name to me! I responded thus: "In respect to timescales for admins to check this, you have the transaction refs, with confirmed payment from Worldpay and can confirm this domain was in your DB and I was the owner (as per YOUR original post). I understand there is a requirement for you to ensure this does not happen in the future to other clients and rectify the system, but this is not my current problem, therefore please ensure this investigation is dealt with separately to the resolution of my domain name issue!"
So if the registrar has taken payment, I can prove I was the original registrant (X.com had never been registered previously to me buying it in 2005) and I successfully renewed using their system, backed up with relevant ref's etc can they take this to ICANN\gatekeeper of .TLD and plead their case for this to be returned or will they have to buy it back?!? I understand this could be costly for them and have advised the return of the sum I paid for the domain is not an acceptable resolution, but if they say "whoops we failed and have corrected this but you can't have your domain back", what can I do other than try to sue them?
The problem here I think will be they are based in Australia and I am domiciled in the UK... I have done some research and found sites such as:
[internic.net...]
[icpen.org...]
[econsumer.gov...]
[iama.org.au...]
[leadr.com.au...]
However their service agreement basically says you cannot get compensation etc etc as I'm sure do all registrars terms!
I could complain to Worldpay that I have not received what I paid for but again they have plenty of caveats about how they are payment processing only and won't deal with individual cases when goods are not received etc and to contact the seller to resolve...
Any help or insights WebmasterWorld. users could provide on this issue would be much appreciated. Apologies for the length!
Thanks for your time.
AJM.
Another possibility - as an Australian business they are subject to consumer laws.
IANAL but they cannot say 'we might not provide service if we don't feel like it' - they are liable for their mistakes.
It is a likely a little harder as you are out of the jurisdiction, but shouldn't make any difference.
Perhaps seaching for
trade practices act site:gov.au
HIH!
they are liable for their mistakes.
That is for a court of competent jurisdiction (probably an Australian one based
on what's stated here so far) to decide, especially if the one in question has
incorporated limitations of liability, disclaimers and all that stuff in their service
agreements with their end users. Of course, one of them likely includes a term
they can't guarantee a successful application of renewal on the domain name.
Good luck making the "right" decision.
David
They advised:
1. ICANN prevent the domain from being transferred in the first 60 days or registration, but I will be moving the domain over once the time comes.
2. Their complaint ticket will remain open until the transfer is completed.
I have no idea if this has been achieved via aftermarket or other method, nor do I care as long as I get my domain back! I have asked about corrective actions they will be employing to ensure this doesn't happen again on their system.
I will update this thread once the 60 days expires! Even with this slip-up as I said in the original post my experience has been good with them so far so I will not be transferring my domains out, as long as the domain comes back!
