When we went to activate them ..although they were in our account and showed paid till the end of 2007 there was no way to change the DNS server...so I called them.
I was simply told that even though we paid (they took the money on their auto renew program) that the sites were no longer ours. It was actually 6 sites but they managed to one of them back as it was not yet picked up.
Then they sent me an email saying that a glitch in the system caused this ..yada yada yada... and they were processing a refund just short of $900.. but took no further responsibility.
I am talking with our lawyers now about the possibility of suing them. We are not interested in their 'refund' at all and want the names back. There is no telling how much income will be lost going forward..not to mention the work that we prepared all wasted.
Although they are a giant of a company, and this is going to cost a few grand just to file the suit... at the very least this should be a media darling of a story and get us a lot of exposure for our other sites especially our main ones (I plan on name dropping obviously. I have email receipts... screen shots of the domains on their page (our account page) showing the date they are paid up until and of course the email they sent us admitting their mistake.
You'd think it would make more sense for them to deal with me personally in a business fashion rather than risk it going to court and the huge negative media this will bring to their business..not to mention that if they lose we are asking for both punitive damages and legal fee reimbursed...but they don't seem willing to talk. I guess we'll find out when our lawyer sends his letter of intent to file a lawsuit. You would think that the cheapest solution and most pragmatic would be to buy them back.
My question is this. Has anyone else had this experience and if so any advice? These guys are now not replying to my emails where I demanded that they buy back my sites. Only one of them have a small business set up ..the others are owned by squatters.
Any and all advice, tips and support welcome.
Here's the catch, though: most if not all registrars' legal fine prints limit their liability exactly for this kind of situation. Something like "we will not be held liable for loss of the domain name due to failure to renew in our systems; that if our systems failed to renew the domain name yet we took the money, then we'll refund the same amount."
And you agree to their terms the minute you check the box beside the "I have read the Service Agreement and agree to its terms" line. Under the US' e-signature law, this is as good as signing a contract.
This sort of thing does happen, and will continue to happen since nothing and nobody's perfect. (just being realistic here...)
Another more pressing challenge is how to demonstrate actual damages. It's touch and go trying trying to prove such as potential losses instead of actual ones.
Question is... can they risk the negative media (which we'll be shouting from the rooftops) that this will bring for their company. At worst we should get quite a bit of publicity for our company even if it's thrown out of court.
Should prove interesting.
Will we win? Maybe not. We don't really care But a lot more people will hear about our company.. Our lawyers think this will be quite newsworthy so we are preparing our press realease probably with more care than our lawsuit ...lol .... and maybe the publicity will help put these idiots out of business. First of all they change 5 times the going rate for registering a domaing name (never even try to compete)so I'm sure they are losing clients by the hundreds if not thousands every month anyway. We just transferred a hundred or so names from them ourselves. They offered us a few free domain registrations....lol ... maybe we will register therename-screwedusover dot com (kidding of course)
As you say...should prove interesting. Once the media starts to roll out I'll be back to let you guys know where to find it.
Thanks for all your support.
It's a securiy issue with .Ws..you cant steal want cant be transfered .
So do your best to grit your teeth and work with get them to simply get the names back into your account..
I can guarentee they did not "lose" the names the names are still at their register.. even when they drop
Much better to find a better registar and move on; it's happened, you lost, why let it damage your future as well as your past?
If 'feeling better' justifies fighting them, then go for it - but since when did elephants notice wasp stings?
Was it Godaddy?
Bzzzt. :P
I can guarentee they did not "lose" the names the names are still at their register..
I understand about not being able to transfer .ws because I tried. But they did LOSE them and have admitted as such. Basically they took the money for safe renew, showed it as paid by receipt and on the website showing they were good for another year...but when I actually went to use them.. they belonged to someone else.
We are going to give them one try to settle this as businessmen. We have pointed out to them that the cost of their lawyers for one afternoon is going to be lot more expensive than buying them back from a parked domain adsense domain squatter.
This was 5 domains that are all one word topicals that we were planning to use ...so no.. we are not going to let this go.
I have a feeling that once we file in NY court that the news media will find a story where a registrar loses important domain names after taking the money which is supposed to protect them IS very newsworthy indeed. They may be an elephant but we are no wasp either. Satisfaction? part of the reason but mostly having a years work wiped out is the main issue here.
Either they get the domains back or watch the online news because I don't think we'll have any problem garnering up interest in this case. Actually we've been here before and our lawyers are quite good at it.
Again, if they don't mind letting the world of business know that their Safe Renew is not very safe at all then I think it is they that are making the mistake here. As it is they charge 3 times as much as any other registrar so that combined with inability to control domains in their care is a recipe for eventual business failure.
and the drama continues. I will keep you guys up to date on this thread.
