Expired Domain problem

A tale of woe

[hefy_jefy]

I am a complete newbie at this stuff, thrown in at the deep end and would really appreciated any advice.

My company has a domain name that was registered 10 years ago (GoDaddy) - sadly the person who did the original registration of the name was fired - he took the information with him and nobody can contact him. I have been saddled with the task of getting our email, FTP site and Website running again because everything quit one week ago. I am going through the stages of validating who I am, the name of the company etc. The information now seems to have been accepted since I have a message stating that "they" (who are they?) can help:
Quote: "If you’d like to move this domain name to an account you can access, we’d be happy to help. If you already have an account you control, please reply to this email with your customer number."
I have given them the account number.
It seems that these folk are not contactable in any way other than via email and they don't respond to questions...
I note that the expiration date of the domain has now moved ahead by one year so I assume that something is happening. Any thoughts on:
1. What happens next?
2. How long this might take?

Geoff

[Leosghost]

Godaddy have phone numbers, ( they are shown on their "home page" ) both inside the U.S.A and from outside the U.S.A..phone them, they do, indeed, respond..

[LifeinAsia]

Every e-mail I've ever received from GoDaddy has listed their support and/or customer service number at least once, if not multiple times.

[jmccormac]

The account number that you may have given them is the one that the employee who was fired had access to and set up. As you may not have access to that particular account, you may need to set up a new Godaddy account for your company so that the domain can be transferred to that account. (I have no experience of dealing with Godaddy. Perhaps others on the thread could advise if this is the correct procedure.)

Regards...jmcc

[Leosghost]

As you may not have access to that particular account, you may need to set up a new Godaddy account for your company so that the domain can be transferred to that account.

That is ( AFAIK ) the way that they would deal with it, but I've (despite having had a few hundred domains with them for around 10 years now ) never had to go through that procedure, although I did have to set up an account for someone else over the phone, and at the same time block access to their original account from someone who had got hold of the access codes etc..the real owner was unable to use phone or email at the time..it was urgent ..took me an hour or so on the phone with Godaddy staff ( I had all the access codes to the old account )..they were very helpful, as they have always been..My experience has always been that it is better to phone them..in fact..my reason for choosing them was that I can phone them..so many Companies only provide a"freephone" number, and "freephone" numbers can only be dialled from the country that the company is in..They have the good sense to have a non freephone number aswell, and more recently have set up a call centre for the EU ( based in Northern Ireland, where their staff are picking up the "Ulster" accent , even when they speak French;) ..jmcc ..you should phone them just to hear it ;))..If I wish I can dial them on what appears to be a Paris region number, and it is picked up in Ulster, by multilingual staff..or I can dial Arizona or one of the other call centres that they have..

Emails, unless they are going to a specific named person's email address there, will likely be answered by whoever is on "shift" for that hell desk, and you could get delays because many people will be involved over a 24 or 48 hour period..when phoning, ask if the operator is going "off shift" soon.. and always give them your phone number when asked, they do call back if you get cut off..

[jmccormac]

@Leosghost French with an Ulster accent? It is the Flight Of The Wild Geese all over again but in reverse. :) Godaddy is trying to target the Irish hosting/domain name market but it is a fairly mature market with the top Irish hosters having about 80% of the market. It has been running adverts on UK TV for a while now.

Regards...jmcc

[Leosghost]

Indeed it was..and the guy speaking to me in French with an Ulster accent overlay, and in English with an even more apparent Ulster accent overlay..was from the Comoros Islands..married to a girl from Ulster..he said that when at her folks house for dinner he frequently had to ask her what the rest of her family were saying..

For the non Irish amongst the readers..the Irish accent from jmcc's part of Ireland ( Southern Eire ) is a world away from the Ulster accent..I'm originally from not too far away from jmcc..but I've lost almost all my Irish accent, unless around Irish people when it comes back faster than a greyhound after a hare ..

My son ( who only knows Irish from youtube, Father Ted, Dave Allen and the like ) says that I have kept the "idioms"..and the occasional definitely not from England English sound..

Especially last Sunday's rugby, when the lads were playing a treat for all of us..except the French :)

Only Apple , Microsoft, IBM and Google advertise on French TV..Google advertised their "instant website thing" a few years back..got very few takers..far too wordy the ads were..Apple make very good ads, nary a word, selling the shiny..making the Gauls want the shiny..

[creeking]

OP, open a new godaddy account using name-info that matches the company's name-info.

does the whois info for the domain show the company info, or the former employee's info?

[tangor]

whoever is on "shift" for that hell desk

I echo that GoDaddy is very helpful... but in this thread I could not help noticing the above (typo, and please, don't fix it!) for accurately describing that support person's position!

[hefy_jefy]

OK folks - first thanks for all the responses, GoDaddy do indeed have telephone support, (I have called them every day over the past week), however the problem I have they say they can't help with because its been handed over to [e-mail], who do NOT have a support line. The WHOIS listing shows the name of the employee and the company name and his email address (which of course doesn't work even though I have re-enabled it) I gather that the process can take several days and wondered if anyone could confirm. I have created a GoDaddy account and also reserved a couple of domain names...
Geoff

[hefy_jefy]

We are back! It basically took 5 days from when I got the mail telling me that the domain could be transferred. And that's sort of what I had heard, whew! Here's how this went down for any other poor shmuck that find themselves in a similar situation.
If you have lost contact with the original registrant of the domain name and they did not leave their account, password or username details then you will need to follow the instructions that can be found here: [supportcenter.godaddy.com...]
(no amount of pleading on the phone will help)

They are not flexible regarding the needed documentation, either your business license issued by the local city or a letter from the IRS confirming your company Tax EIN (about 2hrs on the phone! make sure you have a fax machine handy)
Once you have provided that info you should get the message that the account can be transferred, (they will not respond to pleas to get things moving) and then 5 days later another message telling you to login and go to your account and then pay the bill. Within 5 mins of paying the bill and correcting a few errors in the contacts we were back on line, However the original registrant's name is still on the WHOIS record not sure if that matters though as long as the email and contact info is updated.
That's it - like many things once you done it its easy (but its not quick!)

Best advice: keep track of the domain name and renew it yearly not every 10 years...
Geoff

[Leosghost]

Glad to hear you are back in control of your domain name.. :)
They are helpful, by phone or email, despite what many ( who I would hazard a guess have never used them ) say..

You should be able to login to your control panel and change the admin, registrant name..it might fire off an email to the "old" admin contact email.but as you have that under control, should be no problem..

[Hoople]

Set up a back door way of controlling the account via an external [free]email account. This is for the 'Registrant' not the 'administrative' nor 'technical'. Make several copies of the login details. Lock one in the CFO's safe and scatter the rest to other A level executives likely to also have restrictive archival stores. NEVER use an email ID on the domain itself for this or ANY of the contacts!

Most registrars allow lesser powered ID's to be created that handle the actual technical admin of a domain. Make several of these so that one of them gets email notifications. They can then get someone to use the 'Registrant' info to affect a change to avoid running out of time again. A few registrars let these individuals pay for renewals.