I phoned the registrar straight away and found my payment had failed. I tried several other credit cards over the phone and was told they had a technical problem (trying to pay over the net also gives a 'technical problem' message).
I continued phoning once or twice a day until yesterday morning. Each time they said the problem was being attended to (but could give no more detail than that). I keep trying to renew regularly but always with the same error message.
I offered to pay by check or wire but they declined because it would 'take too long'.
I can't transfer because my registrar now controls my domain.
I have no way of knowing if anything is being done about this and am desperate to get the name up again.
I have told them I am seeking legal action (but I'm not sure where to go) and contacting a consumer organisation. I have sent an e-mail complaint to ICANN. So far they have not contacted me on their own initiative once since this started, apart from the mail saying my domain had expired (which came a day after it went down).
The registrar is (I assume it's okay to say this) Register.com. I've been with them from the start - about 5 years.
Any ideas (actions, legal/trade bodies to contact, etc.)?
( side point ..WoW! I havent seen domain extensions priced as high as that in years ..)
They must be reselling for "someone else" ..maybe the "someone else" can help you ..only similar case I came across here when the reselling registrar ( for whom I translated ) was giving out the "technical problems" line was when they were going belly up and the people they were selling for refused to deal with them anymore ..
Hope this isn't the case you are looking at ..
If you cannot resolve your complaint with the registrar, you should address it to private-sector agencies involved in addressing customer complaints or governmental consumer-protection agencies. (The appropriate agency will vary depending on the jurisdiction of the registrar and the customer.)
[reports.internic.net...]
Hope that helps,
a.
Leosghost - I'm not sure what you mean by reselling for someone else. You mean someone else has persuaded them to sell the domain to them? That must be illegal - they are contractually obliged to renew for me if I request.
Besides, it's not a special domain name in any way and this is one of the biggest of the registrars - would they do something crooked?
They have told me the name will go up for auction after the grace period (which they refused to disclose to me).
Andye - I've already done the equivalent of filling out that form (but from a different page, somewhere on the ICANN site). I also read the text you pasted in and the problem is that I don't know which private sector agencies or government consumer protection agencies I should go to. I'm a Brit living in France and have spoken to a British lawyer, who has given me all the relevant names in the U.K. but the registrar is based in the U.S. so I need a U.S.-based consumer protection agency or lawyer specialized in this area.
I contacted them again yesterday and a supverisor assured me the problem would be resolved within the day. It hasn't been. I demanded to pay by wire but they refused to give the details of an account to pay to, so I insisted on paying by check and they said that doing so would result in loss of my domain name.
I'm beginning to find this all very creepy....
I've found with Register.com the best approach is to stay on the phone and seek to move up the chain of command. If you hit a wall then ask for a fax number and start faxing letters. Ask the the phone number for the corporate headquarters and their fax number.
It's unusual for Register.com OR any registrar to not accept money. I don't know why your credit cards are not working but certainly that's an issue that should also be taken up with your credit card company. Ask your cc company what their system message is when Register.com attempts to put through a charge. It could be the problem is on your end, such as a fraud altert being placed on your account.
At this point please read the Domain Forum's Charter. [webmasterworld.com] It's important that you understand that while we're here to help we are not a Better Business Bureau nor a place to publish grievances. Please focus your posts accordingly and please read the Charter.
I'll go and read the charter - didn't mean to moan, just looking for some light on a baffling problem. (And it seems to me that this highlights some deeper issues about legal rights to domain names.)
Please keep us apprised of your success. I suspect you will get an answer today - but it likely will require a "fix" for the credit card issue.
Leosghost - I'm not sure what you mean by reselling for someone else.
Someone who is not actually an ICANN accredited registrar ( lets call them company A ) but is merely "reselling" that service which they buy from company B..
So for example you go to their ( company A ) site and see that they will sell you a domain name for say $35.oo per year ( high price ) ..
So you think of the name you want ..you try their on site "whois" and it is available ..so you register it with them ..and maybe hosting as well ( most domain name sellers dont make enough offf the registration so they use it as a "loss leader" to try to sell you hosting ..which is more profitable ) ..
They are actually connected in to a much bigger company's ( company B ) system in "real time" ..but it is "branded" on their ( Company A ) site to look like it is all theirs ..your name is (actually registered on the much larger company's ( company B ) systemfor way less money ( typically around $8.oo )..
Company A pockets the difference ..
Company A's service to you ..with regard to the domain name they sold you can thus only ever be as good as the service of company B ..
If they argue with company B over money or whatever ..you will not know ..you may however find that you cannot renew or similar ..
For example ..A case I was personally in a position to see up close ( and later try to help those who had been "ripped off" get their domain names functioning again ) was as follows ..
A small ( later turned out to be "one man band outfit" ) hoster in France asked me to translate for them the terms etc of a US hosting company from whom, they wished to rent a dedi server ( and resell small 10 to 50 meg accounts from ) ..they also did domain name registrations ( through a french company ) ..To get these they bought "domain name registration tickets" from the bigger french company which sold them in blocks of 10 ..these were basically pre paid sums which let them use the larger companies API in real time to appear to be selling domain names themselves ..
No customer ever knew that the small ( one guy ) company wasn't actually as huge as it's websites seemed to make it ..
Well one day the french fora started to become full of people complaining that he had told them that they now had to register all domain names that were dot com or net or org for a minimum of 10 years ( he said the Americans that "controlled the internet" had decided this .. that was that ..he could do nothing ) ..
So a few hundred of his french customers ( who didn't read english and so couldn't find out the truth easily )..paid him 10 years fees in advance for their names ..( he did say that he could give them a discount though to help out against the injustice of it all ;)
He was selling them at $35.oo per year for a dot com etc at his normal rates ..and so he discounted to $25.oo per year ..
They also paid their hosting bills yearly in advance ..whereas he paid for the servers and the space on the servers that he rented to them just monthly ..
Then he skipped
And the next day ..all sites etc went blank ..
hence the complaints in the french fora ..
Turned out he hadn't paid anyone for his servers since 3 months ..so all accounts were pulled along with all his customers websites ( all switched off one day ..and the servers HDs formatted )..
And that because he was a long time friend of the french companies bosses they had let him run up a tab for $20,000.oo with them ..
They also switched of all the DNS he had with them but had not payed for ..all his DNS was being done through them ..
Turned out he had been stalling everyone with different stories for 3 months wHile he prepared his move ..
So his customers discovered that they no longer had sites ..they didn't own their domain names ( many he had registered in his own company name ) and they had paid a lot of money and were losing even more daily as their sites were "not there".so neither were their businesses ..nor their emails etc
Some of them got in touch with me ..( they knew about me as he had some customers from the UK who as their french wasn't so good he would phone and ask me to translate their emails for him ..sometimes I just replied straight back to them saying "I translate for *****" and "he has asked me to tell you ***" etc ..thus they had one of my email addies..one of them had seen the french fora talking about this disaster that had happened to some of them ( they were posting his company name )..and that maybe I could help them get some info ..( they knew the french ex customers ..some of them ..that they were previously actually hosted in the states ..but they couldn't contact the companies in english )..
Lot of his customers had sites that offered online coaching by teachers prior to the end of year exams here ..he skipped 1 month before they hit the busy season in that area ..month of May ..he ruined many many people ..
I was able to help some of them get their names before they went "available to anyone again" as I knew the larger french company ..I also had translated for them and they had put the guy in touch with me at the beginning ..so I was able to explain to the small customers what the proceedure was ..they still had lost their money though ..
As some of them had n't the money to pay for hosting in France ( 4 times US costs ) and can't use english ..I overnight got 3 servers worth of hosting customers ..
I did not want to be a hoster ..
( so I rented some managed dedi's in the US and take a commission and it goes smooth as silk ..)..
and I don't want stickies asking "could I ...?"
I did not want to be a hoster ..
English speakers get passed to a friend who does the same thing in the states ..
He can have the hassle ;)
BTW the original guy still owes me around $6,000.oo for translation work ..I will one day take the trouble to go look for him to "discuss" it ..
Now you know what I meant by "reselling" and what can happen ..I hope it isn't what is going down in your case ..
and "caveat emptor"
Leosghost - that's one salutory story you've got there (I live in France incidentally). My registrar is in the ICANN accredited list, which is something I checked when I first secured my domain years ago. This would appear to be an obvious action for anyone looking to secure a domain, but how would your average computer/web novice know?
Seems to me that the area of domains has a bit of a wild west quality to it, which I guess is hardly surprising given the youth and dynamism of the 'net.
Thanks again to all who contributed and here's a summary of lessons learned as I see them:
1. Try to renew your domain well in advance (I'd say 2 months), and don't trust any of these automatic renewal systems. (Note that renewing for a long period does not protect you from the registrar going bust - I'm still thinking about that one.)
2. Keep a backup domain active (with a different registrar and hosting company) that you can fall back to, with corresponding e-mail addresses. If there are problems renewing you have two months in which you can set up autoreplies on the old domain's addresses to direct people to the new addresses.
Personally, I think I'm going to have my e-mail address for both domains printed on my next set of business cards.
Company A pockets the difference
Well, Company A pockets the difference minus the cost of customer acquisition (which is usually more than the cost of the domain name iteslf).
best, a.
PS: glad it worked out ok, RaoulNano.
