Both were due for renewal and I received emails confirming both had been renewed. I was also charged at the time. This was last year.
Then all of a sudden I discover both are now in the hands of other individuals - and both are for sale.
My registrar couldn't care less. It says a mistake was made and will refund me the reg fee. And they expect me to be happy with that. Can you imagine Microsoft being told that their domain has been lost, but it's okay because they will refund the reg fee?!
Has this happened to anyone else?
[edited by: Webwork at 1:32 pm (utc) on Mar. 30, 2006]
Do the domains show a recent registration date, as if they expired, lapsed and were renewed through the central registry?
You might want to read the case law/opinion(s) relating to the Sex.com case as they likely set the standard for registrar accountability and the manner in which a domain registrant can attack a registrar's agreement that attempts to limit liability. (Not sure a limitation of liability came into play but such provisions tend to be boilerplate. Might be, in NetSol's case, that "contract of adhesion" (no other meaningful choice) principles came into play.
"We do apologize for the trouble caused to you but due to some registry issue the domains were not renewed using auto renewal service."
One was a .com and one a .info.
Like a lot of people I have names sat in my account for a rainy day or until I need to use them. The fact that they were sitting in my account, that I had been charged for renewal and had been emailed on both occasions (different dates) to say they had been renewed obviously led me to believe that they had been renewed.
What really annoys me is that the registrar (and I'm not talking about a little known one either) doesn't treat this more seriously. If it were me I would offer to get the names back.
I have asked for it to be ecalated to someone higher up the support food chain, but without luck.
My main concern is that if they failed to autorenew two of my domains, how many others have they failed to renew "due to some registry issue" or will they fail to renew in the future?
due to some registry issue
I would press for greater clarification on that "excuse".
Sounds more like "there was a glitch in our internal programming that caused a failure". If that's the case - and the more vague and evasive their response to you inquiry the more I see the finger pointing to their failure - then the more inclined I am to believe they owe you some greater accommodation than just a refund.
Read your TOS and read the case I mentioned to see whether there are any workarounds to them saying "That's all we own you".
For our own edification, once you find the operative language in the sign-up/registration agreement, please post it here. I believe it will be educational for us all to confront the fact about how far registrars go to protect themselves - not their customers - from their own neglect, incompetency, failings, etc.
Perhaps one more reason to be vigilent.
OBTW - Did you ever check, when the domains were "renewed", to see if the WhoIs updated?
Did the registrar's user interface indicate a newly extended date if you loaded your domain?
Did your registrar's system send you notices as the domain moved ahead in the delete cycle? Most registrar systems would send such notices. What happened on this score, since - upon the "failed renewal" - there should have been markers and warnings sent out.
How can you be certain the domain wasn't simply hijacked in some fashion? Is the email address you employed securely under your exclusive control?
A few follow ups:
Yes the domains were in my account with the new renewal dates in them.
At no point did I receive an email saying registration had failed. I got the opposite - for example:
We are pleased to report we have auto-renewed the domain XXXXXXXX.info in your account, details are as follows:
Order Number : 23506105
Domain Name : XXXXXXXXXXX.info
Domain Id : 13507624
Expiration Date : 2005-11-28
Years added : 1
New Expire Date : 2006-11-28
As for hijacking, neither are my best names or of big value to anyone else (not big bucks value anyway) and nobody else has access to my email account. The .com was also locked. So I don't think that is an issue here.
Okay, I am off to read their T&C.
Meanwhile, I am transfering all my other names away from this Registrar.
IN NO EVENT SHALL XXXXXXXXX.COM'S MAXIMUM AGGREGATE LIABILITY EXCEED THE TOTAL AMOUNT PAID BY YOU FOR REGISTRATION OF THE DOMAIN NAME
So basically they are saying no matter how badly we screw up, the most we have to do is refund a registration fee!
One reality registrars face is that sooner or later, their systems will unintentionally "fail" to renew a domain name for whatever reason. I'm sure they make every effort to ensure it doesn't happen, but...sh** happens.
Unfortunately they know it'll be tough justifying just yanking the name from the new owner and refunding their money saying "sorry, but we made a mistake." Out of the frying pan and into the fire, if you know what I mean.
Because they know that reality can happen, they included that tidbit in their legal fine prints. After all, one's gotta do what they can to limit their liability, right?
If you put themselves in their shoes, how would you handle it? It won't be easy, I'm sure, but someone's gotta do the "right thing" somehow and be damned anyway.
joeking, does that registrar start with the word "reg" and end up being, to some people, as pesky as a fly? :)
Unfortunately that means we have to be extra vigilant from now on. And with the number of domains you're handling, WebWork, that might be a tall order. :P
Expiration - Registrar Hold - Redemption Period - Pending Delete, Scheduled for Release.
Why, if the renewal failed, didn't the sytem subsequently generate notices to the registrant that the domain was progressing towards deletion?
Most registrars issue such emails.
Here, after the payment was accepted, the domain still had to go through the deletion cycle, didn't it?
IF there was a problem that is merely a central registry issue then who's to say this "bug" won't arise again and again? IF it IS a central registry bug that is subject to reoccur THEN the central registry should be obliged to "get the domain back" when this sort of issue surfaces. The person who should get their money back should be the person who picked up the domain DUE TO the glitch, not the person who loses the domain due to the glitch.
Something about joeking's scenario just isn't sitting right with me.
Where's Moniker_Man when you need him for technical explanations? (Better not be a M domain, of course.)
I had confirmation that both had been renewed. Both at different times last year.
I only noticed one had changed hands a week a so ago when somebody told me it was for sale (knowing it had been mine). It had been regged by the new owner in February. I then went through every name I had and found another one that had been regged in February (different new owner) too.
Both were used for redirecting traffic when I had them so I am going to check my logs to see if I can work out when they stopped redirecting traffic.
My gut feeling is that they were renewed but have somehow since been released, but I could be very wrong. Maybe they were never renewed and it is just coincidence that months later both are picked up by others.
One other thing if it was a central registry problem it has happened to both .com and .info which I understood were separately run.
Davezan, there's certainly no flies on you!
Most registrars issue such emails.
Unfortunately email isn't as reliable nowadays as it once was. With ISPs and what-have-yous suddenly filtering and blocking 'em out anytime for whatever reason without telling anyone, this is going to make things even worse.
The reason I gave hints if that "flying" registrar is the one in question is because 2 other people experienced this. It turns out that registrar enacted a new system since February, but they "renewed" their domain using an "old" system which eventually didn't really process it.
Sigh, nothing can be really done at this point. All joeking can really do is get his money back and nothing more. :(
So it looks like there must be proceedures in place to recover domains if the registrars have a mind to.
[edited by: stu2 at 11:12 pm (utc) on Feb. 28, 2006]
Sounds to me like the registrar didn't get as much from the auction as he wanted, especially in light of them being "partners."
For the paranoid among us, I was negotiating to sell both domains to separate individuals at the time this incident occured :) Both domains are now registered in the Caymans to the same registrant :)
It was one of the big 4 auction houses which is closely linked (almost exclusive relationship) with the registrar.
support seems to come via people who haven't graduated school or who have problems with the English language (the Registrar is American) which adds to the difficulties I'm facing
You can't assume that just because a registrar (or any business for that matter) is based in the US, that they employ Americans. An 800 # or U.S. area code may give the appearance that you are calling someone within the U.S., but the reality is many businesses outsource phone calls to call centers in foreign countries. Despite the higher international telecom rates, the cheaper labor more than makes up for it.
To recap, I was charged to renew both and received confirmation both had been renewed. They also appeared in my account as such. Then in ebruary I noticed both were in the hands of others.
The registrar couldn't care less.
I have moved EVERY name away from them - I can't afford to lose any others.
One name I got back this week. Whoever grabbed it obviously saw little value in it (it is a hyphenated business name) and threw it back. I regged it.
The .info is currently for sale by whoever grabbed it when I lost control of it. I have already bought it on the secondary market only for the registrar to lose it for me.
As for the registrar, I asked for someone to look into this because it is a serious matter - imagine if it had been a domain name worrth millions.
I was told it had been escalated to a second tier person.
The result? Well, anyone who uses support tickets will know tickets are updated until they are closed. I can still view support tickets going back years. However this support ticket - with all the info regarding what has happened - has vanished. The second tier person didn't even reply to me before this happened.
I opened another - again vanished.
My only option left is to embarrass the registrar into action by going public with my story on one of my websites and hope other websites pick it up too. The name isn't worth enough to pursue this legally, but they shouldnĄ't get away with their couldn't care less attitude either.
The .info shows a registration date of 14th February 2006.
But last November I was told it had been renewed for me with the following info:
Expire Date: 2006-11-28
Auto Renew: ON
I have around 450 domain names in total and foolishly relied on autorenewal to safeguard them, believing that a confirmation email that they had been renewed and my credit card being charged and a new renewal date appearing in my account was sufficient. It wasn't. I didn't have time to check the whois for every domain, but now wish I had made time to do so.
Lesson learned for me, but I now know that there are many others who have lost domains thanks to this registrar and there will be some who have lost valuable domain names and do not yet know it. The registrar couldn't care less, preferring to hide behind a support system manned by developing world employees who cannot help.
[edited by: Webwork at 1:18 pm (utc) on Mar. 30, 2006]
[edit reason] WebmasterWorld TOS [/edit]
