Slashdot Mirror
Recovering Domains from Negligent Registrars?
Mousit asks: "I am curious on how fellow Slashdot readers have dealt with negligent and unresponsive registrars. For a few years or so now, I've been using Jump Domain as my registrar for the domains I own and maintain. This was originally by choice, but for the last year or two it has been by force. I lost a domain to them early last year when I attempted to renew it and the automated process failed, putting it into a 'pending' status in wait for 'manual intervention' as the message told me. This intervention never happened, support tickets about it were never answered, and on top of it my money was never refunded. The domain simply lapsed, expired, and nothing was done about it. Have others experienced similar problems with Jump Domain or any other registrar, and what did they do to recover their domains? Is it even possible? Short of getting a lawyer, the options seem rather slim when a registrar decides to simply ignore you and eat your domains (and your money)."
"Attempts to transfer my domains to other registrars failed for nebulous reasons which were always attributed to Jump Domain's fault and never satisfactorily explained, at least for the .com domains. Since I can't get JD to answer their support tickets, I have never been able to obtain the EPP codes needed for transfering .org domains. I am effectively trapped in Jump Domain's service, and I am losing domains one by one. The story is currently in repetition, with two more domains now stuck in "pending" status. Support tickets are again unanswered, and this time I even have a couple telephone numbers. One simply rings endlessly, while the other answers with a machine for Jump Domain Hosting support. My messages there have gone unanswered. One domain has already lapsed into expiration as of Saturday, the other will go this Thursday.
It's worth noting that Jump Domain used to be a reseller for TUCOWS, but they appear to have been dropped. They are now reselling for the sometimes infamous eNom instead. Considering even TUCOWS couldn't get a response out of JD during the previous lost domain episode, I'm not surprised they had to change. I have contacted eNom but was summarily told I need to deal with Jump Domain, and was given no further help from them."
It's worth noting that Jump Domain used to be a reseller for TUCOWS, but they appear to have been dropped. They are now reselling for the sometimes infamous eNom instead. Considering even TUCOWS couldn't get a response out of JD during the previous lost domain episode, I'm not surprised they had to change. I have contacted eNom but was summarily told I need to deal with Jump Domain, and was given no further help from them."
Personally, if a registrar took my money with the understanding that they would be providing me a service in return, and then did not provide that service with obvious willful abandon and intent to remove my intellectual property from my possession (my domain is my IP), I would consider that an egregious act of fraud...
But that's just me.. Your DA may or may not believe otherwise...
Try filing a complaint with ICANN
Depending on if anyone else is out there trying to grab your domain, I guess you can just let it fall and then buy it back through someone else. Or maybe you can try godaddy's back ordering system. This would also depend on if someone else is out there trying to grab it.
Jump Domain postal address, even in their corporate filings, is a MailBoxes, Etc. maildrop - 790 W. 40 HWY #197, BLUE SPRINGS MO 64015.
Try contacting eNom again, and explain that you have made multiple attempts to contact the registrar but have not received a response. Detail your attempts. eNom surely has a procedure for transferring domain names to themselves when a reseller goes out of business or is uncontactable. They may also be more willing to help if you can find some sort of proof that Jump Domains is no longer in business.
I and and some friends have had the same problems described by you and others.
Jumpdomain is not a registrar and is simply a reseller for OpenSRS (older domains) and eNom (newer domains). This is good since it means you can end run around them to get your domains transferred.
There have been three problems I've had transferring domains:
1) The admin email address is setup to be an auto@domains.jumpdomain.com (or something similar) which doesn't end up being delivered to the actual admin of the domain. This causes all of the automated transfer emails to not get delivered. You can update this information through OpenSRS at www.adminchange.com. I haven't needed to do this with eNom, but I'm guessing they have a similar process.
2) Domain is locked. This is done specifically to prevent the transfer of the domain and is usually a good thing, but in this case, it's preventing you from using your domain. The Jumpdomain admin interface worked for a few domains, but others I had to contact OpenSRS or eNom directly.
3) No way to access the EPP code needed for EPP registries (like .org and .us). I had to contact eNom directly and after explaining it was for Jumpdomain, they immediately sent the codes out to me.
I highly suggest doing all of this before your domain expires, since you'll need to rewew your domain before you can do any transfers (you might be able to get away with a reseller to reseller transfer with OpenSRS if it's expired, but I don't remember for sure).
Good luck!
I'm friends with the youngest daughter of the former head of the PowerPC division of IBM you insensitive clod!
I would contact the parent company. In this case it's TUCOWS, at least according to NetSol (unless I am mis-reading this):
Domain Name: JUMPDOMAIN.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Name Server: NS.JUMPSERVER.NET
Name Server: NS2.JUMPSERVER.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 28-dec-2004
Creation Date: 23-jan-2000
Expiration Date: 23-jan-2006
TUCOWS has a help page here: http://domainhelp.tucows.com/
Or call them:
Headquarters
Tucows Inc.
96 Mowat Avenue
Toronto, ON
Canada M6K 3M1
Phone: 1-416-535-0123
Fax: 1-416-531-5584
Reseller Support Center
Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm (EST)
North America:
1-800-371-6992
International:
+ 800-371-69922
-Valiss
Once you've hopefully got all your domains moved over to Verisign you can then transfer them out to another, more cost effective and ethical registrar, at your convenience. While Verisign isn't the best at this, they have cleaned up their act considerably since their recent fiascos like sex.com, so you should be OK. You might have to pay a little over the odds for Verisign's services, but that's got to be preferrable to losing your domains altogether, hasn't it?
Oh, and on the subject of sex.com, you should at least talk to a lawyer about this. You've lost several domains through the negligence of Jump Domain, and the sex.com owner made a killing (on paper) from a similar situation. While you are probably not in the same territory as that, that case might be enough incentive to convince a lawyer to take the case for you in order to wet his beak in a potentially lucrative damages claim.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Actually if he sues them for his money in small claims court, they can't send armies of lawyers.......
The BBB says that Jump Domain has an unsatisfactory record due to unanswered complaints. It lists the contact information as follows:
Jump Domain
740 W 40 Hwy Ste 197
Blue Springs, MO 64015
Telephone: (816) 550-2376
Fax: (816) 550-2376
If any readers live near Blue Springs, perhaps they would be kind enough to go knock on Jump Domain's door and see if anybody's there.
I used to have my domain registered with a discount gig (think it was domainshop.com), that was later bought up by those crooks at Verisign.
That started a short but very unpleasant relationship. I would receive countless amounts of spam, and when it was time to renew, the price had gone up A LOT, and it would cost me A LOT also to have the service tranferred to a competing service. I wonder hwo many of those customers stayed on with Verisign. Couldn't have been many.
I chose instead to let my domain expire, and again Verisign was messing with me. It took much longer than the advertized amout of time for the domain name to be released, so I had to try and fail many times before I eventually could reclaim my domain.
The moral is:
If you find a cheap registrar, make sure you've subscribed for a long period. Even if they'd go belly up after the first year, you're probably better off than signing with Verisign. And if they get bought by Verisign, the renewal is not going to gobble your whole nestegg. And who knows, after 5 years, maybe even Verisign will have adjusted their prices to compete.
Since I went with godaddy.com several years ago, I've not received a single spam mail, and they've been easy to deal with, and they even have a neat mail forwarding service.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Repost of my two replies regarding this topic at DNForum.com:
... Jump Domain postal address, even in their corporate filings, is a MailBoxes, Etc. maildrop - 790 W. 40 HWY #197, BLUE SPRINGS MO 64015.
... agent is listed as Scott Ison.
p .a sp?621690
... contact Tucows and explain you want to transfer them out - either to another registrar, or at minimum, to another Tucows reseller so that you can administer your domains - no matter what Tucows tells you, get your domains away from Jump Domain.
... use the phone and tie up their staff - that way Tucows is forced to deal with the problem as opposed to putting it off indefinitely.
... or perhaps Tucows too, since some of his domains could be registered through other registrars - certainly a possibility given what I've learned so far about Jump Domain. ...
.com / .net registry/ .org registry
Firstly, you're dealing with a seemingly shady company
Worse, the agent name may be bogus (or perhaps is a partial name [ie. middle and last])
https://www.sos.mo.gov/BusinessEntity/soskb/Cor
With that said, Jump Domain does not appear to be an accredited registrar - your domains are very likely actually registered with Tucows
Become a real pest, if that's what it takes, and *call* Tucows a lot - hopefully their customer support will help you the first time, but sometimes persistance is how these things get solved - try email, etc first, but if no adequate response
Tucows Inc.
96 MOWAT AVENUE
Toronto, Ontario M6K 3M1
Canada
416 535 0123
support@opensrs.org
** Follow-up/addendum to my above reply **
My bad on the registrar - I based my answer on searching I did on Jump Domain.
Still, the approach should be the same, just that he'll need to deal with Enom
One point I didn't make clear is even if Jump Domain is no longer affiliated with Tucows, that does NOT mean the domains they managed automatically moved from Tucows; they're still likely there - in a nutshell, the registrant will need to check the registrar of record for each domain at the links below:
http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois
http://www.pir.org/
Ron
I would hope that Icann would jump in and help out even if he is a little guy. I mean that's what they exist for right?
No, it's not. From the linked page, "ICANN does not resolve individual customer complaints".
These guys send out fake invoices to people on other registrars which are really nothing more than a "renew and transfer" form. With business practices like that, I don't deal with them. I keep getting their fake invoices for many different domains I own.
Please do note that when typing a URL for a file on an external domain, you must include HTTP:// or else the browser interprets it as being on the same domain. K.
Doesn't look like a house :) more like an office building..
google maps has it
In case you missed it, VeriSign sold Network Solutions October 16, 2003
The funny part is the ROI on this deal: they bought NetSol in 2000 for $21 billion in stock, then sold it in 2003 for $100 million in stock and debt.
Every experience I had with Network Solutions was negative. At least it was possible to get a person the telephone, but they were quite unhelpful. I was told to fax forms repeatedly because no on ever logged them into their system. Changing contact information was darn near impossible.
Several years ago, a local web developer accepted money from many small businesses for hosting and development then skipped town. I tried to help a few recover their domain names but all gave up after a while because it simply wasn't worth the effort and cost. I did manage to change contact data on the domain of the hospital where I worked several years ago, but that took over a month.
Learning from my mistakes, I went to Registar.com for my next round of domains. Everything went smoothly and I was happy with the support. Then, just as my registrations were about to expire, I got letters from Network Solutions thanking me for transferring the domains to them. I certainly had not requested any such move and couldn't get anyone at either registrar to explain how this happened. By this time the domains had expired so I couldn't transfer them anywhere else without paying Network Solutions to register them. Did I mention how much I hate those guys?
I know it's a bit costly, but in the case when your domain does expire and your current registrar doesn't renew it, by backordering your domain using another registrar, but be the thing to save your domain at the end.
godaddy offers this service for only $18.95.
network solutions and namecheap goes through snapnames which cost $60, probably more reliable and better service, but i've never used either of them to really tell you what the difference is.
What is Domain Name Backordering?
If you "backorder" this name, we will ATTEMPT to grab it and to register it on your behalf, if and when it expires and once again becomes available.
The low $18.95 backorder cost includes the registration fee, ICANN Fee, plus automatic monitoring and email alerts on changes to the Registrar, Status, Expiration Date, and Name Servers. Your domain backorder fee can be re-assigned to other names as often as you like, until you are successful in acquiring a domain name.
You also have the option of making your backorder private -- which means your personal identifying information (name, phone number, email and home addresses) is shielded from public exposure in the WHOIS directory from the very moment the backordered domain is successfully acquired.
Please understand that a backorder does not guarantee that you will acquire the domain name being backordered. The domain name you are backordering may be renewed by its current owner and not become available or we may be unsuccessful in our attempts to grab it and register it on your behalf.
Once again if your backorder is not successful, it can be reassigned to another domain name. (And if your unsuccessful backorder is a private one, your private registration can be applied to any other backorder).
hopefully your domains aren't that popular. then you shouldn't have much problem backordering them.
HD Trailers
The data center is here
All your Sybase are belong to us.
While this looks good in theory, it isn't.
First, a draft of a letter from an attorney will cost $100 minimum. Want to spend $100 chasing $10?
Then if they are like most people they will ignore the letter as it really means "nothing" in the business world. (I should know because as a former attorney I used to draft these all the time).
Just taking the letter to a judge will not do anything. You will have to file a lawsuit in at least small claims court (here that is about another $100; now down $200 for $10).
And if they show up most likely it will an attorney representing them, not a person who could do anything for you. The attorney will just be there to fight you.
And if they don't show up you will get a judgment. Big whip; it doesn't mean they have to pay. If they don't have assets in the state you are in they you need to file the judgment in their state (more cash to do this).
Then so what? They have a judgment against them; do you know how many people and companies have judgments against them and don't pay and you still can't get the cash? Lots. And this assumes you did everything correctly and did not miss a step AND that the court in the other state accepts the judgment without review (they are supposed to but if the defendant makes an argument that there wasn't due process they could reject the judgment and force you to litigate there). (Another $100 for filing fees, plus plane ticket, plus expenses).
As for the forced liquidation that doesn't happen. And even if you could do this you are not going to do it without an attorney who is going to charge $150 per hour which will take about $10,000 in fees, usually around $1000 upfront non-refundable.
Of course all of this assumes they even have any cash to begin with. If they are a corporation and the corporation has no cash left in it (or any assets) then you have your judgment and you are out how much?
$100 lawyer letter
$100 filing fee
$100 filing fee, second state
$200 plane ticket to litigate in second state
$1000 non-refundable retainer new lawyer
At a minimum $1500 cash out for a domain...
Look, while hiring an attorney seems to be a good idea for small amounts it isn't. When I was a practicing attorney if someone had a case which dealt with an amount less than $10,000 it usually wasn't worth it for them to hire an attorney at all. They needed to go to small claims court and if the amount was really small suck it up and move on. You can spend a lot of money chasing principle but you have to weigh that against what your time is worth. If it is worth more then drop it.
Oh, did I mention that at any time you have a judgment in small claims court you can invalidate it and retry the case again in the state I am in? That means after $1500 the defendant can make you start all over again.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Actually an unsatisfactory record due to unanswered complaints just means they didn't respond one way or another to the BBB. Either you have responded to the BBB or you haven't. If you have responded to the BBB but not made anyone happy you get a satisfactory rating. If you just blow off the BBB because they lack any power or jurisdiction over you and you don't want to take the time to respond to some nut case then you get an unsastifactory rating. Ratings from the BBB really don't mean anything anymore. The only benefit you get with the BBB is if the company is willing to work the the BBB (they are under no obligation to do so ever) to negotiate between the customer and the company. Take the rating with a grain of salt
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Jump Domain went to the dark side about two years ago. I had a similar experience with one domain - but it was an .org which was still with Tucows while they were transitioning, and Tucows' own DomainDirect.com was able to slip me the secret code required to confirm the transfer. Subsequently with a couple of other domains I did manage to get eNom to help. So you might want to try again to get through to the right people there by phone. Also, although ICANN tries to say they will not help, if you get an e-mail through to the right place, they did in the latter case send their own query to eNom letting them know that they were looking over their shoulder on this.
I've had no problem with a couple dozens domains at DomainDirect so far. In past experience Network Solutions, Dotster, Register.com all suck, although none as badly as JumpDomain does now. Scott at JumpDomain used to be responsive, but I don't even know if it's his operation any more.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Owning Network Solutions somehow precludes them from being a registrar?
I don't get it.
VeriSign owns NetSol.
NetSol = Registar
VeriSign = Registrar
Sorry, but the parent post is correct. Verisign is a Registry, not a Registrar. Network Solutions is a Registrar, which Verisign used to own, but no longer does.
Network Solutions was both a Registry and Registrar before Verisign bought them. They tried dropping the Network Solutions name, but then changed their minds, split the Registry and Registrar into two separate parts of the company, started using the Network Solutions name for the Registrar part, then sold Network Solutions to some management group.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If Jumpdomain's just a reseller for eNom, then eNom is definitely the right place to go, because they're the real registrar.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Avoid anybody who goes through Joker.com. Several IPS's have been using them as their registrar, and I have had to let a couple of my domains lapse and be re-registered in order to get them out of their clutches. They require a verification code in order to transfer .org domains, but won't tell you how to go about getting such a thing.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Considering I'd all but exhausted all the other options, yes, getting it out on Slashdot was actually an intentional plan. It also worked, though not with JD itself.
.com domains were unlocked, including the expired one. Under eNom's system, an expired domain that is not in hold or lock, can be transferred. Thus, provided these transfers go through, I get everything back.
On calling again, I was able to talk with eNom's Transfers and Registration Manager, whom actually connected my story as related over the phone, to this article. Imagine that! I was provided EPP codes, and my
Jump Domain doesn't get their credibility back, but I still win. Hah.
I've had good experience with Joker.com (German based) for the past 5 years. Prices are $12 USD per domain per year, they provide registration for all the standard TLD's (org, net, com) and the crap TLD's (biz, info) :). Management is all through a self service web UI (renew/transfer/update/etc).
The BBB local to the company is usually a good place to start. Letters from the BBB tend to make it to the upper echelon at the company in question.
You won't necessarily get results, lots of companies fail to act on the BBB's letters. But they all read them. Its a good place to start, and its free.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Jumpdomain is my former registrar. I too lost a domain to Scott Ison's bullshit. he runs Jumpdomain himself, as an easy way to make cash. it's an easy way to watch cash roll in because he does not perform any support for the domains he sells.
anyway, if you have a problem with his policies, you should call his home phone number: (816) 228 - 1901. his home address is unlisted but he lives in Blue Springs, MO.
sorry to post this anonymously, but Scott Ison is also a lawyer.
I am *JUST* *NOW* managing to get my last five domains away from jumpdomain after a 6 month process. I'll post the messages I've sent at the end, but I'll give you a quick run down now.
- I tried contacting jumpdomain many times via many different methods, including email, filing problem reports and phoning. Every such attempt failed to reach a human. The problem reports were never responded to and eventually they were deleted.
- I have filed a complaint with internic earlier this year. It didn't do any good.
- The contact point for eNom on the internic website is an email address that now bounces and used to go into a black hole.
- I have *JUST* *TODAY* gotten good response to transfers@enom.com. Jason Cluphf was most helpful.
- I had problems contacting tucows also, but fortunately the domains that I registered via jumpdomain that ended up at tucows were all
.com and .net, and there is a new rule that by default, the transfers have to go through. The domains that I had with jumpdomain/enom were .org domains.
Ok, the following is an email that I've sent in various forms to about a dozen different emails over the last 4 months.To: matt@enom.com, transfers@enom.com, abuse@enom.com
Subject: I am having problems with your reseller, jumpdomain.com
From: wayne
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 16:05:17 -0500
Message-ID:
Help!
I got your email address from http://www.internic.net/registrars/registrar-48.ht ml
Your eNom reseller, jumpdomain.com, appears to have dropped off the face of the earth. I have been using jumpdomain.com since the mid 90's, but now I'm having big problems with them.
I need auth codes to transfer the following domains: elgin-watches.org elginwatch.org libspf2.org trusted-forwarder.org
This is the second time this year I've tried to transfer these domains away from you and your reseller. The last time, I not only didn't get any response from your reseller, but I didn't get any response from you and the transfer timed out.
I *WAS* able to transfer my .com domains away from you last January
because when you didn't respond, the transfer went through by
default. Unfortunately, there is no such policy for .org domains
(yet).
*** PLEASE DO SOMETHING ***
On Oct 2, 2004, I renewed several domains, including elginwatches.org. All the other domains went through fine, but elginwatches.org remained in a "Pending" status. I didn't notice this until late Oct, but that wasn't a problem elginwatches.org didn't come up for renewal until Jan 11, 2005.
On Nov 10, the domain still hadn't finished the renewal process, so I filed a trouble ticket with jumpdomain's support system. Nothing happened, but hey, there was still a couple of months. On Dec 02, I updated the trouble ticket pointing out that this needed to be fixed, but still nothing. No response from jumpdomain, and elginwatches.org was still "pending".
On Dec 8, I still had no response from jumpdomain, so I filed another trouble ticket with a higher priority. On Dec 11, I got a 30-day warning about my From jumpdomain that and I replied to that message, filing another trouble ticket. Still no response.
Unfortunately, I was busy during the holidays and didn't file another bug report until early Jan. A couple of days later, I notice that the bug report hadn't shown up, so I filed another one on Jan 8, this time marked as "urgent." I tried calling the Jumpdomain support line, even though they said that for domain registration, I was only supposed to use the web forms. Even during their limited support hours, I never was able to reach anyone.
On Jan 10, I tried transfering my domains away from jumpdomain, but I am unable to complete the transaction because I can't get the "auth codes". Jumpdomain has no place on the their website to request them, and they haven't responded to my request for them via their web support system.
I have continued to try and contact jumpdomain.com, but have still had zero luck getting *any* response from them.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Truth is a 100% defense against charges of slander and libel. I can't speak for the submitter, but I am very willing to testify in court that almost the exact thing has happened with me and jumpdomain.
See this slashdot post for more details of my case.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
This is great, except that when you look under the hood for why other registrars have trouble, you often find that it's actually Verisign screwing things up for their competitors. Their monopolistic behavior has been awful.
I'd actually suggest a lawyer contacting JumpDomain as a better alternative than Verisign.
I manage 29 domains through JumpDomain, and have encountered the SAME issues. I know someone else who manages about 10 through JumpDomain, encountering the same as well.
SCOTT A ISON (Born Sep 1973)
400 JOY CT
BLUE SPRINGS, MO 64014-3980
I was also able to turn up another phone number for him: (816) 228-1998. No idea if it works, though. A reverse directory lookup shows that that number is for Jump Domain, LLC.
Dear Scott: This info was retrieved from the public records. Your privacy was not violated in any way shape or form. Have a nice day.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent