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."
From my experience, it's quite effective if you find another registrar to take over the domain hosting. They're in the same business, and will go the extra mile to secure new clients.
Most of the time it's because we don't know what/where to ask, that's why you need lawyers to defend even the most obvious case.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Sorry to hear about your plight, but unfortunately usually the only option left when the company does not respond is to seek legal action. I'm hardly a lawyer, but you might be able to recoup some of your legal costs by suing the company for them, but might not be such a good idea against today's armies of corporate lawyers.
This sort of thing is exactly why I only use domain registrars and hosting companies that either have independent, positive feedback or ones that my friends use. One should always do their homework before going into something like this.
My other Sig is
I'd say someone just forgot about it.
For context, click Parent.
If you pay by credit card and the service is not delivered, dispute the charge. More likely than not, they'll make good on it at risk of losing their merchant account from repeat complaints.
Hmmm... someone is hiding ;-)
IP Address: 216.21.228.13
Maximum Daily connection limit reached. Lookup refused.
It's not the destination that matters, but rather the journey.
I think the grandparent is suggesting that the article's poster actually pose the same question to a third-party registrar (rather than slashdot), which isn't a bad idea at all.
In other words, rather than just trying to transfer the domain using automatic means, he might try getting in touch with a third party registrar's service line. They might know the best way to get this resolved, and might even have certain mutual contacts that could easily put them in touch with Jump Domain.
Have a lawyer write them a letter, send it certified.
.. tell them you intend to sell their reseller account. At the very minimum this will get the attention of somebody at those respective registrars.
Explain in the letter that they either need to respond to you in writing how to transfer your domain name or you will be taking them to small claims court for the amount of the domain, along with the value of your time ($100/hr). Explain you would like to solve this amicably.
If they respond - you win!
If they don't, then take the letter to a judge and get a judgement against them.
If they show up - you win!
If they don't, You also win!
File the appropriate paperwork to the court and let them know you intend to place a lean on the companies assets.
Now, write Tucows/e-Nom a letter explaining that you have a court order to liquidate their assets.
Ask if the account is in good standing and if it has any values (your attorney will be able to put this into legalease for you)
If it doesn't -- hire a company to seize and sell their reseller account and liquidate their assets, then you buy it on eBay! Whoohoo! Now you get your domain back and you've got your own registrar. Hurray!
ps> if all this seems like too much work, then try finding another tucows reseller who can contact somebody at tucows to get the domain transferred to them. Tucows sucks, but they suck less if you're a reseller.
Administrative Contact:
Domain, Jump hostmaster@jumpdomain.com
790 W 40 HWY #197
Blue Springs, MO 64015
US
831-305-6918 Fax: 831-305-6918
Or maybe hire some thugs and have them pay a visit?
And if you are going to bother correcting someone, at least get it right. Injurious Falsehood. You can't slander/libel a non-human entity.
GoDaddy.com has been mentioned several times in other posts. I have used them myself and I am quite pleased. I looked up Go Daddy with the BBB and they have a satisfactory record. Also, Go Daddy has been a BBB member for the last five years. (Jump Domain is not a BBB member.)
Data Center:
Lee's Summit, MO
Note: For security reasons, we cannot disclose it's exact address.
Now of course, anyone who knows Lee's Summit (I used to live there, still pass through it regularly) thinks of this place, an old AT&T plant, now turned over to a number of smaller businesses. Note: I'm of course not suggesting anything happen here, as I have friends and family working in that building (no, none for jumpdomain, if you must know).
Now, I know a "data center" can also mean just a small office with a bunch of machines shoved into it, but despite that city's recent growth, I still don't know of any major location for a data center to live in Lee's Summit. If it's not there, then fine... keep the address quiet, fully understandable. However, if it *is* there, then their obfuscation is sort of like saying "I've hidden it in a 100 foot tall green statue of a woman in NYC, but I'm not telling you what it is, for security reasons" - sort of pointless.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
i guess i'm in the minority. i registered 3 domains thru netsol. even when they were internic back in the mid/late 90's, i had no problems registering, getting confirmations, getting updates, and when i had a problem, i somehow always ended up talking to a warm body (believe it or not, i even managed to get a password reset over the phone!). the process of consolidating my domains under one account (instead of three separate ones) was really simple too... but like i said, i seem to be in the minority. yes they are pricey, but they haven't let me down thru nearly 8 years of service!
You could just try dropping by their office, if you're anywhere near Blue Springs, MO (I assume that you are, since they're all about their local business).
They list their address on their website:
Although they say it's not open to the public, I'll bet that popping by would yield better results than you've experienced previously. You probably want to be on your best, most diplomatic behavior; and most importantly, never show that you are angry (by raising your voice, calling names, making physical threats, wise cracks that can be misinterpreted). Ask the receptionist if you can speak with someone in support. If she gives you a hard time, politely ask to speak with her supervisor. Whomever you speak with, explain that your showing up there was a last resort, as your support requests were not being handled. This place sounds like a pretty small operation, so there is likely a single support person -- and I doubt that they'll just laugh in your face in person.In the unlikely event that he/she does give you a hard time, politely ask to speak with their manager. If the manager gives you a hard time, take down their name, and politely inform them that you will be disputing all charges with your credit card issuer, as well as disputing the issue with ICANN, and reporting them to the local BBB chapter. Then thank them for their time, excuse yourself, and be on your way. Most places don't want to deal with bureaucratic headaches, whether with credit card issuers, ICANN, or the BBB. Lastly, you can spend $100 and get an attorney to simply write a letter (you don't want to retain counsel, since that will be incredibly expensive compared to your potential returns, but a letter can have massive sway). Again, they probably just don't want to deal with the hassle. They'll give you what you want and you can part ways as pleasnatly as possible.
-Turkey
i dont like the feel of godaddy, it frankly feels like im being spammed the whole time i use the site... check out registerfly.com (thought a bit on the slow real-time-site-response side from florida sometimes)
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
As a Valentine's day gift I bought my now-ex girlfriend her name dot com and threw up a little vanity site for her. Anyway, now that we're not together, she wants me to transfer the domain to her. I'm not sure why, but I refused, and she said that if I don't give it to her, even though (I think) I am safely the legal owner of the domain despite its being her first and last name, she'd "sick my dad's lawyers on you anyway."
Except that by your own admission you gave her the domain as a gift, which is probably going to hurt your legal standing in the manner. Not to mention that it sounds kind of petty. If you gave it to her as a gift, just transfer it to her and move on with your life.
-B
network solutions has been less of a pain than some. It is about the most expensive way I have ever parked a domain. I just transfered a domain from Nonworking solutions to Tucows, and all on the day its registration expired. NS now leaves such domains in REGISTRAR LOCK status and you have to call to get it unlocked so your new registrar can pick it up...awkward but safe. The transfer went down smoothly. Ask me about Tucows [and their reseller canaca.com] in a year.
other than outrageous cost, the thing about NS that bothered me the most was that the default "under construction" page they provide for parked domains was festooned with links to hard core porn labeled as "related" pages. Can you imagine trying to stake out a name for your business only to find that customers who visit your site when you finally turn on your content are saying "hey where's your pornography" [and imagine all the customers you really wanted who will never visit you again and you never know why]
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I registered a couple of domain names (including one that is my first and last name.com) with one of those "Free" domain / hosting thingees where you pay $30 and get 1 year of low quality web hosting and a domain name registration for a year.
It actually worked well for about six months, then, the company was "bought" by someone in Costa Rica or some place in Central America... then, my web sites were down for several weeks, would come back up for a week or two and then would be down again for ridiculous amounts of time (basically, no one was monitoring them).
Of course, their "Support Desk" was more like a circular file and I got one response after numerous attempts to contact them saying they were on it, then nothing (radio static).
Part of the $30 was for the domain name (which they unfortunately registered "on your behalf"). This means all but one of the domain contacts was me!
I started to get worried that I would have my domain name fall off the face of the earth and I didn't have access to change the DNS servers or anything because the hosting company had registered for me and gave me no self-serve login.
I finally tracked down the company the actual registrar (for which the hosting company was just reselling, of course) and after a long series of increasingly unpleasant emails from me to them, they finally tried to do something about it.
The first thing they told me was to contact the reseller. I told them, thanks but I've been trying that... for months! After a lot of convincing they got off their butts and tried to contact their reseller and got the same radio static I got so they helped me out (they made it seem like they were doing me this huge favor when all I wanted was approval to transfer to another registrar to be able to salvage my domain name out of this mess even if I would get screwed with the web hosting).
They finally approved me and I transferred to Godaddy... I lost one of the domain names (it wasn't a big deal to lose this one and I didn't put much effort into fighting it) but kept the one with my name because I basically complained and ranted until someone got annoyed enough with me to do something to get me to shut up.
So, basically, my strategy to get this was to go over their heads to the actual registrar and make enough noise to become annoying and have them do something to get me off thier case! Patience is the best thing for this as a lot of the replies to weeks to a month to get back to me and they took forever trying to contact the reseller and finally gave up (they gave them a huge benefit of the doubt) and let me get what I wanted.
Basically, as someone else pointed out... If you don't have a lot of money to hire a lawyer and/or take this to court you're almost at the mercy of the companies that are screwing you over. Be persistent and logical and if that doesn't work, be annoying to get results.
I have to second this one, I work for a fairly large (top 30 ish) registrar that used ot go through tucows if your having an issue and JD is not responsive get tucows to step in. Elliot and crew generaly do a good job.
No sir I dont like it.
They would lose, but swamp you in time and money consuming legal "stuff" during the trial. You'd most likely need to hire a lawyer. It would cost you more than the value of your domains (in most cases) to fight it out.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Even if you are or are not maintaining the website for her, the domain name ought to be hers, and if you're being stubborn about the $6-$35 "ownership" you might have in it, you're being a jerk about the wrong things and ought to put the energy into something else. And if she feels like pointing the domain name somewhere else and writing a blog or a rant about her ex-boyfriend, well, it goes with the territory :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I live in Blue Springs. The 740 W 40 Hwy address is a UPS Store (was a Mailboxes Etc.) I can't remember what is at 1700 W 40 Hwy. This search shows several businesses in the plaza. No Jump Domain is listed.o usenumber=1700&street=W+40+Hwy&city_zip=64015&stat e_id=MO
http://www.411.com/10668/search/Reverse_Address?h
I can drive by tomorrow.
last time i had to change the DNS record for my domain and eNameco's system returned error (second time it happened) i decided to look for another registrar. after a week trying to unlock the domain without an answer to my tickets, i finally sent them an e-mail threatening legal action, with copies to ICANN and Texas state's general attorney.
a day later the domain was unlocked and i moved it.
What ? Me, worry ?
I think almost everyone is assuming that the Registrar is actively ignoring support requests.
I have a second opinion: I bet the company has long since dried up and blown away, and that all that's left is a bunch of servers running in some ISP's rack, unattended and unnoticed.
When something happens to destroy a physical company (death, illness, corruption, whatever) you usually figure it out quickly - the shop isn't open, the paper isn't being picked up, whatever.
If an internet business suddenly folds - how long before someone actually realizes what happened?
Clear, Dark Skies
I laugh when I read horror stories like these, not because I wish this sort of thing to happen to people. But that people never learn. They always want something for nothing or "very cheap". I have been in the web hosting and domain business for 6 years now. I have clients who contact me on a regular basis asking me if we will match so and so's GREAT deal. I always warn them that if it sounds too good to be true chances are it is. I have had quite of few customers leave us only to return back in a month or two because of serious reliability problems or a total lack of service from these companies who appear to have these GREAT deals.
Bottom line is, do a little research, don't always go for a deal that is the cheapest. Word of mouth is your best bet or actual reviews from current or past customers. We sell domains for $13.00 per year, which seems outrageous compared to some. But you will always get a person responding within 24 hours or less and usually by phone.
All I can say really is be smart. Watch out for the shysters, there are plenty of them. Remember everyone has got to eat therefore if the deal seems almost too good chances are there is a problem with it.
Just my two cents.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
... where you have to be on *really* solid ground before you start shouting about defamation or libel.