#domainrieistrars — Public Fediverse posts

Update & conclusion: I knew Sales Dept. at UK-based multinational CentralNic (who in 2019 bought out formerly meritorious registrar IWantMyName) wouldn't get back to me until Monday, on my "Hey, don't you want my money?" escalation, following Support refusing to extend my domain and giving repeated nonsense answers.

But then, a new thing:

A "reminder" mail, saying my domain linuxmafia.com would soon autorenew, charging US $21.49 to my credit card of record.

Quoi? I never enable autorenew, anywhere, at any time. I checked: Autorenew was (in a covert manner; see below) indeed set for both my domains.

I'd been a customer of (the former, competent) NZ-based IWantMyName firm, since about 2010. I'm certain I've never enabled autorenew. Why? Because I insist payments be at my initiative, and reminders be sent by my own scripts.

These new clowns (it seems) had enabled autorenew without notice or consult (isn't this actual business fraud?), probably around the time renewals beyond one year became unavailable even through Support, and available for 1 year only when the domain was soon to expire.

Let's count the red flags:

1. Support cites irrelevant canned text that doesn't answer customer's question. Support's capabilities seems limited to "push this button" rote tasks. Might be one of those shops where level-1 techs will be fired for saying anything outside dictated scripts.

2. Support then ghosts unsatisfied customer; there's no escalation path.

3. Extending domain registration is unsupported. Renewal (just before expiration) limited to one year.

4. No response from sales@ to a "Really, you don't want my money?" escalation. (Admittedly, this spilled over to the weekend.)

5. Autorenew added without customer permission.

6. Control to disable autorenew made difficult to spot, and non-obvious, within the customer webUI. (You must toggle a per-domain setting from "renew" to "expire".)

The last two red flags, the new ones, were the final straw, so I immediately took my business to Gandi.net. Took an hour or two (might have been faster if I'd looked at my e-mail at one point).

Gandi.net's Web site is sensibly designed, modern, no annoyances. Transfer process involved only a couple of polite upsell attempts (e-mail services, etc.). Enabling public WHOIS was uncomplicated. Domains can be extended for up to 8 years at any time (or 9 depending on expiry date). Pricing is not rock-bottom, yet reasonable, and also is public: https://www.gandi.net/en-US/domain/tld?prefix=c#tld-table

(There are also bulk discount categories, for which, as a small customer, I'm not qualified.)

Customer WebUI puts no impediment at all in the way of leaving any time you wish, and not even the 60-day freeze on transferred-in domains many registrars impose. Customer is not pushed towards autorenew, let alone defaulted to it without permission.

Customer contracts and disclosures seem reasonable.

Minor nit: Customer WebUI doesn't have a link to find past billings and payment records. However, upon payment you get e-mailed a PDF and a direct link to re-download it.

For the record, my "intro" pricing to transfer in:

US $14.34 linuxmafia.com
US $15.74 unixmercenary.net

My per-year price to extend the domains:
US $23.99 linuxmafia.com
US $24.99 unixmercenary.net

Don't settle for cruddy registrars. The market beckons.

And, remember, domain owners: You also needn't rely on vendors' "reminder" e-mails to track impending renewals. Perl script "d-check" and /usr/sbin/cron are your friends.

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/preventing-expiration.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/

#DomainRegistrar
#DomainRieistrars
#domain
#Registrar
#CentralNIC
#Gandi

Update: So far, #DomainRegistrar IWantMyName (now a brand of British multinational CentralNic Group PLC) doesn't want my money.

Anyone know a registrar fond of customer money? Preferably one competent at being a registrar?

Escalated to Sales (into UK weekend because of Support's faffing about):

Date: Fri, 31 May 2024 16:39:00 -0700
From: Rick Moen [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Customer wants to give your firm money; support won't allow me

Gentlefolk:

Wednesday, May 29th, I opened ticket #2476974 with [email protected]. My reauest was simple: I desire manual extension, by two years each, of the two domains I register at IWantMyName, I calculated the fees:

US $21.49 + US $21.49, two years, domain linuxmafia.com
US $26.14 + US $26.14, two years, domain unixmercenary.net
Total charge: US $95.26

To facilitate, I said my credit card on file is up to date, and that I authorise and request that charge now.

Within a day, I received a boilerplate statement that automated renewals are for one year only, and citing some reasons for that. This was unresponsive: I had requested manual two-year extension.

Thursday, I reiterated my request and said I'd seen no substantive response. The assigned agent referred me to the earlier statement about automated renewals. I wrote back saying this in no way addressed my request, that I desire manual extension by two years of two domains.

It has now been one more day, and I still have not gotten a straight answer.

Does CentralNic Group PLC d/b/a ideegeeo Group Ltd d/b/a IWantMyName want the customer's money? This customer wishes you to have it.

Please either direct Support to accept my money, or let me know you don't want it, and I'll commence taking my business elsewhere.

Best Regards,
Rick Moen
[email protected]
+1 (650) 283-7902

#DomainRegistrar
#DomainRieistrars
#domain
#Registrar
#CentralNIC

I may be seeking a new #DomainRegistrar. Once upon a time, there was a highly clueful one named ideegeo Group, Ltd. d/b/a IWantMyName.com in Wellington, NZ, technically a retail reseller for large German registrar 1API.

Early on, their staff efficiently and quickly fixed an odd problem, where my two domains were suddenly private WHOIS against my wishes: The tech found that 1API had unilaterally toggled everyone private to quickly comply with GDPR rollout -- and intervened to revert that on my domains.

Roll forward to 2019. British multinational CentralNic Group PLC acquired ideegeo Group Ltd., and shut down the NZ operation.

Uh-oh.

About a year later, I saw that my domains were suddenly private WHOIS again, saw still nothing in the customer WebUI to adjust that, and opened another ticket, referencing the first one, speculating 1API might have done it again, and asking the same fix.

A tech from the new lot immediately closed the ticket with the explanation that the operator of the .com and .net TLDs had imposed private WHOIS on all domains, and therefore IWantMyName was powerless to help me.

I almost accepted this pile of bullhockey, but then thought to cross-check, among others, domains 1API.net and IWantMyName.com -- whose public WHOIS data immediately disproved the nonsense claim. I reopened the ticket, pointing out their claim is provably wrong, and reiterating my request.

The tech closed the ticket again with the comment that he'd repeated what the technical staff told him -- not commenting on the fact that it was provably false.

I escalated this matter to corporate staff in London, saying that gaslighting customers is uncool, that I could easily take business elsewhere, and that I'd be deciding that in a couple of days. A senior tech in London reopened the case, told me he'd fix things, did so, explained that first-level techs had relied on bad information, and observed (justly) that few customers wished to eschew private WHOIS. As resolution occurred before my deadline, I stayed.

Yesterday, after verifying that IWantMyName.com's customer WebUI still doesn't permit early renewal, I opened a new ticket saying "Please manually extend by two years each of my domains, linuxmafia.com and unixmercenary.net, please charge my credit card of record number NNNN for the US $95.26 entailed, and please do that now."

I got back a response saying:

"We currently only register and renew domains automatically for one year at a time.

We've found that longer registration periods lead to a higher chance of customers losing or forgetting their account details or missing notifications and ultimately letting their domains expire due to outdated contact information for expired credit card details.

The annual notifications serve as a reminder of sorts to keep everything up to date. Or, if something unexpected happens and the domain is no longer needed, it can be cancelled with no time/money lost.

If you have any other questions, just let us know."

I waited a day, then wrote back saying I'd seen no action on my request. The tech referred me to the above statement.

I wrote back:

"That was not even anywhere near an answer to my request.

I didn't ask about automatic renewal policy. I requested manual processing of two-year extension, now, for each of my two domains, charging the appropriate fees totalling US $95.26 to my credit card of record.

Please do that now.

I will continue to escalate this matter, if it is not addressed."

This is in "You had one job" territory, nicht wahr? Any fellow Ops people with clueful-registrar suggestions? Needing to escalate routine requests has gotten old.

For the record, for good and compelling reasons, I keep domains a long way from expiration, run a weekly cron job executing d-check (http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/) to watch WHOIS for upcoming renewal dates, and renew well in advance of need.

Likewise, I insist on public WHOIS so it can fulfil its design role of permitting contact, by anyone observing a problem or other matter needing attention, to the Administrative, Technical, and Registrant contacts as appropriate.

"You'll be doxed", someone says? Funny, that: Maybe they might use the real street address, real telephone number, real e-mail address, and "ICBM address" (latitude, longitude, and altitude of my favourite chair) on my personal Web page, instead.

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