Saturday, December 02, 2006

My domain has been expired for 2.5 weeks now.

I called Registerfly on Thursday. Waited half an hour or so to be told the same thing I get on their online support system. They're having problems. Keep trying to renew. Supposedly some people have requested that their domain names go on a list for automatic renewal attempts. You'd hope Registerfly itself knows when the problem is fixed and let its customers know.

Searching for "registerfly sucks" yields some relevant results. One of which is a gripe site about Registerfly.

I also just registered with WebHostingTalk Forms to discuss my problem and seek advice.

Some people recount experiences similar to mine. There is even talk of class-action lawsuit. Registerfly's customer relations department must be snoozing.

I noticed that my expired domain name was originally registered when Registerfly was eNom's domain name reseller.

Their relationship might have soured since Registerfly became an ICANN certified registrar. If Registerfly is in short supply of scruples as many people allege, a policy of not renewing domain names still registered with eNom might make sense. Some customers will be put off and transfer out, but if great majority of Registerfly users stayed with them until the grace period for the domain names were over so Registerfly could grab it... Then Registerfly wouldn't have to pay its competitor a cut. If math works out right, profit increases and the competitor is worse off.

Well, that's one scenario I've been imagining. Could be eNom refuses to do anything for its competitor - in which case you'd think Registerfly would organize a public announcement and a lawsuit. Or there could be some kind of a deal between Registerfly and eNom to skirt rules on domain name registration? Or it could have nothing to do with eNom at all. It could even be that Registerfly has been having a technical problem for weeks on end like they say. But that would mean they were either severely short-handed or incompetent.

I've read here and there that eNom can renew an expired domain name from Registerfly if I were to sign up for a domain name reseller sub-account. I'm considering the option, but I wonder if I have enough time with 1.5 weeks left in eNom's (non-compliant?) 30-day grace period.

3 comments:

Zen said...

I have been having the same problems as well although my domain has been expired since March when I thought I had renewed it.
If I go into registerfly and look at a transaction report it clearly shows that I was charged as well.

empraptor said...

So far, request to credit to my account has been complied or has gotten a reply with explanation. Have you tried their support ticket system?

RegisterCompass said...
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