Following are some links I ran into today.

The RegisterFly Debacle ... has another Registerfly horror story with many comments recounting bad experiences.

RegisterFly Is A Scam ... seems like a story similar to mine. They tried to renew their domain and kept failing until they contacted Registerfly's billing department. Go figure.


HowTo Fly Away… or how to escape from the RegisterFly nightmare ... has a step-by-step instruction on how to transfer a domain registered back when Registerfly was a eNom reseller.

Registerfly has responded to my last support ticket:

Response:
Dear client,

Please be advised , this domain appears to be in redemption.
This occurs when a domain has surpassed the 29 day grace period,offered for renewing an expired domain name.
Redemption can be anywhere from 60 days to 9 months.
To remove a domain out of redemption, you have the option of placing a fee of 209.00 into your account, submitting a support ticket , requesting that the domain be released from redemption status.
As this domain appears to be held by one our previous backend providers enom. you may also contact enom.com to see what other options are availble for this domain.
The amount of the renewal attempt has been issued to your quick checkout account.

This, after telling me to keep trying to renew and it should work out. Some people have accused Registerfly of holding domains hostage to extort its customers. I'm starting to think they are right.

I've send yet another support request, this time letting them know that I would rather communicate with them in writing over fax. I might have to talk to an attorney about this.

Gave renewing through Registerfly one more try a few days ago. I didn't get a renewal failure email yet. But I don't yet see it in my Registerfly account. I am waiting for the account to be credited for this latest renewal attempt that did not go through.

I also sent a support request for my domain to be "manually renewed" yesterday. The domain now shows up as one of my domains, except with past expiration date.

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.

I got a reply. The exact same reply about how their admins are working on it and I should try renewing in 24 hours. Looks like a copy-and-paste reply. Sounds like maybe a lot of customers are having the same problem.