Arrghh!
Oh, what joy! It seems I no longer have a web site. And just when I thought this might go somewhere!
It seems that the domain name for my website expired in late April without my realizing it. (Yes, I know, it is my responsibility to check on these things.) It has now gone into the "redemption period", which means that if I want it back, I have to pay $220 to the registration company. Mind you, this does not include the cost of actually "renewing" the domain, it merely buys me the "privilege" of being "allowed" to renew it.
The registration company claims that they sent me e-mails warning me that the domain would expire soon, which I did not respond to. Trouble is, the email they claim to have sent to does not exist! The email address was misspelled, and apparently has been that way all along, since I have not changed the contact info for the domain name since I first registered it.
Trying to resolve this has become a small nightmare. The registration company (Active Domain) will only deal with customers via e-mail, and it takes between 5 to 24+ hours to get a response to anything. Add to that the typical stupidity lack of attention/reading skills/reasoning capability of your normal front line support rep, and it becomes a REALLY LONG nightmare. Oh, and did I mention the company has absolutely no contact info listed, other than filing a support ticket?
Oh, yeah, if I do want to pay for the "privilege" of renewal, I can only do it through this one registration company - no other company is allowed to handle it. And I have to re-register it with them, as well (initially, at least).
My current options are:
1) pay the $220 plus renewal fees
2) dump the old domain name and get a new one
3) wait until the domain is "back on the market" and try to re-register it
Option 1 sucks on principle. I hate having to pay good money for bad service. And I really hate rewarding bad/nonexistent service with even more money.
Option 2 sucks because I just gave out a boatload of business cards with the old domain name to new customers at the Ardenwood show. And none of my old customers will be able to find me, either. It's like starting over.
Option 3 sucks because it is very possible that some domain squatter will snap up the domain and then expect to get a bucketful of money to sell it back to me. (Forcing me to go back to option 2.)
If this were really just my own fault, I wouldn't be so steamed. But this whole fiasco was apparently started by a typo in my original registration info - one that Active Domain should have caught before they ever allowed the registration to go through! If the original confirmation e-mail bounced, shouldn't that have raised a red flag? Shouldn't that have canceled the registration? How and why did the registration process continue if there was no way to verify/validate the information given by the registrant?
To top it off, consider this:
I currently have 3 other domain names registered through this company. All of them have exactly the same contact information as the website domain (except for the typo, of course). All of them have been registered with this company for more than 3 years. How much energy, effort, and brains would it have taken to find a way to contact me, if they had cared to? The problem is, they don't care - not about customers, not about anything. Except maybe money.
I will continue to try and resolve this with Active Domain, but I am not hopeful about the outcome.
Felgercarb!
It seems that the domain name for my website expired in late April without my realizing it. (Yes, I know, it is my responsibility to check on these things.) It has now gone into the "redemption period", which means that if I want it back, I have to pay $220 to the registration company. Mind you, this does not include the cost of actually "renewing" the domain, it merely buys me the "privilege" of being "allowed" to renew it.
The registration company claims that they sent me e-mails warning me that the domain would expire soon, which I did not respond to. Trouble is, the email they claim to have sent to does not exist! The email address was misspelled, and apparently has been that way all along, since I have not changed the contact info for the domain name since I first registered it.
Trying to resolve this has become a small nightmare. The registration company (Active Domain) will only deal with customers via e-mail, and it takes between 5 to 24+ hours to get a response to anything. Add to that the typical stupidity lack of attention/reading skills/reasoning capability of your normal front line support rep, and it becomes a REALLY LONG nightmare. Oh, and did I mention the company has absolutely no contact info listed, other than filing a support ticket?
Oh, yeah, if I do want to pay for the "privilege" of renewal, I can only do it through this one registration company - no other company is allowed to handle it. And I have to re-register it with them, as well (initially, at least).
My current options are:
1) pay the $220 plus renewal fees
2) dump the old domain name and get a new one
3) wait until the domain is "back on the market" and try to re-register it
Option 1 sucks on principle. I hate having to pay good money for bad service. And I really hate rewarding bad/nonexistent service with even more money.
Option 2 sucks because I just gave out a boatload of business cards with the old domain name to new customers at the Ardenwood show. And none of my old customers will be able to find me, either. It's like starting over.
Option 3 sucks because it is very possible that some domain squatter will snap up the domain and then expect to get a bucketful of money to sell it back to me. (Forcing me to go back to option 2.)
If this were really just my own fault, I wouldn't be so steamed. But this whole fiasco was apparently started by a typo in my original registration info - one that Active Domain should have caught before they ever allowed the registration to go through! If the original confirmation e-mail bounced, shouldn't that have raised a red flag? Shouldn't that have canceled the registration? How and why did the registration process continue if there was no way to verify/validate the information given by the registrant?
To top it off, consider this:
I currently have 3 other domain names registered through this company. All of them have exactly the same contact information as the website domain (except for the typo, of course). All of them have been registered with this company for more than 3 years. How much energy, effort, and brains would it have taken to find a way to contact me, if they had cared to? The problem is, they don't care - not about customers, not about anything. Except maybe money.
I will continue to try and resolve this with Active Domain, but I am not hopeful about the outcome.
Felgercarb!