Bad day - Domain inaccessable

[sj2000]

Bad day today.
My hosting has seemed to have died (Site, email and phone) without warning and/or has packed up and left, ditching everyone in the process. Even if they haven't left, they still suck and I wish to change.
Their website and my website have been down for a week and so is their support website.
The fact is my email and my hosting are gone and I wish to transfer my old domain to a new host.
But I have no idea which company my old hosting registered my old domain with and the WHOis emails attached to my website link back to my old hostings contact email which is dead.
Do I need to wait for my domain to expire before I reregister my domain?

[smokie]

Bad day today.
My hosting has seemed to have died (Site, email and phone) without warning and/or has packed up and left, ditching everyone in the process. Even if they haven't left, they still suck and I wish to change.
Their website and my website have been down for a week and so is their support website.
The fact is my email and my hosting are gone and I wish to transfer my old domain to a new host.
But I have no idea which company my old hosting registered my old domain with and the WHOis emails attached to my website link back to my old hostings contact email which is dead.
Do I need to wait for my domain to expire before I reregister my domain?
If your domain is registered by anothers person or company other than yours they own it. As for getting it back, you may luck out and they transfer it into your name.

[markblair]

I think what he means is that if he tries to transfer the domain, it will e-mail the admin contact for approval. Since he can't access that e-mail right now, he won't be able to get that message. I'm not sure what the solution would be but accessing the admin e-mail account is required and not being able to may prevent you from at least transferring the domain. Do you have control over the domain? For example, can you login to the registrar account and modify the name servers?

[J.C]

From the statement he wrote, I don’t think he has the required access. You may
still be able to get it back. What is the domain extension, .com, .co.uk, .net?

[nameslave]

But I have no idea which company my old hosting registered my old domain with
If it is a gTLD (i.e. .com, .net or .org, etc.), go to:

http://www.internic.net/whois.html

You will be able to tell the "(sponsoring) registrar".

By the way, it's a rule NOT to get a domain AND the hosting with the same service provider; so when something bad happens to the latter, you simply switch hosting real-time. And you are really patient in waiting for like a week: anything over 3 days is totally unbearable.

[sj2000]

They finally rang me, they host their server at their house and it was robbed! Their servers were taken and their mobile phones among other things. They told me what service they used to register the domain with, so thank you anyway.

[smokie]

off subject and sorry for your bad luck, I wonder if they new there mac address on there servers and could they be located on the net with a search of somesort ????

[Brian S]

They finally rang me, they host their server at their house and it was robbed!
That's a new one...

[biggly]

On the same kind of thing, I too made the mistake of hosting and domain purchase through the same company (Globedomain). Get hosting service, get free domain registration. Nice.

Globedomain was taken over and after a great deal of hassle they finally accepted that my hosting account was paid for again recently - but have let my domain expire. Where my site should be there is a SPAM page but helpfully a little link for me to renew.

Says I have 5 days to do so, that was 3 days ago.

I have tried using that link but it does not recognise my email address, I've tried writing to their 'support' and have had no reply after 2 emails, 3 now.

A WHOIS shows me, complete with email address, as the owner of the domain, though it does indeed expire (on the 15th, it is now the 19th).

The hosting company is useless, their 'support' response to me asking just what was going on was 'Looks like your domain has expired'

Yeah thanks pal.

The domain is with hqdomain, who I'd never heard of before this farce, buying the domain via Globedomain. Although the WHOIS shows me and my email, the hqdomain site does not recognise me as a customer, because I guess I'm not their customer, Globedomain is.

Is there not some kind of high-level dispute resolution thingy in existence for this kind of abuse?

Seems to me the site was doing well so they've either stolen the domain or because of the sheer quanitity of problems with this hosting company they know I'll not renew with them again so just don't care and are letting my site die.

Bear in mind my site is my income.


'elp?


B.

[Chicken]

...but have let my domain expire. Where my site should be there is a SPAM page but helpfully a little link for me to renew.
I'm not sure what is typcial, however I'd say that it's not unrealistic to expect to pay for the domain after the first year (if it was "free" when you signed up for the account).
I have tried using that link but it does not recognise my email address, I've tried writing to their 'support' and have had no reply after 2 emails, 3 now.

A WHOIS shows me, complete with email address, as the owner of the domain, though it does indeed expire (on the 15th, it is now the 19th).

The domain is with hqdomain Although the WHOIS shows me and my email, the hqdomain site does not recognise me as a customer, because I guess I'm not their customer, Globedomain is.
Can you post (or PM) the domain name? I'd like to look at the whois to see what is listed there. If your name is on the domain as the registrant, then you should be able to contact hqdomain (or whomever they resell for) and request access to the account (say you lost the password, etc.). They should be able to send you login info to the email address listed, which you've said is yours. In theory.

Try it (though you may already have)...
http://hqdomain.myorderbox.com/anacreon/ForgotPassword.jsp?pid=46117&from=splashpage

[biggly]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I re-checked the WHOIS today and now it has changed:

Domain Name: *****.COM
Registrar: DIRECT INFORMATION PVT. LTD., DBA DIRECTI.COM
Whois Server: whois.directi.com
Referral URL: http://www.directi.com
Name Server: DNS.PARKPAGE.FOUNDATIONAPI.COM
Name Server: DNS2.PARKPAGE.FOUNDATIONAPI.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 16-sep-2005
Creation Date: 15-sep-2004
Expiration Date: 15-sep-2006

So I contacted "directi"

Got this:

On Sep 19, 2005 1:28 PM (GMT) Peter Wrote:
Hello,

You definitely are the Registrant for the domain name *****.com.

But the domain name has been registered via a Reseller of DirectI. As per company policy we only provide support to DirectI Resellers/Customers of DirectI.

Thus you are requested to contact the parent Reseller for further support. The contact details of your Reseller are listed below:

Company Name: HqDomain.com
Email Address: domain@globedomain.com
Name: Ankur Motreja
Address: 399, 5th cross,Gokulam III stage.
City: Mysore
Zip: 570002
State: Karnataka
Country: India
Tel No.: +91.9844400822

Have a nice day!

Regards,

Peter."


This AFTER I told them the reason I was writing to them in the first place is because I cannot get any response from globedomain!!!!?!!??!!!?!?

Have a nice day?

What rubbish is this?

Regarding paying for the 2nd year, sure, no problem, it's just that having got the domain through Globedomain I presumed I'd be billed for it this year but they only billed the hosting and let the domain die. The money is not the issue, both hosting and domain are cheap enough, the problem is my members are p'ed, my site's offline and it looks like I'm losing the domain as none of the 3 different companies involved is willing to accept responsibility for it.

I'd be less concerned if it were not for a similar experience last year, where stupidly I mentioned the domain while enquiring with a company, went to sign up the next day and found the domain sold "but available for only $500!!"

I've built traffic to this domain, paid out for a logo design, written a book with the domain in the title, I cannot afford to lose the thing due to incompetent shifty companies. Nor do I fancy trying to snap it back up again when it comes on the market, I have no faith whatsover in these people not making it "available for sale!!"

Seems without hi-priced lawyers any internet business is dangling on a thread of trust with domain companies, who haven't given me the slightest reason to trust them.


At the moment it seems my only option is to find a DECENT domain name company and register the .net and .org versions.

How do you know what domain company to trust? Seems to me there is zero oversight of any of this, any company can just take your name whenever they feel like it.


B

[nameslave]

Since you are listed as the registrant, it's a good start. Your best bet now is to renew the domain with Directi. You may want to make clear to them that you are NOT able to do so with the current reseller; as the domain name itself has expired, ask them to prioritize the issue and/or ask to speak to a higher level support. One of the options here may involve transferring to another Directi reseller (of their recommendation); by letting them know that you are willing to stay with this registrar might help a bit. Good luck.

[biggly]

This is what I put:

"Have a nice day!

Regards,

Peter.

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On Sep 19, 2005 2:59 PM (GMT) AC Wrote:
I'm not having a nice day in the slightest.

I have already told you I CANNOT CONTACT hqdomain.com and Globedomain is refusing to help.

Can you give me the user name and password so I can access hqdomain's CP and renew from there? If I put my email address, the one the domain is registered to, it comes up "unrecognised" so no, the "lost password" thing doesn't work.

I understand your policy but I am not asking for technical support, just a little humanity and common sense from someone somewhere instead of being blanked and shoved from company to company while my domain is expiring. I'm told i have until the 25th to renew it - how exactly? Globedomain give no answer other than "it's expired", hqdomain don't respond at all and you tell me to contact globedomain?

Put it this way, if you were me, what would YOU do?


AC

(I then added:)

On Sep 19, 2005 4:53 PM (GMT) AC Wrote:
Is there any way I can renew the domain directly though you?

According to your site in this situation I should contact "compliance" but clicking the compliance link simply puts me back on the same page:

http://www.directi.com/contactus/compliance

Could you please:

A. recommend an alternative reseller client of yours and arrange for transfer and renewal, advising of fees and who to pay

or B: Allow me to renew directly with yourself

and C: please put me in touch with a higher-level support or this "compliance" section, as I cannot believe your company would be happy to see a domain deleted while you have an existing customer trying to renew it.

Thank you."


I'll let you know what the response is, if any. :eek:


B.

[Chicken]

Let us know, sounds like you're at least asking the right questions (which is a good start).

[biggly]

Well things are now starting to move, Globedomain has now responded and asked if I'm willing to pay an additional $10?

Lemme think.. thinking thinking.. thunk.

YES!


:bigeyes:


Fingers crossed.. have replied in the affirmative, awaiting reply..

In the meantime Directi have got back to me with the address of a pdf form to be downloaded, printed and faxed to them, which is vastly more helpful than the previous response.

Things deffo looking up, though I still find it disturbing how easy it is to lose a domain. It's not a pleasant feeling to be hanging around waiting for an email response, which in the case of hqdomain still hasn't appeared. You just feel completely powerless. Happily Globedomain seems to have picked up the ball again. Dunno if they were leaned on by Directi or just realised that as I have no other means of renewal it IS down to them to help. I wont be entirely happy until I see my site back online.

I noticed a thread somewhere on here asking "Would you pay for a domain over 5 years?" and my answer would be 'definetly', in fact would happily buy a 10 year domain if I were confident of some form of oversight and dispute resolution availability. More expensive but longer term domains might reduce the sheer volume of spam sites out there too.

Thanks for giving me space to rant guys, again will keep you posted on progress. :)


B.