eNom now officially sucks

[diverge]

How you could possibly say it is not the registrars fault? Does not the fact that they charge $160 for something they pay $6 offend your sense of justice? If it's not their fault, whos is it? The poor unwitting registrant who was out of town for a few months or whos spam filter caught the renewal notifications? It seems to me that most people here are domain name specialists instead average Joe who doesn't understand how this whole system works and that the registrar (eNom in this case) is more concerned with the dollar they can extract from them instead of giving good resellers who actually care and empathize with their customers the opportunity to cut them a break.

You fail to understand (or acknowledge) a few things:

1. The registrar has already given 30 days grace period before the $160 redemption period begins.
2. As best I can tell, eNom sends out three renewal notices in the last 30 days before expiration
3. eNom provides an easy auto-renewal system for those prone to forgetfulness
4. Other registrars (Network Solutions, Godaddy) will sell your domain to the highest bidder before it reaches RGP. Which would you rather do -- pay $160 to renew, or pay someone else $x,xxx to buy back your valuable domain?

Also, FWIW, making a profit does not "offend my sense of justice". This is called profit. It is essential to capitalism. Also keep in mind that it wasn't too long ago that domains cost $100 to register -- so $160 is really not all that high in the grand scheme. If Network Solutions / Verisign was still in monopolistic control of the .com registry, no doubt we'd still see prices like this -- not $6.95 per domain, that's for sure.

 

[Jernet]

when i have a domain that gets close to expiring, enom sends out tons of reminder emails. they are doing thier part. you cannot condemn them for that. i have been using them for 6 years now, and have only ever had one little problem with them. i wish i could say that about everyone else in life i deal with :evil:

here's a tip: if the name is that good, register it for more than one year. maybe 10.

 

[Theo]

Don't pay your bills for weeks past their due date and let's see how fast you rack up additional fees. It's the same principle.

 

[Dave Zan]

If at the end of the 30 days the name gets traffic or makes money, they pay the $6 to renew it.

Am I right in understanding you believe enom will pay $6 after 30 days only if
they judged name has "potential"?

For com/net/org/info/biz domains, their respective registries autorenew an
expired name and bill the registrar accordingly. The registrar can eventually
ask the registry to delete the domain and be refunded for the autorenew any
time.

Registrars, at their discretion, can give a grace period or not. What many do
not realize is that registrars do incur costs when providing a grace period for
expired names.

It appears you're "whining" about enom charging your end-users $160 when it
costs them $6. Remember that $6 is to renew expired (but not deleted) .com
domains, the $160 is the registry-imposed fee plus admin fee to pull out those
that have been deleted but are in RGP/PDR.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in understanding how you see it.)

They disregard the fact that resellers have on numerous occasions asked for the option to point the expired domain to a generic landing page designed by the reseller.

Last I checked no registrar accepts any changes for expired names. Does any
person here know of an exception?

And the thing that bugs me the most is the fact that the poor end user is unaware of all of this and can not be made aware of this unless the reseller wants to tell them and risk the chance that eNom will scoop them as direct resellers of their own (which they have done on several occasions to me personally).

Yeah, well, the reality is many (I'd say most) domain registrants don't know or
even care. All we can do is inform as many as we possibly can, then let them
decide.

 

[katherine]

If registrants let their names expire they are the only one to blame.
The 30-day or so grace period after expiry is a courtesy not a right.

Unfortunately registrars are now taking advantage of the redemption period as a way to squeeze more money out of domain holders.
I understand reactivating a name in redemption involves a manual process that most registrars charge up to $200.
If Dynadot can do that for less than 70 bucks (http://www.dynadot.com/company/prices.html) then presumably some registrars are making greedy margins on the operation.

 

[Together]

Am I right in understanding you believe enom will pay $6 after 30 days only if
they judged name has "potential"?

Correct. They monitor it for 30 days and if it looks like it has traffic potential they renew.

Registrars, at their discretion, can give a grace period or not. What many do
not realize is that registrars do incur costs when providing a grace period for
expired names.

Incorrect. It costs registrars nothing to offer a grace period as they may delete the name at anytime and be refunded the full amount from the registry.

It appears you're "whining" about enom charging your end-users $160 when it
costs them $6. Remember that $6 is to renew expired (but not deleted) .com
domains, the $160 is the registry-imposed fee plus admin fee to pull out those
that have been deleted but are in RGP/PDR..

Incorrect again. The $160 is an eNom imposed fee and has nothing to do with RGP. They never send the name into redemption and therefore pay the registry their standard $6.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in understanding how you see it.)..

Consider yourself corrected.

All we can do is inform as many as we possibly can, then let them
decide.

Although this a great theory it doesn't work too well for the reseller that does not agree with the gouging but still wishes for their supplier to remain anonymous.

Don't pay your bills for weeks past their due date and let's see how fast you rack up additional fees. It's the same principle.

A big BS to this idea.

If any company in the real world tried this, they would be shut down under extortion and loan sharking laws.

 

[Dave Zan]

Incorrect. It costs registrars nothing to offer a grace period as they may delete the name at anytime and be refunded the full amount from the registry.

http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois/faq.html

Why is the Registrar requesting that I renew my domain name when the Registry Whois expiration date shows that it has been renewed for one year?

When a domain name reaches its expiration date and is not renewed by the registrar, the Registry system performs an auto-renew on the domain name. The auto-renew extends the expiration date for one year whether or not the registrar has received payment from the registrant. For example:

Example.com is set to expire on March 27th, 2003. The following events will occur:

a. If the registrar does not renew this name with their registry prior to March 27th, the Registry will auto-renew the name for one year; even in cases where the registrant has not renewed the registration with their registrar.

b. The Registry auto-renews domain names the day after they expire. Therefore, on March 28th, the Registry will auto-renew the domain name for one year on March 28th.

c. On March 28th, the new expiry date will now read March 27, 2004.

d. The registrar then has 45 days during which they may delete the registration and receive a credit for the registry fee.

Re: b: the Registry isn't going to autorenew an expired name from their own
pocket. They're going to charge the sponsoring registrar for that.

Note in letter d that registrars receive a credit for the autorenew once they
tell the Registry to delete the record. Monte and the other dnf members who
run registrars will confirm that.

Incorrect again. The $160 is an eNom imposed fee and has nothing to do with RGP. They never send the name into redemption and therefore pay the registry their standard $6.

Can the other enom resellers verify this? I just have the feeling something's
mixed up, although I can be wrong.

 

[Together]

[Re: b: the Registry isn't going to autorenew an expired name from their own
pocket. They're going to charge the sponsoring registrar for that..

The point you are confused about here is that enom never even sends the name into redemption so the registry has nothing to do with it. They have their own form of RGP whereby they pay for the renewal of a domain before it is ever sent to the registry(A total expenditure of $6) then they charge the registrant $160 ( A profit of $151) to renew their own domain name.

Can the other enom resellers verify this? I just have the feeling something's
mixed up, although I can be wrong.

It sure sounds mixed up doesn't it? How could a registrar never even send a name into redemption and then justify charging the original registrant $160 for something they paid $6 for? Most eNom resellers don't know this and that is why I posted it.

 

[Rubber Duck]

The point you are confused about here is that enom never even sends the name into redemption so the registry has nothing to do with it. They have their own form of RGP whereby they pay for the renewal of a domain before it is ever sent to the registry(A total expenditure of $6) then they charge the registrant $160 ( A profit of $151) to renew their own domain name.

It sure sounds mixed up doesn't it? How could a registrar never even send a name into redemption and then justify charging the original registrant $160 for something they paid $6 for? Most eNom resellers don't know this and that is why I posted it.

Your argument presupposes that Enom reregister all the dropping names and all these domains are actually worth something. Most domains that go past their renewal date are junk, pure and simple. If Enom is selectively renewing then they are putting a great deal of time and effort as with any speculator.
If not they are playing the percentages, but ending up with a lot of useless junk. Either way you have neglected considerable cost from your simplistic calculation.

I have used Enom in the past, but choose not to at the moment. I have no particular alleagences here, but frankly I feel sorry for Enom and to a lesser extent yourself for becoming so emotionally involved. Your customers should either pay up or shut up! Frankly, if I were Enom I would prevent you acting as their agent, as by attacking them on this forum you have in my opinion shown a breach of trust that most businesses would not tolerate!

Dave Wrixon

 

[StockDoctor]

Together you have it correct,
and it's even much worse if we really want to rehash all this. Like most of the registrars out there now, Enom has been putting more and more anti-registrant and pro-enom profit policies in place for a while now. Read the TOS sometime and most domainers would be shocked at what they are agreeing to when they reg a name there. They change the TOS and you do 1 more renewal or reg and you're locked in on your entire portfolio. That said, I have several accounts with them and was one of the idgits that paid the $thousands to get the special pricing originally. In my opinion they are getting pretty slimy with all this stuff, since auctioning names for profit took precedence over their customer. They cherry pick names as "Together" alluded to, pulling names at different grace period lengths based on what they want to pick up for themselves. Renewal options displayed often don't function on the best names in an expired account and they somehow fail to deliver renewal notices on some. I could go on and on and on, but it's been covered in depth in previous threads.

The people here who say dumb stuff like (reg it for 10 years if it's so valuable) evidently speak from small holdings. $72 for 10 year is not a big deal on 1 name. It is a big deal on 10k names.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Together you have it correct,
and it's even much worse if we really want to rehash all this. Like most of the registrars out there now, Enom has been putting more and more anti-registrant and pro-enom profit policies in place for a while now. Read the TOS sometime and most domainers would be shocked at what they are agreeing to when they reg a name there. They change the TOS and you do 1 more renewal or reg and you're locked in on your entire portfolio. That said, I have several accounts with them and was one of the idgits that paid the $thousands to get the special pricing originally. In my opinion they are getting pretty slimy with all this stuff, since auctioning names for profit took precedence over their customer. They cherry pick names as "Together" alluded to, pulling names at different grace period lengths based on what they want to pick up for themselves. Renewal options displayed often don't function on the best names in an expired account and they somehow fail to deliver renewal notices on some. I could go on and on and on, but it's been covered in depth in previous threads.

The people here who say dumb stuff like (reg it for 10 years if it's so valuable) evidently speak from small holdings. $72 for 10 year is not a big deal on 1 name. It is a big deal on 10k names.

All I can say is transfer to another registry. You'll probably get a better deal anyway. I use www.domainsite.com and www.directi.com. Both seem excellent and affordable. Transfer to each is fairly hassle free and pretty cheap!

If you don't like the service, why bitch when you can walk?

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[StockDoctor]

All I can say is transfer to another registry. You'll probably get a better deal anyway. I use www.domainsite.com and www.directi.com. Both seem excellent and affordable. Transfer to each is fairly hassle free and pretty cheap!

If you don't like the service, why bitch when you can walk?

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

That is exactly the point here Dave.

Walking is easy when you have a small number of names. But when you have a large portfolio and Enom changes their TOS to some really sneaky crap, (like whois manipulation or mock-redemptions) what do you do? Lay out another $70k+ to move immediately, or spend time moving every single name as it comes up for renewal rather than renew and subject your entire portfolio to Enom's bull? Enom knows this, aren't afraid of losing your business, will put in whatever internal policies they want, and know you are basically locked in.

Tomorrows discussion "What's wrong with GoDaddy and Wildwest"

So many of the registrars are starting to stink.

 

[Rubber Duck]

That is exactly the point here Dave.

Walking is easy when you have a small number of names. But when you have a large portfolio and Enom changes their TOS to some really sneaky crap, (like whois manipulation or mock-redemptions) what do you do? Lay out another $70k+ to move immediately, or spend time moving every single name as it comes up for renewal rather than renew and subject your entire portfolio to Enom's bull? Enom knows this, aren't afraid of losing your business, will put in whatever internal policies they want, and know you are basically locked in.

Tomorrows discussion "What's wrong with GoDaddy and Wildwest"

So many of the registrars are starting to stink.

As most of my English domains are dropped I must be familiar with just about every registery on the planet and believe me some of them are really awful. I don't really mess around with dropa now as that scene is has been screwed up.

Don't need advising on the problems of Go Daddy and Wild West as I have transferred everything out there as well!

Bulk management is a bit of a problem, especially if cash flow is tight.

My advice would be to organise a month at a time and transfer in relatively large blocks. I find transferring is the easy bit. It is sorting out which domains, I need to face the truth and let drop that is the problem. This is a subjective and time consuming process, but I believe review before renewal is essential, unless of course they are all paying their keep, then there isn't an issue!

Another problem is that I keep getting renewal notices from registries still show domains after they have been transferred away 12 months or more!

If you have a lot of domains to manage you need a registrar with a good interface, as well as being price competitive and easy to deal with. Good phone support is a must!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[mole]

Moral of the story; Get your names you want renewed on time. Better yet, just activate the autorenew feature.

I think its great that registrars like eNom are getting strict on those registrants who don't understand the meaning of 'renew'. It allows names that are being sat on by no longer motivated individuals to get back to the pool quicker, which is a good thing for people who really want those names.

 

[Biggie]

i like enom

club drop has gotten me some good names.

i can always call a rep, if an issues occurs.

they have solved every issue thus far.

as mole touched on....... my domains are set to renew automatically.

those that i decide to let drop, now that's a manual and mental effort.