Hostway / Domain People screwing me...

[mgstudent]

Ok now I have always liked Hostway. That is until the other day.

I receive an email from Domain People (who own hostway) telling me that one of my favourite domains from my account has expired and is in the redemption period and if I want it back I have to pay $100.

The thing that's got me annoyed is that I can'r remember receiving any emails from them about this domain expiring and needing renewing. The main thing is that when I log into my hostway account it shows that this domain doesn't expire for another 10 months!

They even show that it expires in 300 days!!!!

But I have checked the whois externally from the hostway site and it says that it has already expired and is in redemption.

I really feel screwed over. The discrepancy in expiration dates is Oct/06 (whois telling me this) and oct/07 (what hostway tells me when I log into the portal and view the domains in my account).

I now have to manually check each domain in my hostway account through whois because I cannot trust the expiry dates that hostaway is showing! How ridiculous is that?

I have taken screenshots and emailed these to hostway/domain people, but they have told me that I have to pay the $100 to get it out of redemption.

If after logging into their portal showed the correct whois expiry date I would have renewed it on time. But it's stilll showing Oct 07 there... :veryangry:


HHas anyone else had this problem with hostway?

Any advice on what I can do?

Of course I don't mind paying the $8 to renew each year... but I feel like they have screwed me out of $100 if I end up paying the redemption fee...

:upset:

 

[jdk]

The reason it shows it expires in 300 days is likely the registrar renewed it on your behalf and is charging the normal fee for expired domains in redemption period. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do except pay the fee, or let the name expire and drop.

This has happened to the best of us. Seeing it is your favorite name you should perhaps renew it for several years in advance so you do not forget to renew again.

 

[mgstudent]

I will wait to see what they have to say, but other domains in my hostway account that I have let expired have the number of days that they they are past due next to them.

Therefore, it doesn't seem plausible that they have renewed these names for me and are wanting me to pay the $100. Plus the whois is in redemption now. None of my other names have gone through this mess with Hostway....

Plus with other domains in my account they have previously emailed me a month, a week, and a day before the expiry... with this name I didn't receive a thing!

1 guy I spoke with at Hostway said that it looks like the renewal request might not have reached their system! So I'm now trying to find out if I have actually paid for a failed renewal...

either way - it's a shame that a company can go from my favourite to worst!

 

[jdk]

I have never used Hostway; however, I wish you the best.

 

[jberryhill]

I receive an email from Domain People (who own hostway) telling me that one of my favourite domains from my account has expired and is in the redemption period and if I want it back I have to pay $100.

The thing that's got me annoyed is that I can'r remember receiving any emails from them about this domain expiring and needing renewing.

Your post almost seems intentionally written to avoid the central question it raises, i.e. when did you register the domain name and how long a term did you pay for?

When a domain name reaches expiration, there is a registrar-registry auto-renew period of, I think, 30 days during which the registrar may auto-renew the domain name, and the registry expiration date will be advanced by one year. If, however, the registrant doesn't renew during that time, then the registrar is credited back the renewal, and the domain name proceeds to redemption status.

So, looping back around to the main question - when did you register the domain name and how long a term did you pay for?

 

[mgstudent]

Your post almost seems intentionally written to avoid the central question it raises, i.e. when did you register the domain name and how long a term did you pay for?

jberryhill, you couldn't be further from the truth.

I am baffled as to how you can think that there is something sinister about this thread, that I am trying to intentionally avoid saying something... very baffling...:greenconfused:


After more communication with them it seems as though I did renew a batch of domains through their site and one domain within the batch didn't get renewed however the renewal was reflected in my control panel, and so it seemed to me that this name had been renewed. When in fact it hadn't been.


I'm not avoiding anything. To answer your question I registered the domain about 3 years ago and renew it each year.

I have over 200 domains with a bunch of registrars. I haven't had a problem where misinformation has led me to believe that a name was "safe" when it had infact expired!

The point of this post isn't to avoid anything.

I'll break the point of me posting down for you:

1. I'm pissed and so wanted to vent
2. If others had experience of this (with Hostway/other registrars) then maybe some nice person could offer me useful advice.
3. If I end up having to pay the redemption fee despite Hostway explaining in an email that it seems their system didn't fully process my renewal request, then I want to let other people know that they are at risk if they have domains with Hostway.


If there is anyone out there who might be able to offer advice, then please let me know. Otherwise I'll just move my domains from Hostway and try and reflect on the lesson learned.

With over 200 names with several registrars it's very difficult for me to know when each of them are expiring. I think that's true for most of us. So I simply have relied on logging into the 8 registrars I have domains with, and renewing any that look like they are about to expire. Or I renew some of them for longer periods. Also of course, if I receive an email telling me that a domain will expire in a month, I will renew it if I want to keep it.

This is what I have done but with Hostway this isn't enough. I would have to check the whois information to get reliable information on expiry dates (rather than believe the info in their control panel for my account). This to me is ridiculous.:disappointed:

Keeping track of domain expiry dates is something that of course I'm responsible for. If i mess up and let the drop by mistake then that's my fault and I'll learn from it. But in this case, the misinformation in Hostway's control panel, and no warning emails from them have aided in this. And then there's the key bit that the renewal request for a batch of domains only processed some of them.


ps/ jberryhill, you quoted a tiny part of what I posted. If you read through the rest - I'd hope that things would be clearer for you. If you still think that something is sinister here with my post, or that I'm trying to avoid saying something, then stay out of my thread....
This whole thing is pissing me off right now and you are just antagonizing the situation for me.

 

[Dave Zan]

If I end up having to pay the redemption fee despite Hostway explaining in an email that it seems their system didn't fully process my renewal request, then I want to let other people know that they are at risk if they have domains with Hostway.

This is one reality you'd have to expect with every registrar.

During the 4 years I've worked with one in particular, I've had like 2 redemption
requests for domain names that were accidentally deleted due to nonpayment.
The 2 customers in those cases did show proof they renewed before, and we
eventually verified our systems indeed didn't process them for whatever reason.

So we eventually redeemed the domain names for them and waived the fees.
We apologized for the unintended inconvenience, of course.

It's been almost a year since I left. Last I checked with my friends no one has
gotten anything similar (yet), but it's probably too soon to tell.

The questions John (jberryhill) posed are legitimate: when did you register the
domain name and how long was it for. Your answering those questions might
shed a little more light.

Now from what you've posted, it suggests Hostway indeed never received the
renewal payment for the domain name in question. We'll never really know 'til
someone there gives their side of the story, which they don't have to do at
all.

Here's the bottom line: if you can "prove" you indeed renewed those domain
names on time, and the registrar in question is able to verify on their side that
their systems indeed didn't process the renewals like it should, then they just
might...might...redeem the domain name and possibly waive the fee/s.

Unfortunately they don't have to do that either. That's what legal disclaimers
are for.

Worse comes to worse, you might as well bite the bullet and pay the fees to
redeem the domain name. Then move them out when you can.

It sucks, yes. But things can and do happen, that's why we do what we can
under the circumstances.

Whether you believe anyone else here is "antagonizing" the situation further is
up to you. But only you can decide what's urgently more important.

 

[mgstudent]

Thanks Dave,

I will try to post in a couple of days when this is cleared up 1 way or another.

This is one reality you'd have to expect with every registrar.

I guess this is true. In terms of what has happened here it means not expecting the renewal request to go through, and not believing the dates that the control panel is showing. In future I will have to check for whois changes after I renew each domain.

I checked the legal disclaimer and it appears that you're right - they don't have to do anything about paying the redemption fee if they are at fault for the domain renewal request not going through. We'll see.

Whether you believe anyone else here is "antagonizing" the situation further is up to you. But only you can decide what's urgently more important.

Not too sure what this means. Being antagonized and sorting out this problem are independent.

I guess I just can't bite my tongue when someone says that I've intentionally written something to avoid saying something. Like I had some weird motive for posting or something... I am still baffled.


Thanks to all those who have helped and those who have PM'ed me too.
Really appreciate it.

 

[jberryhill]

I guess I just can't bite my tongue when someone says that I've intentionally written something to avoid saying something. Like I had some weird motive for posting or something... I am still baffled.

I have no idea why you are so bent out of shape. If you can't figure out "almost seems as if", then get some help reading it.

Regardless of what the Hostway control panel shows, it seems pretty basic to be able to know when was the last time you paid for its renewal, and how long you renewed for. That basic information was missing from your initial post.

If you want some nice person to give you advice, here it is - keep track of your domain data independent of any hosting service, registrar, or other service provider.

As long as you continue to rely on other people to keep track of that data, then you are going to remain vulnerable to those other people not keeping track of it in ways that you expect. That's not only true of Hostway, but true of any registrar, hosting provider, or other service provider.

It often happens here that someone starts a thread by going on about how they have been the victim of a cosmic injustice, but there are always details which don't seem to make it into those posts, because nobody ever wants to admit there is something they might have done to prevent it from happening. That's not a "sinister" motive, it is simple human nature.

The title of your original post is that Hostway and/or Domain People are "screwing you". I'm curious to know what intentional thing they have done to you, and for what purpose?

 

[jdk]

I have no idea why you are so bent out of shape. If you can't figure out "almost seems as if", then get some help reading it.

Regardless of what the Hostway control panel shows, it seems pretty basic to be able to know when was the last time you paid for its renewal, and how long you renewed for. That basic information was missing from your initial post.

If you want some nice person to give you advice, here it is - keep track of your domain data independent of any hosting service, registrar, or other service provider.

As long as you continue to rely on other people to keep track of that data, then you are going to remain vulnerable to those other people not keeping track of it in ways that you expect. That's not only true of Hostway, but true of any registrar, hosting provider, or other service provider.

It often happens here that someone starts a thread by going on about how they have been the victim of a cosmic injustice, but there are always details which don't seem to make it into those posts, because nobody ever wants to admit there is something they might have done to prevent it from happening. That's not a "sinister" motive, it is simple human nature.

The title of your original post is that Hostway and/or Domain People are "screwing you". I'm curious to know what intentional thing they have done to you, and for what purpose?

Amen. What gets me is people posting here for legal advice, receive it for a respectable lawyer, and bash it. If you are not prepared for the answer, don't post the question.

Jberryhill for 2008!

 

[mgstudent]

If you can't figure out "almost seems as if", then get some help reading it.

Please. If you think that was what I was refering to then get your head checked. It was your use of 'intentionally'. An accusation made of someone requesting help.

Regardless of what the Hostway control panel shows...

Regardless? Why regardless? Surely this is important. There will be a lot of people holding domains who will trust this information. If they have 50 domains with 1 registrar are they going to:

(a) do whois checks on all 50 domains?
(b) login to their account and see which ones are showing that they are about to expire?

Probably (b)

Regardless of what the Hostway control panel shows, it seems pretty basic to be able to know when was the last time you paid for its renewal, and how long you renewed for. That basic information was missing from your initial post.

Does it seem pretty basic to know exact dates? of 200 domains?
If I was to pick one of your domains and ask you when it is due to expire would you know? or would you login to see? or would you check the whois?

I think a lot of people would do what I did and check in their regisrar's control panel! That's what I did and the information was wrong.

It often happens here that someone starts a thread by going on about how they have been the victim of a cosmic injustice, but there are always details which don't seem to make it into those posts, because nobody ever wants to admit there is something they might have done to prevent it from happening. That's not a "sinister" motive, it is simple human nature.

Do you still not believe that some injustice has occurred here?
This is what's baffling to me, especially from your reaction as a lawyer.

Surely as more information comes to light (as it has done in this thread) this is more evidence and yet dispite growing evidence (I spoke about my batch renewal request, checking to see if I had paid for a failed renewal request - which I did pay and have the invoice, control panel screenshots) you still use this thread to provoke rather than understand and help in any constructive way.

Amen. What gets me is people posting here for legal advice...

Amen? This is like flaming on Usenet. Or children in a school yard.

...receive it for a respectable lawyer, and bash it.

I didn't receive anything of use from him. A respectable lawyer would have asked questions without accusing or insulting. I bashed him for implying that I was "intentionally avoiding" saying something.

If you are not prepared for the answer, don't post the question.

I'm prepared for constructive answers or questions about what I post, afterall, why else would I post a message about this.

One thing that I will admit is that maybe my post should have gone into a different forum. It is pretty clear now that legal advice on this forum is a joke! :sigh2:

For anyone who is interested, Hostway emailed me as I was typing this and have said that it seems their system failed to 'sync' at the time that the renewal request went through. Therefore, they will waive the redemption fee.

I wouldn't stretch to jberryhill's "cosmic injustice" but it was unfair what was happening. And now it's been resolved (justice).

So maybe the bit of good that this thread may leave is the fact that Hostway will honor a failed renewal request and will pay the redemption fee if the domain gets that far.


(It also seems as though the control panel showing 300+ days was due to the my renewal and not because they renewed the domain in the redemption period.)

 

[jberryhill]

I think a lot of people would do what I did and check in their regisrar's control panel! That's what I did and the information was wrong.

...and while I realize that you believe Hostway is a registrar, they do not appear to be one.

Some time ago, "Domain People" merged into them, but it's not clear to me how well integrated their hosting and domain registration units are.

And if I say it "almost seems as if X" then what that phrase means is that I don't believe X, but the circumstances look odd. You are extrapolating well beyond what I said for reasons I cannot fathom.

For anyone who is interested, Hostway emailed me as I was typing this and have said that it seems their system failed to 'sync' at the time that the renewal request went through. Therefore, they will waive the redemption fee.

And looking at another thread, someone else is having trouble with the fact that Hostway, which is not a registrar, appears not to have real time access to the registry.

And, yes, people who register lots of domain names, and I have had clients with 150,000+ domain names, rely on their own tracking systems to make sure that they aren't being screwed on renewals, and to make sure that renewals are timely.

If the takeaway here is "Hostway has a dodgy system, but they will fix things if it goes bad, so you should rely on Hostway's CP", then I would suggest not relying on Hostway's CP in the future.

 

[mgstudent]

...and while I realize that you believe Hostway is a registrar, they do not appear to be one.

I think that the merger has affected the system integration. I was aware about Domain People and Hostway merging, but it's funny you mentioned that Hostway aren't the registrar themselves - this is what I thought to until part of an earlier email from "[email protected]" mentioned this:

[email protected][/email]]
When your domain goes into redemption period, the additional fee is paid to the regisTRY. We, the registRAR, can not do anything about this fee. If you do not want to pay the redemption fee, you will have to wait 75 days after the expiration date, when the domain will be available again. Please let us know if you have further questions.

So it's not whether I believe they are the registrar, but what's interesting is that they think they are (whether that's true or not. Or most likely the guy's email is from the standpoint of a Domain People employee - even though he's emailing me from a hostway account, and at no point had he mentioned Domain People)

This doesn't seem all this important though, especially now that this has been resolved.

And if I say it "almost seems as if X" then what that phrase means is that I don't believe X, but the circumstances look odd.

This is more a question of English and interpretation. But you are saying that something looks odd with what I posted?! That's what I had the problem with.

And, yes, people who register lots of domain names, and I have had clients with 150,000+ domain names, rely on their own tracking systems to make sure that they aren't being screwed on renewals, and to make sure that renewals are timely.

How far will this go though. I have learnt not to 100% trust what I see in the control panel. But the paranoid among us would have a good argument to question your clients who rely on their software (in the same way that I relied on Hostway's software).

Can you see what I'm getting at?
I'm not trying to argue here. But from a user perspective, Hostway's software should be accurate or have measures in place (such as an email a week/month before the domain expires) to prevent the problem which happened in my case.

From what you've said about it being silly to rely on Hostway's control panel expiry dates, may be it's silly for your clients to rely on their software to control 150,000 domains!

Of course it isn't sily in either case.

At the end of the day the tradeoff is risk and effort. It will always be a balance and there will always be software that we have to rely on.

I have just had my eyes opened to a risk that I thought was negligible.

If the takeaway here is "Hostway has a dodgy system, but they will fix things if it goes bad, so you should rely on Hostway's CP", then I would suggest not relying on Hostway's CP in the future.

Can you point me to anywhere in this thread that I have said that? From my very first post I would hope that one message would be that Hostway's control panel cannot be trusted or relied on in any way. I really thought that was very clear.

I think this thread is pretty much done now. Maybe another error I made is using the title I did for the thread. Just in my frustration at Hostway's first response. But things have all worked out and no damage done.

Thanks again for all those who helped especially the PM's about the best people to contact at Hostway and Domain People, that definitely helped speed this whole thing up. :yes:

 

[jberryhill]

So it's not whether I believe they are the registrar, but what's interesting is that they think they are

That's the weird part, IMHO. I looked at their domain registration agreement, and it even says "HOSTWAY". I can't see the point of that, if Hostway is not the registrar.

Since, among other things, my office collects the membership fees for the ICANN Registrar Constituency, "Hostway" as a registrar didn't ring a bell for me, so I looked at the authoritative list:

http://www.iana.org/assignments/registrar-ids

No Hostway.

Then I looked at this:

http://www.help.hostway.com/documents/faq_domainnameregs.htm

What is a registrar? Who is ICANN?
A registrar is a company that has been licensed by ICANN to register domain names for the public. Hostway currently works with AAAQ and DomainPeopel, [sic] ICANN-accredited registrars, to process domain name registrations.

ICANN stands for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. It is a non-profit organization composed of various stakeholders in the Internet space and governs domain name registrations.


Who are AAAQ and DomainPeople?
AAAQ and DomainPeople are the domain name registrars Hostway has partnered with to process domain name registrations. On the Whois record for your domain name, AAAQ or DomainPeople will be listed as the domain name registrar. In particular, DomainPeople is the registrar for .info, .pro, and .us domain names.

So, no, I'm not participating in this thread for the purpose of picking on you. I'm trying to figure out whether Hostway is misrepresenting itself as a registrar in the first place. It's odd that their support email says that they are, but their FAQ makes it clear that Hostway doesn't hold its own registrar cred.

There are a lot of hosting companies which are either registration service resellers or registrar affiliates which do not make it clear that they are not registrars, and thus do not have direct, live access to the registry. Because of that, all sorts of ungood things can occur, as noted in this thread and the concurrent thread about suspected search snooping...

 

[Dave Zan]

This doesn't seem all this important though, especially now that this has been resolved.

Then perhaps this thread should be closed, if that's the case.

 

[Anthony Ng]

... I'm trying to figure out whether Hostway is misrepresenting itself as a registrar in the first place. It's odd that their support email says that they are, but their FAQ makes it clear that Hostway doesn't hold its own registrar cred.

There are a lot of hosting companies which are either registration service resellers or registrar affiliates which do not make it clear that they are not registrars, and thus do not have direct, live access to the registry. Because of that, all sorts of ungood things can occur, as noted in this thread and the concurrent thread about suspected search snooping...

Ever since Hostway stopped being a Tucows/OpenSRS reseller (from quite a few years back), they "partnered" with AAAQ. My little research back then showed that these 2 "companies" shared the same address. Hope this helps.