Registrar freezes our domain due to complaint and locks name - NO wipo or udrp! WTF?!

[tldrental]

Did I understand this correctly. A bunch of names and registers got the Kibosh because they supported unsavory domain owners?

If I understood correctly then that means your name was infraction for some reason. Even though your innocent, possibly someone has hacked your site or server to exploit your domain in question?

Were you pushing traffic to the name some how that might be misunderstood, or considered a little gray?

Were you using any gray area programs or bots to boost your sites PR or alexa ranking?

 

[Gerry]

It is a Directi reseller...many names are with the various Directi companies esp. ones that are several years old and any names I have there were bought and pushed to me there. It has always been considered a "safe" place to keep sensitive or controversial domains. I should get a response or reply tomm. as it's like 4 AM there right now so they are surely closed and I'm assuming this is why I have yet to get a reply back..will keep you updated.

For the record I have had several issues in the past with domains at Godaddy and they always have been cooperative and supportive. I have never had them freeze a domain name or do anything like this or threaten to delete "all the domains" in my account. I really wish I had this domain at Godaddy right now!

I have experienced some issues with Whiz.in and Answerable.com.

Answerable deleted/canceled domain names with transfers WHILE IN PROCESS of being completed and already accepted. The deletion came about 14 days into waiting on that transfer. That answerable account was mine and I personally approved the transfer. They were being transferred to my Moniker account.

This is a huge reason why I insist that the domain be transferred when purchased and it is at registrars like this.

I avoid eNom like the plague and have passed up some great deals. When the seller states no it can not be transferred but I need to open an account at that registrar and later I can transfer it out, I run the other way.

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I mention GoDaddy and used a specific example as this was the only instance I was aware of a registrar canceling a domain and an active site without notification.

 

[dolansco]

I mention GoDaddy and used a specific example as this was the only instance I was aware of a registrar canceling a domain and an active site without notification.

and charging you a "fine" , of sorts , for the pleasure ...

 

[Focus]

I have experienced some issues with Whiz.in and Answerable.com.

Answerable deleted/canceled domain names with transfers WHILE IN PROCESS of being completed and already accepted. The deletion came about 14 days into waiting on that transfer. That answerable account was mine and I personally approved the transfer. They were being transferred to my Moniker account.

This is a huge reason why I insist that the domain be transferred when purchased and it is at registrars like this.

I avoid eNom like the plague and have passed up some great deals. When the seller states no it can not be transferred but I need to open an account at that registrar and later I can transfer it out, I run the other way.

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I mention GoDaddy and used a specific example as this was the only instance I was aware of a registrar canceling a domain and an active site without notification.

Answerable is another Directi reseller...what ever happened to those names did you get them back? One time in the past I had some typos at IYD and they were cancelled without warning and said to be against company policy..after alot of phone calls and brain damage they renewed them and let me transfer them out (only to get taken by wipo coincidentally weeks later)
Who the f*ck do these companies think they are? They are there to provide registration & domain services...period!

 

[Gerry]

Answerable is another Directi reseller...what ever happened to those names did you get them back? One time in the past I had some typos at IYD and they were cancelled without warning and said to be against company policy..after alot of phone calls and brain damage they renewed them and let me transfer them out (only to get taken by wipo coincidentally weeks later)
Who the f*ck do these companies think they are? They are there to provide registration & domain services...period!

No, I did not get them back. They wanted to charge me $80 for each ( x 12) to take out of redemption and then another 16.49 to renew each and then I could transfer them.

I was pissed. I called and spoke to someone who sounded like he was on a street corner in Bollywood...traffic, people talking and vehicles honking in the background.

The combined total was well over $1000 and simply were not worth the price for domains held hostage.

I took me chances of catching them back on the drop. I was not able to get a single one on backorder.

These domains were all very, very good Hindi generic words so this action really comes as no surprise. Hate to be accusing anyone of anything but all sounded too damn suspicious.

Like I said, the combined total were not worth a thousand bucks and neither is Answerable. I have since removed all domains to Moniker.

This will be the last time I use a discount dealer.

Also, if you catch a name with Pool.com, there is a good chance it will end up with Answerable.com or another Directi reseller. One of many BIG reasons I have stopped using Pool.com.

 

[Focus]

Yeah well everyone needs to check their accounts with various directi resellers because I just found a bunch of domains that have had the privacy removed WITHOUT any notice and the names are not even tm names but might be considered grey area by some, this is a totally different company and account than the problem with the first name so they are unrelated and even have different email addresses...they are now taking privacy off your names and freezing domains they deem questionable...imo this could get very bad. How the f*ck are we suppose to buy names from pool and other drop catching services if they end up in this situation..what do we need to do here..SUE THEM?

UPDATE: they are now monetizing the domain name and have a customized page with related links!

 

[Theo]

What do you expect from shady, offshore registrars that made a fortune from the gray market of click factories? These are the same ones that supposedly sponsor the industry. I say, **** them. I refuse to give a dime to those click monkeys that got an ICANN license and are now screwing the registrants acting like self-made gods.

 

[nameadvertising.com]

If those CEO's and reps from Directi can attend domain trade shows to garner our business, they sure can have a rep resolve this issue at the very least.

I say boycott their services. Money or lack thereof in their coffers can be a huge lesson.

They are quick to block a name from a frivolous complaint. Over the years, I wonder how much of their "Click Factory" dollars they have sent back to hapless advertisers. No, I don't wonder. I know. $0.

 

[IRCCo Jeff]

Estdomains will also freeze entire accounts for no valid reason.

 

[vikrantjain22]

No, I did not get them back. They wanted to charge me $80 for each ( x 12) to take out of redemption and then another 16.49 to renew each and then I could transfer them.

I was pissed. I called and spoke to someone who sounded like he was on a street corner in Bollywood...traffic, people talking and vehicles honking in the background.

The combined total was well over $1000 and simply were not worth the price for domains held hostage.

I took me chances of catching them back on the drop. I was not able to get a single one on backorder.

These domains were all very, very good Hindi generic words so this action really comes as no surprise. Hate to be accusing anyone of anything but all sounded too damn suspicious.

Like I said, the combined total were not worth a thousand bucks and neither is Answerable. I have since removed all domains to Moniker.

This will be the last time I use a discount dealer.

Also, if you catch a name with Pool.com, there is a good chance it will end up with Answerable.com or another Directi reseller. One of many BIG reasons I have stopped using Pool.com.

Answerable.com has actuallu been acting like a crook offlately. I had purchased a LLL and had it pushed to my Answerable account. Around renewal time I paid the renewal fees and forgot about it. After 14 days I suddenly get an email that the Renewable was not successful. I looged into my account to see the reason and to my utter surprise they had deleted the domain from my account (not the registry), due to an Authorization error at their end and their Explanation was (this is the best part, very relevant for all of us)

The old owner of the name had regged it under Transecute (another registrar arm of Answerable) and then transferred it to my account where the registrar status was maintained as Transecute.
Now Transecute has ceased to be a registrar anymore so even though the name was in my account and I paid for it the name was not renewed because some fool someehere didnt have the foresight to chage the registrar details from Transecute to Answerbale (the Registrant cannot do this change as this is a registrar level action) and hence by default my name got deleted, ALTHOUGH the deletion date was still 15-20 days away.

To cut it short after shouting out my brains at them by way of repeated hourly calls the Domain was re-acquired and placed in my account after 12 hours.

I have stopped trusting them and started removing all my names from Answerbale and Reseller, what they can do with 1 name can be done with Thousands and you have no remedy to pursue with them as they are based in India and legal action threats are not going to scare them the least bit, neither the threat of ICAAN as they are the biggest sponsors of all ICANN meets and ..........

 

[Theo]

If you had to go through all these loops and you're in India, can you imagine what the situation is like for non Indians?

 

[Gerry]

I have stopped trusting them and started removing all my names from Answerbale and Reseller, what they can do with 1 name can be done with Thousands and you have no remedy to pursue with them as they are based in India and legal action threats are not going to scare them the least bit, neither the threat of ICAAN as they are the biggest sponsors of all ICANN meets and ..........

Vik, all the names I lost were excellent Hindi generic words. All were picked up immediately upon dropping. Not a single one was available on the market. Cause for suspicion.

And I do not like Pool's cooperation and relationship with the no-name 4th rate registrars. I presume they have accepted low bids from them.

I have never had a domain get canceled in the process of transfer before the transfer is completed.

 

[Theo]

I pull my domains out of these junk registrars on the 61st day after they were caught by Pool / Snapnames.

 

[JuniperPark]

I pull my domains out of these junk registrars on the 61st day after they were caught by Pool / Snapnames.

Same here. 95% of the horror stories on DNF are from people who just didn't bother to do a transfer.

 

[vikrantjain22]

If you had to go through all these loops and you're in India, can you imagine what the situation is like for non Indians?

Indian or non Indian, most of the small registrars and sometimes the bigger ones like to play truant. Just think of the scenario how I have to chase a US registrar when things go wrong at their end.
I have been chasing one of the biggest registrars in the domain world with a situation for the last 2.5 months and its equally difficult if not worse.
Maybe this is part of the baggage we need to carry for being part of this industry.

Vik, all the names I lost were excellent Hindi generic words. All were picked up immediately upon dropping. Not a single one was available on the market. Cause for suspicion.

And I do not like Pool's cooperation and relationship with the no-name 4th rate registrars. I presume they have accepted low bids from them.

I have never had a domain get canceled in the process of transfer before the transfer is completed.

Sometimes things like this happen purposely at the registrar level, curiously and it is blamed on some error or mistake especially when the name in question is a valuable one.

Point I would like to mention:

I was bidding on HDJ.com on the 13th October. My bid was the second last bid of $7000 and the bidder won it at $7100. End of Story.

The name reappears on Namejet auctions last week and I suddenly find myself as the highest bidder again because the highest bidder defaulted on payment. Point to note is that I DID NOT place the highest bod of $7000 the second time. Namejet put the bid automatically without permission from me.

I wrote to them to remove the bid as it was not authorized by me and I didnt want the name anymore. I got a mail from Customer Support that they would be removing my bid shortly, which was the highest bid at $7000

They didnt, they havent till date and the name was won by someone else for $7100, but my question is was this sale valid since the second last bid was not mine and Namejet had agreed to remove it But didnt.

Didnt the buyer get defrauded on a false bid. He could have very well got the name for $7000 itself had my bid been removed. $100 is a small amount but its the wrong practice that NameJet adopted to get a higher bid, but what can you do as a small domainer.

 

[Deleted member 5660]

This all goes back to the formation of ICANN and the threats by Network Solutions to sue the Department of Commerce when they introduced competition. Everybody thought NSI would screw everyone and they did not want the NSI registry to control the registration information. So they made a "thin registry" where the registrar keeps all the data. Then the registrars put all kinds of clauses in their contracts so they full authority to change the information any time they want, delete the domain, etc. The way things are now registrars could come in and put all your domains in their name. ICANN should have fixed this but they never did and most likely never will until it affects large corporations who have pull in ICANN or Dept of Commerce.

As for using a registrars whois privacy, that is the one of the dumbest things a domain holder can do. Registrars have complete control and almost always screw things up. Use your money to set up a PO Box, mail/phone forwarding services, etc. on your own. Then all legal notices get sent to you and are not filtered through the registrar who couldn't care less about the small amount of profit they make off your domain renewal.

 

[Focus]

Update: they have now changed the DNS of the few names in the account to their DNS and are parking the names with ppc ads and also have "froze" those domains...NO WIPO, NO UDRP's...unrelated to the first domain name that had a complaint. It says to contact support inside the "lock/unlock" feature and also says the date is was locked...of course I am getting NO REPLIES from the company...go figure. Will update this thread again when I talk to a human being later tonight or have a contact in india do so..

Get any of your sensitive or grey area names out of Directi resellers NOW..they are literally 100 times safer at moniker or even enom/godaddy

 

[Theo]

This is purely scandalous. Did you contact Directi instead of this reseller?

 

[Focus]

Just got off the phone with the dude..they finally sent me back an email..as I suspected no udrp's no legal notices, nada..just a complaint from some random person about the forwarding of a traffic name to a political site. The guy claims the names will be unlocked soon and they were froze due to a complaint about bad whois info (which is not the case)..funny thing is they all have privacy on them so that is impossible as the whois info is that of their own from the registrar...they should be unlocked in a day or so he said. We shall see..

 

[nameadvertising.com]

Privacy on Whois does not alienate the Registrar, law enforcement agencies, the courts from accessing the registrant info. They are upon certain legal grounds privy to them.

In many cases, they twist your arm, place handcuffs first and ask questions later, if at all.

I am glad your case is getting resolved. I am curious to know which political site it is.