What's the catch with ipower?

[Honan]

ipower.com appear to offer up to 100 new dot com registrations for $2.95 each?

What is the catch?

 

[Dave Zan]

Why not read their fine print?

There's another forum which has a review of them. But I can't post links from
competing forums.

 

[jdk]

ipower.com appear to offer up to 100 new dot com registrations for $2.95 each?

What is the catch?

* Note: Limit 100 domain names per customer at special $2.95 pricing. Pricing valid for first year only. Domains will renew at $8.25 at time of renewal, unless volume pricing arrangements have been made.


Just a promotion they are having. Same thing other registrar's do to get new signups. They are hoping to make money off of any additional services you purchase and renewals for the following years.

 

[Honan]

Why not read their fine print?

There's another forum which has a review of them. But I can't post links from
competing forums.

Thanks Dave. NP had one on ipowerweb which is the same mob
Confirms my experience with them so far
They are stark raving mad!!
I wrote asked the tech dept if I bought 100 names @ $2.95 could I push them to various people in the first few months
Tech wrote back and said thats a question for sales
They gave me the email addy for sales
It was sales@ ......
Asked sales the same question
Sales replied with a link to their bulk registration page
I wrote to sales again
They asked me to write to one of their execs
They gave me his email address
I asked the same question again to the exec
He replied asking how many names I wanted to register, ( even though I had already told him 100) and they could make a change to their central login panel if it was enough
I relpied asking how does ownership transfer happen now
No response so far after a couple of days and I don't expect one either

 

[jdk]

Thanks Dave. NP had one on ipowerweb which is the same mob
Confirms my experience with them so far
They are stark raving mad!!
I wrote asked the tech dept if I bought 100 names @ $2.95 could I push them to various people in the first few months
Tech wrote back and said thats a question for sales
They gave me the email addy for sales
It was sales@ ......
Asked sales the same question
Sales replied with a link to their bulk registration page
I wrote to sales again
They asked me to write to one of their execs
They gave me his email address
I asked the same question again to the exec
He replied asking how many names I wanted to register, ( even though I had already told him 100) and they could make a change to their central login panel if it was enough
I relpied asking how does ownership transfer happen now
No response so far after a couple of days and I don't expect one either

Seems you need to go elsewhere. You should check Moniker or most people use Enom.

 

[jimmy]

Ooopss! I have already bought 13 domains and was looking to buy some more...

 

[manueld64]

yeah, just losing money on domains at 2.95, in hopes of making money on it, it is a good deal, they use tucows opensrs, not too shabby, control the domains through their vdeck system, pretty easy

 

[jdk]

How hard is it to transfer names out of iPower? I have been looking at purchasing several names that are at iPower, but don't want to go through hasles to transfer them out.

 

[manueld64]

buy the domains, wait the 60 days, unlock the domain and then that is it i guess, for more advanced admin of the domain, contact the ipower domains/transfer department, they can unlock the domains so you can manage it yourself from the tucows opensrs interface and get the domains out of there, from my experience, when a transfers is requested, once you authorize, the opensrs send the admin contact the email to accept the transfer early, they click on the link and accept the transfer like gd/wwd and boom it is out of there.

 

[Honan]

buy the domains, wait the 60 days, unlock the domain and then that is it i guess, for more advanced admin of the domain, contact the ipower domains/transfer department, they can unlock the domains so you can manage it yourself from the tucows opensrs interface and get the domains out of there, from my experience, when a transfers is requested, once you authorize, the opensrs send the admin contact the email to accept the transfer early, they click on the link and accept the transfer like gd/wwd and boom it is out of there.

Hi Manuel
Can you confirm that you have actually registered $2.95 dot coms at ipower and have transferred them to another registrar?

It appears to me that contacting the ipower domains/transfer department to unlock $2.95 domains would be a challenge.

 

[Anthony Ng]

If they are reselling for Tucows/OpenSRS, then it *m-a-y* be worth the risk.

 

[Rarethings]

I would be vary wary of any registrar selling at prices lower than what it COSTS THEM to register.

If they offered 1 2.95$ domain promotion, I could understand, but I think they probably lock you into a 2-3 year contract, where you have to renew with them for 2-3 years until you can transfer out.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[indemand]

No business operates for very long if they lose money on deals.
Somewhere in there they are going to turn a profit.

I wouldn't be surprised if the fine print had a clause specifying a certain number of years you needed to stay with them at the $8.25 price tag.

Unless, of course, they are trying out the pre-dot-com bubble idea of grabbing mind share by undercutting the competition...

 

[carlton]

They cold call and try to sell hosting and other services (nice folks so far - no high pressure). The $2.95 domain reg acts more as a lead for them. When the promotion began, they had unreal problems setting up reliable access to the newly reg'd domains. This appears to have been fully resolved.

I like them OK. Have had hosting service with them for over 2 years with no problem except for vdeck email going down several times.

 

[jumble]

i had a bad experience with ipower and would not recommend them.

 

[springbreak]

I am also Wondering how easy or difficult it is to Push a domain name with Ipower.

I had already bought 22domains at the $2.95 price from them.
Now let me tell you in case you buy in bulk.
You get two links in the email that has your passwords there is the Vdeck user name and password link, and there is the Opensrs link.

If you cannot log into your manageOpensrs link, try a password of another domain you registered, it seems that they only use one password for all your domains for Opensrs. But have Different passwords on some throught the Vdeck which is confusing.

Another thing is that if you log into the manageOpensrs you can unlock the domain yourself by just clicking the little lock/unlock button, you can change servers and seems like you can change all the info.

I just dont know about Pushing through Ipower If anyone has done this Please post it.

 

[italiandragon]

I saw their website from google.
I register a 3 chars .org which was free, it was expired from just 1 day. It was km2.org so a good 3 chars with meaning "square km".

I payed with credit card.

Hours later the domain still appeared to be free.
I got an e-mail from them asking to fax or phone because my credit card was not ok for them. ( I had never a problem using my mastercard anywhere ).

While I was replying , someone else registered the name.

Great service......to lose domains....sure.

 

[springbreak]

OK, Got it, DO NOT, DO NOT, Buy from Ipower, or Ipowerweb,

Unless you want to deal with bad service or lots of crap in order to transfer Ownership. Here is that they say is required to change ownership.
http://www.ipowerweb.com/company/legal/ipw_transferagreement_2005jul.pdf

which basically they want bills showing you are really at the address listed, they want a Company letter saying you are selling it, they want Government Id's to prove you are that person, they want $25 for processing they want Signatures. All that From both parties, and im sure more.

 

[manueld64]

OK, Got it, DO NOT, DO NOT, Buy from Ipower, or Ipowerweb,

Unless you want to deal with bad service or lots of crap in order to transfer Ownership. Here is that they say is required to change ownership.
http://www.ipowerweb.com/company/legal/ipw_transferagreement_2005jul.pdf

which basically they want bills showing you are really at the address listed, they want a Company letter saying you are selling it, they want Government Id's to prove you are that person, they want $25 for processing they want Signatures. All that From both parties, and im sure more.

uh yeah. actually that is ipowers version of a domain push, transferring ownership of a domain to another person. that is not for a registrar to registrar transfer. it is kinda skerry huh? it seems more of a pain in a butt than the domain owners who got shafted by their web developers and had to do a change of account at go daddy with domain services!