.US Pre-Registration Nightmare

[Dan]

www.DomainProcessor.com

Has anybody had any dealings with this company? They are ICANN accredited, but I'm a little frusterated now at them. They claim to allow you to back-order a domain for the .us extension for free, and only charge the $40 2-year registration fee if they successfully get the domain. Not only did they charge $40 right when I pre-registered the domain, they havn't even refunded my $40 yet, the night on open registrations (and of course they did not snap the domain I pre-registered with them). I e-mailed them earlier today, awaiting a response. They have no phone number to call, hopefully I can get this sorted out soon.

One lesson I beleive I've learned is think trice before buying something from a spam e-mail.

[clemzonguy]

Any registars that were not already ICANN approved for .com/.net/.org or others which I had never heard of that had prices of over $30/2yrs were thrown out of my list of potentials. I knew that some of these "companies" had no proven track records and were probably trying to simply capitalize on the pre-registrations and other loopholes esp inflated prices which might not be refundable. I have no clue who got domains. I won a bid on one auction for a name but the whois doesn't work and there is no responce anywhere on the net about who got what. I haven't received my refund either. I'm thinking some will try and credit it to your account towards future registrations. Foul!

[Dan]

But this registrar was ICANN accredited, I even checked on ICANN's site, and they also claimed they would not charge me if they didn't get the name for me, but they did charge me right when I pre-registered.

[domnet]

I had some pre-regs with them.

Did you use a credit card or debit card? They may have just checked to see if the funds were there if they did get the name. This shows up as a charge for a few days.

I have dealt with them before so I'll give them a ring and see what happens.

Originally posted by Dan
www.DomainProcessor.com

Has anybody had any dealings with this company? They are ICANN accredited, but I'm a little frusterated now at them. They claim to allow you to back-order a domain for the .us extension for free, and only charge the $40 2-year registration fee if they successfully get the domain. Not only did they charge $40 right when I pre-registered the domain, they havn't even refunded my $40 yet, the night on open registrations (and of course they did not snap the domain I pre-registered with them). I e-mailed them earlier today, awaiting a response. They have no phone number to call, hopefully I can get this sorted out soon.

One lesson I beleive I've learned is think trice before buying something from a spam e-mail.

i will be back , with more data on this..

[Dan]

Thanks for the info. domnet, maybe I should wait a few days. And yes I did use a debit card, so that is probably why it will take a few days I guess. If they had a phone number I'd be glad to ring them up, but nothing on thier website. I sent them an e-mail yesterday about this time, no response yet.. they could have at least let me know what could be the problem..

[domnet]

dan.

Just run a whois on their domain name and try contacting that number if nothing else works.

Originally posted by Dan
Thanks for the info. domnet, maybe I should wait a few days. And yes I did use a debit card, so that is probably why it will take a few days I guess. If they had a phone number I'd be glad to ring them up, but nothing on thier website. I sent them an e-mail yesterday about this time, no response yet.. they could have at least let me know what could be the problem..

yes.. agreed.. with the level of resposce you should have rec'd.

hold on.. i'l have more data on this orginatitaion.''

[trader]

Originally posted by Dan
But this registrar was ICANN accredited, I even checked on ICANN's site, and they also claimed they would not charge me if they didn't get the name for me, but they did charge me right when I pre-registered.

Sorry that happened Dan. That's why it was important to go with the larger well-known firms. Many smaller registrars actually charged for the .us pre-reg names with a promise to credit the acct if name not reg'd for credit toward future buys.

Other registrars had a policy of charging just befor the reg and crediting the credit card back at once if the reg fails. Others did not charge in advance at all, like the ones I used

It was all very confusing what with all the marketing hype invoved and all the advertising copy and spams from them.

Luckily the primary registrar I dealt with (DirectNic) did a good job, no advance charge and I managed to get a number of real good .us names, more than 100 of them in total. Only a handful were one word names, mostly they were 2 and 3 word terms and phrases, but still valuable

All the great names were grabbed within the first 2 minutes (by 7:02 AM) it seems by looking at the time stamps on them. One Registrar I used (DomainPeople) was very slow and did not get the names submitted until 7:44 AM, meaning 95% failed and the few they did register were only marginal value names due to their slowness.

I have spent lots of time on the .US Whois and it appears basically all the good names are now gone, making it mostly worthless to bother trying to reg any more good ones.

It also appears .US has been wildly successful judging by the numbers and lack of good names already, even better than I expected, which was quite high even before it opened.

This means I am now revising my domain extension valuation theory by saying the extensions rank in value like this, from first to last - COM US ORG NET BIZ INFO and all the Country Codes trailing the field, including TV. P.S. Is TV still in business and did anyone ever renew their amazingly overpriced .tv names?

[LtlPhysics]

I figured .us would be big, very big. The States have lots of problems, but all in all it's a big country that works well.

If you printed your rcpt from DomainProcessor, it clearly states that You will only be charged if your .US name is registered successfully.

I listed oak, sex, fly, cool,star, jobs, pop and gear and I didn't get any of them, of course.

Originally posted by Dan
www.DomainProcessor.com

Has anybody had any dealings with this company? They are ICANN accredited, but I'm a little frusterated now at them. They claim to allow you to back-order a domain for the .us extension for free, and only charge the $40 2-year registration fee if they successfully get the domain. Not only did they charge $40 right when I pre-registered the domain, they havn't even refunded my $40 yet, the night on open registrations (and of course they did not snap the domain I pre-registered with them). I e-mailed them earlier today, awaiting a response. They have no phone number to call, hopefully I can get this sorted out soon.

One lesson I beleive I've learned is think trice before buying something from a spam e-mail.

__________________________________________________ _

This is the data, I have located on http:www.DomainProcessor.com (which is a division of FunPeas Media Adventures / NY

* from the Internic webiste / ICANN..
this DomainProcessor.com company is listed on the 2nd page of listed companies accredited to 'register' domain names.

The 1st page of listings are specifically titled 'Accredited REGISTRARS'.. where the 2nd page, indicates that this list of co's are accredited to 'register domain names'.. must be a seperate group from the 1st page. (most likely an reseller/dba company of maybe the 'accredited registrars' on the first page? ? not sure, but i can discern there is a DIFFERENCE in 'accredibility' of the TWO

This is the .us agreement between (you/applicant & DomainProcessor) for the .US registrations.
list's..http://www.reserveme.com/nagreement/..._agreement.htm (DomainProcessor .us agreement)

FunPeas Media Ventures, LLC
Attn: DomainProcessor.com
134-16 Booth Memorial Ave.
Flushing, NY 11355
__________________________________________________
DomainProcessor.com also operates http://www.ReserveName.com
and appears their user agreements (link below) are inclusive of those names reg'd through DomainProcessor.

http://www.reserveme.com/terms.htm
The Applicant
The applicant will pay the initial registration fee (as posted on www.domainprocessor.com) to DomainProcessor.com as soon as the Domain Name Registration Application has been submitted, and the credit card charges are approved through the appropriate channels.
__________________________________________________ _

The ONLY official .US REGISTRY for the .US names is:http://www.neustar.us/policies. (.us Registry operator)

__________________________________________________ _

I searched for Lee/LtPhysic's name: HotDomain.US
it is registered in his name:

Who owns hotdomains.us?

This info is from the 'domain registration' files on: http://www.ReserveMe.com
a division of http://www.DomainProcessor.com
This data was researched/archived on April 26-2002


Domain Name: HOTDOMAINS.US
Domain ID: D1905729-US
Sponsoring Registrar: REGISTER.COM
Registrant ID: C10418594-NXUS
Registrant Name: Lee Scherer
Registrant Organization: Lee Scherer
Registrant Address1: 1067 Jessie St
Registrant City: St Paul
Registrant State/Province: MN
Registrant Postal Code: 55101-3812
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Country Code: US
Registrant Phone Number: +1.6517781523
Registrant Email: LtlPhysics@aol.com
Registrant Application Purpose: P3
Registrant Nexus Category: C11
Administrative Contact ID: C10418594-US
Administrative Contact Name: Lee Scherer
Administrative Contact Organization: Lee Scherer
Administrative Contact Address1: 1067 Jessie St
Administrative Contact City: St Paul
Administrative Contact State/Province: MN
Administrative Contact Postal Code: 55101-3812
Administrative Contact Country: United States
Administrative Contact Country Code: US
Administrative Contact Phone Number: +1.6517781523
Administrative Contact Email: LtlPhysics@aol.com
Billing Contact ID: C1-US
Billing Contact Name: Domain Registrar
Billing Contact Organization: Register.Com
Billing Contact Address1: 575 8th Avenue
Billing Contact Address2: 11th Floor
Billing Contact City: New York
Billing Contact State/Province: NY
Billing Contact Postal Code: 10018
Billing Contact Country: United States
Billing Contact Country Code: US
Billing Contact Phone Number: +1.9027492701
Billing Contact Facsimile Number: +1.9027495429
Billing Contact Email: domain-registrar@register.com
Technical Contact ID: C1-US
Technical Contact Name: Domain Registrar
Technical Contact Organization: Register.Com
Technical Contact Address1: 575 8th Avenue
Technical Contact Address2: 11th Floor
Technical Contact City: New York
Technical Contact State/Province: NY
Technical Contact Postal Code: 10018
Technical Contact Country: United States
Technical Contact Country Code: US
Technical Contact Phone Number: +1.9027492701
Technical Contact Facsimile Number: +1.9027495429
Tech

__________________________________________________

I feel quite confident you did gain the HotDomains.US LilPhysics.. cause do a search for Sex.us at http://www.ReserveMe.com (same place where I searched & found the above ownership info on HotDomains.com

Sex.US
do a search on that!! you'll see what i mean.

[mike]

Dan, DomainProcessor.com is listed as an accredited .US registrar at www.Neustar.com, the .US registry. I know it is a hassle, but maybe you should lodge a complaint with Neustar about DomainProcessor.com! I imagine if they want to keep their .US accreditation, they'll refund the monies to you and the other folks they've done this too some time soon.

I take exception of being lumped with other small domain registration compaines in a derogatory manner.

We processed credit card information in advance of the .us registration being active. If we had not, we would have had to front as much as $20K in fees on behalf of domain speculators trying to grab every interesting domain name on the planet. We had to pay for any domain we received at the time the registration was made to the Registry, because there was no official Landrush period.

Should we really front you money to speculate on domain purchases? Is this what you expect of your domain registration company? How much? Should you be able to attempt several hundred domain registrations at my expense? What if your credit card is no good after you get 200 domain names? I eat them?

We notified our customers who received domains in real time. We completed 95% of our refunds and the failure notifications before the end of the day on the 24th, and the remaining refunds before noon on the 25th - with a significant amount of overtime involved.

Our choice would have been to pre-authorize the credit cards and then either cancel them or process them as the case may be. This is not practical from a labor perspective, when you have someone who pre-registers 100 domains, and then gets 20 of them. There is no good way to then only partially authorize the transaction - we would have had to cancel and re-apply the transaction. We'd probably still be processing credit cards two days later.

As it turns out, we lose money on every domain we DON'T get in this model, since we have to process first the debit transaction and then the credit transaction - paying the applicable fees to the credit card company. We only hope that enough domains are granted so that we can break even. We are not making a killing on the pre-registration process, believe me.

The amount of effort that goes into support something like this pseudo-Landrush makes is hardly profitable unless you are charging huge amounts like Verisign did - and no one will register with a "little guy" who charges $50 a year for a .us pre-reg.

You only make money on domains when no one calls for customer support, no one is manually involved in the transaction processing a credit card or dealing with a domain transfer. As soon as you engage the customer one time in this domain market, you lose money. There is not enough profit margin to have that kind of interaction with the domain order.

There will be fallout this year. I suspect we'll see many resellers go away, as well as a number of registrars, as the price point is driven further down, and the requirement for assistance goes higher and higher.

-t