Moniker helped in domain theft...

[Poohnix]

I've waited for this issue to be cleared up, but now I've waited long enough, so I post here. Perhaps it should be under Snapnames, but I thought it would be more fitting here.
I have been a firm supporter of Moniker, and really believed their system was as secure as they have claimed. Well, obviously not, at least not when using Monikers new function to sell names via Snapnames.
I tried that function, submitted a few names for sale via Snap, since I needed to free some funds, and hadn't tried that sales channel before. Considering they charge 20%, I figured they perhaps would provide a better service.
Sure enough, two LLL.com names sold at a fairly good price considering today's market. The payments showed up in my Snapnames account, although it's not possible to request a payout for 7 days.
Not so for the transfer-out... Moniker notified me that the domains had been transferred out the second they received payment, in fact the transfer-out notifications were how I found out any domain had sold.

Four days later, the payment for the first domain was reversed.

Nobody notified me. I didn't find out until a day later, when I saw it in my Snapnames account. The only thing was in the financial history, where it said "return", and the negative amount. No explanation.
I immediately contacted support. Both Snapnames and Moniker.
A day later I received a "We're looking into it" response from Moniker support. That's the LAST response from Moniker support in this matter.

To Snapnames I submitted three tickets in the first two days, but it wasn't until the 3:rd day that I received any response at all from them. An that wasn't received until after I had emailed my Moniker account rep.
Then thay claimed that they had "locked down any account that has purchased a domain from you. SnapNames or Moniker has ownership of the domain and I expect that we will be transferring the domain back to you shortly."
Remember that claim...

I asked for updates daily on the following three days, with a lot of follow-up questions on how this could at all be possible. (Since the payment for the domain was over 10K, I thought they required wire transfer or something similar to secure the payment, and why they didn't make sure the payment was SECURED before transferring the domain out. So far I have no explanation at all about this.)
It wasn't until the third day after their initial response (which was received on the third day after my original ticket), that I received any more response from Snapnames. Then the response was "We will be placing the domains back into your account today. We have needed time to investigate the auctions and resolve these issues."

That made me ask what they meant by "domains" (plural), since there had been only one domain for which the payment was reversed, the other domain was purchased by another purchaser (at least another Snapnames account), and that payment was never reversed.
The reply late evening that day (early morning for me), was that BOTH the sales were invalid, and that both domains would be returned to me, not that day as claimed earlier, but the day after.

My reply to that was quite long, and questioned quite a bit of their operations, I must say...

The next day, actually early Saturday morning in my timezone, I received a message that both domains had been put back into my Moniker account. End of story. NOT!

The second domain was ok, but the first, which had been in question all the time, where the payment had been reversed (for the second it wasn't reversed util it was put back into my account), but that first domain, I noticed, was unlocked. It also had another contact email from mine, and no longer had privacy, as I had paid for. Those things I noticed first.

I thought all that was quite unprofessional - the domain being unlocked combined with another persons email address, would mean that person could transfer the domain out without my knowledge, and with no way to stop it.
I tried to lock it, but got an "authorization" error from the registry.
That caused me to check the whois again. I hadn't done that in a few days. And behold:

The domain is NO LONGER registered at Moniker, instead it's registered with DIRECTI! (And privacy protected there.)
Mind you - in their first response to me they had assured me that "SnapNames or Moniker has ownership of the domain and I expect that we will be transferring the domain back to you shortly."
In a later response they had claimed they had locked down the domain already when the payment was returned, a day before I contacted them.

So, yes, they had put the domain back into my account, but neither I or Moniker had control over the domain any longer.
I immediately wrote back to them, pointing this out. But, since it was Saturday, of course nobody read this, or replied to it, for 2 days.
Early this morning I received the reply. Ignoring that I had pointed out that the domain was at Directi, not Moniker, they claimed the privacy had been put back.
NOT.

I had received an automatic message from Moniker that setting privacy on the domain had FAILED. When checking in the domain control panel, the domain was till unlocked, with the same contact info, and no privacy.
Checking whois, the domain is still with DIRECTI. Which, of course, is why setting privacy protection fails.

I again pointed out that the domain ISN'T with Moniker any more, in spite of all their assurances that they had retained ownership and locked down the domain.
I'm still waiting for a response to that.

On top of it all, I received a quite tempting offer for the domain yesterday - but can't sell it because I don't have control over it.

This story isn't over yet... but I'm still waiting for the next chapter.
It very well looks to me as if moniker soon can't make that claim that they've never lost a domain...
As for me - I can protect my accounts and emails all I want' but I can't protect myself against the stupidity of Moniker/Snapnames/Oversee.net giving my domain to a scammer without securing the payment FIRST.

(As noted, I'm still waiting for a response, but while I wrote this I got another automatic email from Moniker, with "Domain privacy FAIL" - Error description: "Failed to lock a Domain in the registry. Error code: 2201 - "Authorization error"" - it seems they are still trying, not wanting to believe that they DON'T have control over the domain.)



-Goran

[Acro]

Ouch!

I've waited for this issue to be cleared up, but now I've waited long enough, so I post here. Perhaps it should be under Snapnames, but I thought it would be more fitting here.
I have been a firm supporter of Moniker, and really believed their system was as secure as they have claimed. Well, obviously not, at least not when using Monikers new function to sell names via Snapnames.
I tried that function, submitted a few names for sale via Snap, since I needed to free some funds, and hadn't tried that sales channel before. Considering they charge 20%, I figured they perhaps would provide a better service.
Sure enough, two LLL.com names sold at a fairly good price considering today's market. The payments showed up in my Snapnames account, although it's not possible to request a payout for 7 days.
Not so for the transfer-out... Moniker notified me that the domains had been transferred out the second they received payment, in fact the transfer-out notifications were how I found out any domain had sold.

Four days later, the payment for the first domain was reversed.

Nobody notified me. I didn't find out until a day later, when I saw it in my Snapnames account. The only thing was in the financial history, where it said "return", and the negative amount. No explanation.
I immediately contacted support. Both Snapnames and Moniker.
A day later I received a "We're looking into it" response from Moniker support. That's the LAST response from Moniker support in this matter.

To Snapnames I submitted three tickets in the first two days, but it wasn't until the 3:rd day that I received any response at all from them. An that wasn't received until after I had emailed my Moniker account rep.
Then thay claimed that they had "locked down any account that has purchased a domain from you. SnapNames or Moniker has ownership of the domain and I expect that we will be transferring the domain back to you shortly."
Remember that claim...

I asked for updates daily on the following three days, with a lot of follow-up questions on how this could at all be possible. (Since the payment for the domain was over 10K, I thought they required wire transfer or something similar to secure the payment, and why they didn't make sure the payment was SECURED before transferring the domain out. So far I have no explanation at all about this.)
It wasn't until the third day after their initial response (which was received on the third day after my original ticket), that I received any more response from Snapnames. Then the response was "We will be placing the domains back into your account today. We have needed time to investigate the auctions and resolve these issues."

That made me ask what they meant by "domains" (plural), since there had been only one domain for which the payment was reversed, the other domain was purchased by another purchaser (at least another Snapnames account), and that payment was never reversed.
The reply late evening that day (early morning for me), was that BOTH the sales were invalid, and that both domains would be returned to me, not that day as claimed earlier, but the day after.

My reply to that was quite long, adn questioned quite a bit of their operations, I must say...

The next day, actually early saturday morning in my timezone, I received a message that both domains had been put back into my Moniker account. End of story. NOT!

The second domain was ok, but the first, which had been in question all the time, where the payment had been reversed (for the second it wasn't reversed util it was put back into my account), but that first domain, I noticed, was unlocked. It also had another contact email from mine, and no longer had privacy, as I had paid for. Those things I noticed first.

I though all that was quite unprofessional - the domain being unlocked combined with another persons email address, would mean that person could transfer the domain out without my knowledge, and with no way to stop it.
I tried to lock it, but got an "authorization" error from the registry.
That caused me to check the whois again. I hadn't done that in a few days. And behold:

The domain is NO LONGER registered at Moniker, instead it's registered with DIRECTI! (And privacy protected there.)
Mind you - in their first response to me they had assured me that "SnapNames or Moniker has ownership of the domain and I expect that we will be transferring the domain back to you shortly."
In a later response they had claimed they had locked down the domain already when the payment was returned, a day before I contacted them.

So, yes, they had put the domain back into my account, but neither I or Moniker had control over the domain any longer.
I immediately wrote back to them, pointing this out. But, since it was Saturday, of course nobody read this, or replied to it, for 2 days.
Early this morning I received the reply. Ignoring that I had pointed out that the domain was at Directi, not Moniker, they claimed the privacy had been put back.
NOT.

I had received an automatic message from Moniker that setting privacy on the domain had FAILED. When checking in the domain control panel, the domain was till unlocked, with the same contact info, and no privacy.
Checking whois, the domain is still with DIRECTI. Which, of course, is why setting privacy protection fails.

I again pointed out that the domain ISN'T with Moniker any more, in spite of all their assurances that they had retained ownership and locked down the domain.
I'm still waiting for a response to that.

On top of it all, I received a quite tempting offer on the domain yesterday - but can't sell it because I don't have control over it.

This story isn't over yet... but I'm still waiting for the next chapter.
It very well looks to me as if moniker soon can't make that claim that they've never lost a domain...
As for me - I can protect my accounts and emails all I want' but I can't protect myself against the stupidity of Moniker/Snapnames/Oversee.net giving my domain to a scammer without securing the payment FIRST.

(As noted, I'm still waiting for a response, but while I wrote this I got another automatic email from Moniker, with "Domain privacy FAIL" - Error description: "Failed to lock a Domain in the registry. Error code: 2201 - "Authorization error"" - it seems they are still trying, not wanting to believe that they DON'T have control over the domain.)



-Goran

[GUA]

That is an absolute disgrace!

Snapnames are, and always have been a bunch of conmen. Moniker is obviously going downhill. They have slow support, are extremely impersonal, and HAVE lost a name.

I assume they are legally obliged to revoke any statements of 100% security now?

[NameHoney]

tsk tsk

Not good!

[exxe]

Hm, quite a horror story.

[tristanperry]

Wow, awful stuff, sorry to hear it :( Perhaps try contacting their rep here? And also get a few e-mail addresses of the account managers and contact them also? (Twice per week or whatever until it's sorted)

I've always liked Moniker, but they seem to have fallen very quickly (and hard) from grace this past year or so.

[Poohnix]

Wow, awful stuff, sorry to hear it :( Perhaps try contacting their rep here? And also get a few e-mail addresses of the account managers and contact them also? (Twice per week or whatever until it's sorted)

I've always liked Moniker, but they seem to have fallen very quickly (and hard) from grace this past year or so.

I posted this here to get some kind of reaction from them, obviously.
I have cc:d my Moniker account rep several times when I've sent responses/questions/updates to support, but aside from my original message to him he hasn't responded.

I'm not counting the domain as completely lost yet - but considering that they don't themselves understand the domain now is with Directi, not Moniker, it doesn't look very promising.

.

Edit: the domain has now disappeared from my Moniker account again... after being listed there since Friday last week. (Even if it wasn't really at moniker.)
I've also noted, looking at the Domaintools history, that the domain was transferred from Moniker to Directi 3 days AFTER the day they claimed they had locked the domain down - the same day Snapnames first responded to me...

.

[JuniperPark]

They failed to act and gave the theives enough time to steal the domain? And now gone silent?

Sounds like it could be lawsuit time. Good luck.

[ohkus]

I posted this here to get some kind of reaction from them, obviously.
I have cc:d my Moniker account rep several times when I've sent responses/questions/updates to support, but aside from my original message to him he hasn't responded.

I'm not counting the domain as completely lost yet - but considering that they don't themselves understand the domain now is with Directi, not Moniker, it doesn't look very promising.

.

Edit: the domain has now disappeared from my Moniker account again... after being listed there since Friday last week. (Even if it wasn't really at moniker.)
I've also noted, looking at the Domaintools history, that the domain was transferred from Moniker to Directi 3 days AFTER the day they claimed they had locked the domain down - the same day Snapnames first responded to me...

.

Thanks for sharing and I hope you recieve some compensation...

[TheLegendaryJP]

Quite a troubling story, never even considered the possibility of this happening. I suppose it was a paypal/credit card payment that was reversed? Surely if you email Moniker ( Monte directly ) and ask for his assitance as in supply the account info, he should!

Also what were the names so we can watch for them.

[stewie]

Ouch!!!

I've waited for this issue to be cleared up, but now I've waited long enough, so I post here. Perhaps it should be under Snapnames, but I thought it would be more fitting here.
I have been a firm supporter of Moniker, and really believed their system was as secure as they have claimed. Well, obviously not, at least not when using Monikers new function to sell names via Snapnames.
I tried that function, submitted a few names for sale via Snap, since I needed to free some funds, and hadn't tried that sales channel before. Considering they charge 20%, I figured they perhaps would provide a better service.
Sure enough, two LLL.com names sold at a fairly good price considering today's market. The payments showed up in my Snapnames account, although it's not possible to request a payout for 7 days.
Not so for the transfer-out... Moniker notified me that the domains had been transferred out the second they received payment, in fact the transfer-out notifications were how I found out any domain had sold.

Four days later, the payment for the first domain was reversed.

Nobody notified me. I didn't find out until a day later, when I saw it in my Snapnames account. The only thing was in the financial history, where it said "return", and the negative amount. No explanation.
I immediately contacted support. Both Snapnames and Moniker.
A day later I received a "We're looking into it" response from Moniker support. That's the LAST response from Moniker support in this matter.

To Snapnames I submitted three tickets in the first two days, but it wasn't until the 3:rd day that I received any response at all from them. An that wasn't received until after I had emailed my Moniker account rep.
Then thay claimed that they had "locked down any account that has purchased a domain from you. SnapNames or Moniker has ownership of the domain and I expect that we will be transferring the domain back to you shortly."
Remember that claim...

I asked for updates daily on the following three days, with a lot of follow-up questions on how this could at all be possible. (Since the payment for the domain was over 10K, I thought they required wire transfer or something similar to secure the payment, and why they didn't make sure the payment was SECURED before transferring the domain out. So far I have no explanation at all about this.)
It wasn't until the third day after their initial response (which was received on the third day after my original ticket), that I received any more response from Snapnames. Then the response was "We will be placing the domains back into your account today. We have needed time to investigate the auctions and resolve these issues."

That made me ask what they meant by "domains" (plural), since there had been only one domain for which the payment was reversed, the other domain was purchased by another purchaser (at least another Snapnames account), and that payment was never reversed.
The reply late evening that day (early morning for me), was that BOTH the sales were invalid, and that both domains would be returned to me, not that day as claimed earlier, but the day after.

My reply to that was quite long, and questioned quite a bit of their operations, I must say...

The next day, actually early Saturday morning in my timezone, I received a message that both domains had been put back into my Moniker account. End of story. NOT!

The second domain was ok, but the first, which had been in question all the time, where the payment had been reversed (for the second it wasn't reversed util it was put back into my account), but that first domain, I noticed, was unlocked. It also had another contact email from mine, and no longer had privacy, as I had paid for. Those things I noticed first.

I thought all that was quite unprofessional - the domain being unlocked combined with another persons email address, would mean that person could transfer the domain out without my knowledge, and with no way to stop it.
I tried to lock it, but got an "authorization" error from the registry.
That caused me to check the whois again. I hadn't done that in a few days. And behold:

The domain is NO LONGER registered at Moniker, instead it's registered with DIRECTI! (And privacy protected there.)
Mind you - in their first response to me they had assured me that "SnapNames or Moniker has ownership of the domain and I expect that we will be transferring the domain back to you shortly."
In a later response they had claimed they had locked down the domain already when the payment was returned, a day before I contacted them.

So, yes, they had put the domain back into my account, but neither I or Moniker had control over the domain any longer.
I immediately wrote back to them, pointing this out. But, since it was Saturday, of course nobody read this, or replied to it, for 2 days.
Early this morning I received the reply. Ignoring that I had pointed out that the domain was at Directi, not Moniker, they claimed the privacy had been put back.
NOT.

I had received an automatic message from Moniker that setting privacy on the domain had FAILED. When checking in the domain control panel, the domain was till unlocked, with the same contact info, and no privacy.
Checking whois, the domain is still with DIRECTI. Which, of course, is why setting privacy protection fails.

I again pointed out that the domain ISN'T with Moniker any more, in spite of all their assurances that they had retained ownership and locked down the domain.
I'm still waiting for a response to that.

On top of it all, I received a quite tempting offer for the domain yesterday - but can't sell it because I don't have control over it.

This story isn't over yet... but I'm still waiting for the next chapter.
It very well looks to me as if moniker soon can't make that claim that they've never lost a domain...
As for me - I can protect my accounts and emails all I want' but I can't protect myself against the stupidity of Moniker/Snapnames/Oversee.net giving my domain to a scammer without securing the payment FIRST.

(As noted, I'm still waiting for a response, but while I wrote this I got another automatic email from Moniker, with "Domain privacy FAIL" - Error description: "Failed to lock a Domain in the registry. Error code: 2201 - "Authorization error"" - it seems they are still trying, not wanting to believe that they DON'T have control over the domain.)



-Goran

Ouch!!! Hopefully you can get some help, little late , but better late then never

Good Luck

[INVIGOR]

This is really disconcerting as most of my names are at Moniker. That's some clever shit these fraudsters come up with to steal domains. I certainly hope this results in some better protocols and controls to be put in place to ensure this doesn't happen again. There are some huge gaps in their security and protection from the situation you describe. I would call Monte directly or sent him a direct message here MonikerMan is his user name. Real sorry to hear this.

[tristanperry]

It sounds like they've officially lost their first name now. Even if they are able to get it back, I won't really accept it if they do start claiming "We've never lost a name" again. Am really surprised at this, and hope you can get a full and proper answer from one of their high-ups.

[dn-101]

Yes folks, Nigerian Monte is live and well...

[Onward]

Very troubling to hear this. I have some of my most valuable names with moniker. I cannot have something like this happen.

[south]

Hmmm. This does not bode well.

Someone dropped the ball.

[JuniperPark]

Hmmm. This does not bode well.

Someone dropped the ball.

The ball was dropped about SIX TIMES, if everything reported is true.

Completely unacceptable. Moniker needs to reimburse this guy from their OWN pocket for his loss right away, and unless they can come up with compelling proof that this will never happen again, EVERYONE needs to pull their domains off Moniker NOW.

Since when is it acceptable to ignore urgent customer requests for DAYS while a domain is in the process of being stolen???

[south]

The ball was dropped about SIX TIMES, if everything reported is true.

Completely unacceptable. Moniker needs to reimburse this guy from their OWN pocket for his loss right away, and unless they can come up with compelling proof that this will never happen again, EVERYONE needs to pull their domains off Moniker NOW.

Since when is it acceptable to ignore urgent customer requests for DAYS while a domain is in the process of being stolen???

I'm afraid I would tend to agree. Hopefully Bari or another Moniker rep will post something to clarify what is being done to resolve this situation.

[NameHoney]

Could it be related to this?

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/low...s/20090721.htm

[south]

Could it be related to this?

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/low...s/20090721.htm

Was wondering the same thing.

Shit, better batten down the hatches.