The End Of Enom As We Know It

[mole]

There have been many complaints of late about eNom's long downtimes with the move to new server locations (at Register.com?), about things like transfers not working, about the company's impending marriage with Register.com, about registry connections being broken so no bookings can be made, etc.

Does this mean the end to eNom as we loved and knew it? Will you transfer your 10,000 names en-masse over to Netsol for free, or Rackshack for paying you to do so? Or even OpenSRS for its ambivalent view of the world?

Or would you remain put because you know the best is yet to come as eNom upgrades itself?

[woeger]

I for one have moved my valuable domains to OpenSRS (including some to EV1Servers). I moved my junk domains (poor typos and domains I didn't want to pay a renewal fee on that I didn't care if I lost) over to Network Solutions to get a free year on them.

Enom has just been too unreliable recently for my liking.

Their outages have been awful (DNS outages, E-mail forwarding problem, domain control panel/management interface problems, domain registration and transfer problems, etc).

Now if they get better I may go back, but for now my valuable domains are protected by another registrar, my junk is at NSI, and only a few domains are at Enom anymore.

[actnow]

I moved a couple names to Network Solutions about a month ago.

I was planning on moving more. But, more I thought about it. I realized
that NetSol will probably put a fee on transfers out starting next year.

And, they consider $ 19. a year a "special Price".

It is not worth the risk to use NetSol.

[mole]

Personally, I have gone through loads of shenanigans with various registrars in my 4-5 yrs in this domain "game", and today I'm even more convinced that eNom rules supreme in terms of value and technology expertise where it COUNTS MOST.

Í used to pay $29 bucks per domain WILLINGLY because I thought eNom was perfect. Today, I have an ETP account and the rates are peanuts, so low sometimes I feel guilty. The best free thing about eNom, I find, is their DNS management. World class services for free!!! Have you seen how much UltDNS and other registrars charge for even simple stuff? GoDaddy registers your name cheap, but everything after that is pay, pay, pay.

Sure, a registrar sometimes goes through a massive debugging phase when they introduce new things like ID protect and web Hosting and working with Register.com to transfer their reseller technology over. And when in order to do this, they have to migrate their servers to new locations and piece everything together again.

Sure, registry connections eg Nominet, get broken in the complex backend re-piecing process.

I just experimented with eNom's new ID protection today. It works like it promises and looks really great.

Domain Name: blahblahblah.BIZ
Domain ID: Dblahblahblah-BIZ
Sponsoring Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Domain Status: ok
Registrant ID: 9blah
Registrant Name: Whois Agent
Registrant Organization: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.
Registrant Address1: PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
Registrant Address2: C/O blahblahblah.biz
Registrant City: Bellevue
Registrant State/Province: WA
Registrant Postal Code: 98007
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Country Code: US
Registrant Email: blah@whoisprivacyprotect.com
Administrative Contact ID: 9blah
Administrative Contact Name: Whois Agent
Administrative Contact Organization: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.
Administrative Contact Address1: PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
Administrative Contact Address2: C/O blahblahblah.biz
Administrative Contact City: Bellevue
Administrative Contact State/Province: WA
Administrative Contact Postal Code: 98007
Administrative Contact Country: United States
Administrative Contact Country Code: US
Administrative Contact Email: blah@whoisprivacyprotect.com
Billing Contact ID: 9blah
Billing Contact Name: Whois Agent
Billing Contact Organization: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.
Billing Contact Address1: PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
Billing Contact Address2: C/O blahblahblah.biz
Billing Contact City: Bellevue
Billing Contact State/Province: WA
Billing Contact Postal Code: 98007
Billing Contact Country: United States
Billing Contact Country Code: US
Billing Contact Email: blah@whoisprivacyprotect.com
Technical Contact ID: 9blah
Technical Contact Name: Whois Agent
Technical Contact Organization: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc.
Technical Contact Address1: PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1
Technical Contact Address2: C/O blahblahblah.biz
Technical Contact City: Bellevue
Technical Contact State/Province: WA
Technical Contact Postal Code: 98007
Technical Contact Country: United States
Technical Contact Country Code: US
Technical Contact Email: blah@whoisprivacyprotect.com
Name Server: DNS5.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS4.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS3.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS2.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Created by Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Last Updated by Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Domain Registration Date: Wed Sep 17 16:40:40 GMT 2003
Domain Expiration Date: Fri Sep 16 23:59:59 GMT 2005
Domain Last Updated Date: Sun Nov 23 12:07:02 GMT 2003

The webhosting is also looking strong, with instant association with whatever name you chose on your account, exceptt for $8 per month, I wish I had my own unique IP address for the site :-D

Bottom line is - memories are always short on what eNom did for us and this industry, faults - on the other hand - are long remembered.

[JuniperPark]

At this very moment, eNom's email forwarding (their best feature) is down for the 15th major outtage since I've been counting and doing 30 minute testing (August). Absurd, and there is never any announcement on the support board of any problem. Oh, and this has NOTHING to do with the ISP blacklisting problem.

[mole]

Originally posted by JuniperPark
Oh, and this has NOTHING to do with the ISP blacklisting problem.

Please clarify further, park. The spam epidemic is getting even worse and eNom has been hit badly, the last I heard.

For important emails, I always host them outside. That's just common sense, you cannot be penny wise pound foolish with email today. Not with all the high paid hackers employed by spammers today.

[actnow]

Juniper,

I use their email forwarding. And, I have noticed some problems.

But, I really don't know if I am missing anything since it is not my primary
email address.

DN Mole, I agree with you. They do offer the best total package in
the industry. And, they are not the cheapest. But, how cheap do we
need to pay?
Considering we are bombarding their system with script at drop time.
And, we can easily push names within their system.

Plus, we are giving huge somes of money to Pool for what Enom does for $ 7.00.

However, what I consider the ticking timebomb in the registrar business
is this new approach by some of the other registrars to charge for
transfers out.

[woeger]

Since posting here, on another forum I got a reply by a current Enom employee about some of the concerns I have raised. He stated in that public forum that:

1. Enom has not been purchased by Register.com

and

2. Enom has not lost any of the key technical people over the last year.

These were my 2 main speculations as to why Enom's "services" have been breaking/were broken as of late (the last 2 months). Since this isn't the case (per the employee), then one can only assume that Enom didn't care enough about their customes (me and you) to notify and communicate with us about the status/condition that caused these random problems most of us have been experiencing at one time or another over the last two months.

So it all comes down to poor customer communication from Enom, and an apparant disregard for keeping their core systems operating reliably and with 100% uptime. In my book, they are low-cost registrar and can't uphold the various included services they offer (E-mail forwarding, their domain management control panel, reliable DNS services, fast domain registration without lengthy waiting queues that can take 6 hours or more to successfully register a domain, domain transfer system problems, etc.).

If one simply wants a "quick and dirty" registrar and doesn't care about possibly waiting a while to hopefully register an important domain, and they don't care about using any of their included services (DNS, E-mail forwarding, etc.) then Enom may be right for you. But for me, who needs reliable DNS, E-mail forwarding and other domain related services which should be included, I have to look elsewhere, for ENom has proved to me that they don't care about me (the customer) and my needs.

What Enom has done by apparently neglecting their "older systems" and focusing on adding new services and features, is extremely poor customer service and PR in my opinion. They have upset hundreds (if not thousands) of their key resellers and customers. You can verify this by reading posts here and other domain forums, and see for yourself all the angry customers of Enom over the last 2 months or so.

POOR Communication and apparent neglect of keeping their existing customers happy is a prime #1 reason for companies loosing customers and gaining a bad reputation. No amount of spending or new fatures can undue the damage that poor PR and poor communication has already done.

It is evident to me that Enom is not what they bill themselves to be, a super registrar that offers many free domain services included with your registration. It is now (in my opinion) only a cheap registrar where you can't count on any of their free services working reliably when you need them.

Hopefully Enom will recover from this and emerge as a better registrar. Only if they see the need for change and choose to better communicate with their customers will this likely happen. Let us all pray that this indeed happens, as we need a reliable and responsive Enom.

[biggedon]

Or is it a negative PR campaign out to get domainers to switch from enom to other registrars?

[woeger]

Well if it is I have no knowledge of it (a negative PR campaign). I wish Enom the best and hope they improve the reliability and overall quality of the services they offer. I was merely trying to point out their problems and weaknesses so hopefully they will change. I know I am not the only one out there who has been frustrated by the various problems Enom has been having.

I know of no better solution (feature wise) than Enom that is offered by any registrar out there currently. But they need to be reliable and stable is my main concern. Let us hope that Enom improves for the better

[WebCat]

So Mole, have you recently purchased stock in eNom? (just kidding!)

Maybe as such an avid fan, you can answer this- In the recent Secretary.com fiasco, why did eNom do the following:

1) Transfer Secretary.com out the first time with no other documentation but a fake ID, which can be purchased oin the street for $20.00, and

2) Transfer it AGAIN to NetSol, without bothering to so much as inform the registered owner, and apparently only at the request of NetSol, NOT the presentation of a court order or any other documentation, and WORST OF ALL,

3) Refuse to even talk about their incompetent bungling, or offer the involved parties any assistance of any kind, except for referring them to NetSol, DESPITE the fact that THEY were the party which transferred the domain BOTH TIMES!

Maybe I'm wrong, but to me this does not sound like the actions of a professional, responsible registar, that "Rules Supreme" as you put it! In fact, another recent "stolen" domain problem has involved eNom, i.e. KS.com. Sounds like a pattern of incompetence!

[mole]

Originally posted by WebCat
In the recent Secretary.com fiasco, why did eNom do the following:

I can't speak for eNom since they didn't give me any company stocks , but I think this is pure common sense - once the registrars are alerted of the possibility that misdoings has occured on a name and have sufficient evidence that this is so, it would be stupid for them to alert the registrant of this fact, imho.

You can obviously appeal this decision. I don't think registrars are idiots who can't see a nickel from a dime.

[namedropper]

WebCat,

It was my understanding that the name was at Network Solutions when the person forged the ID and that it was transferred normally to enom after that... If enom was the one who took the forged ID it never would have ended up "back" at NSI.

I also think the way that fraud cases work is that NSI just pulls them back and nobody else has much say in the matter. It'd be nice for some sort of heads up to the person it was yanked from for those cases when they are innocent victims, though. I haven't heard of enough cases to know that enom's lack of response in that case was due to negligence or standard registrar policy in these situations (or a negligent standard policy).