New Tactic to Refuse .INFO Transfer-outs

[William9]

I wish you all of you on this board good luck with your transfers. Verisign’s is refusing to provide me with the auth-info code necessary for a .INFO transfer out. It is far more insidious than simply refusing transfers (aka .coms refusals). With a transfer refusal, the gaining registrar is able to somewhat provide documentation and/or statistics. In this case, because the auth-info is not provided, there is no proper gaining registrar. This appears to be a new transfer refusal tactic with .INFO that affects all of us in the internet community. I just filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission today on Verisign, the text of my compliant follows:

Verisign is refusing to provide the auth-info code for my domain, XXXX.INFO, necessary to transfer the domain name out (away from their registry).

On August 2nd, 4th, 11th, 28th, and September 2nd 2002, I contacted Verisign at 888-642-9675. The operators have been very polite. On the first, third and forth calls I was informed that I would receive the auth-info code by e-mail in 24 hours (I did not receive such E-mail and they acknowledge that one was NOT sent). On the second call, I was informed that something would be mailed to me to fax back to have the auth-info code provided. That was never mailed. On the fifth call, I requested to speak to a supervisor. I was informed that “problem” was in the software department – no further information available, your ticket# is XX#1-XXXXXX. They agree that my domain does not expire for over one-year, there is not hold or other problem.

Verisign is in a fiduciary responsibility with respect to its registrar/registry responsibilities. Its failure to provide my auth-info code, is addition to possible violating its contract(s) with the Department of Commerce, may violate numerous Federal Trade regulations.

I explain it to my friends, how would you react if your stock broker refused to release your securities to another broker?

I appreciate your investigation of the matter and will cooperate with whatever information I can provide. However, I do not believe that any of the facts are in dispute. Please contact me at my home at xxx-xxx-xxxx and I will return the call. Thanking you in advance.

Mole said, "The new .info and .biz namespaces come with stronger security features, such as the authorization code."

http://www.dnforum.com/f557/info-biz-transfers-netsol-thread-3416.html#post22551

[William9]

Goh, I thought you knew nuffin about transfers. Actually, you were farsighted in you comment in the referenced thread when you indicated “Sure, many things have two sides”. I am now on the other side, just as you predicted.

Have you tried contacting Afilias?

-t

http://afilias.info/contact/index_html

[William9]

Thewitt wondered if I contacted the .INFO registry Afilias? I am not sure if it is to obtain the auth-info or to complain, regardless, it would have been to no avail. I just completed reading the Afilias contract, @ Section H—Object Transfers. Basically, it is up to me to get it and my current registrar to give it to me. Afilias will play NO part in it. Thanks for the idea though.

http://rr-n1-tor.opensrs.net/transfe..._authinfo.html

[William9]

Thanks again Goh, your link was to this clause:

The sponsoring Registrar must provide the auth info code to the Registrant. If they do not, the Registrar is in breach of their Registry-Registrar Agreement and the Registrant should contact Afilias customer support info@afilias.info who can help them force their Registrar to comply with the requirements.

We will give it a try.

Originally posted by William9
Thanks again Goh, your link was to this clause:

The sponsoring Registrar must provide the auth info code to the Registrant. If they do not, the Registrar is in breach of their Registry-Registrar Agreement and the Registrant should contact Afilias customer support info@afilias.info who can help them force their Registrar to comply with the requirements.

We will give it a try.

shhhhh! I did not tell that to Mole who is enjoying the extra security feature.

We have been successful in getting auth codes from Afilias in the early days of info transfers - when many registrars didn't even know there were such a thing...

Don't give up so easily!

-t

[William9]

Thanks for letting me know about your success thewitt. I am not one for giving up. However, getting 3 different responses from 5 different phone calls (really 6) does not show good faith on their part in my opinion. I felt that the facts were sufficient to elevate my situation to an official complaint - especially when the last phone call promised me nothing. Thanks again.

William9 - I am not sure who your registrar is that you are trying to transfer your domain to, but they can contact Afilias/.info. Then Afilias will contact Verisign. We have had very good luck with this method with Afilias will not provide the AUTH-INFO codes to the customer.

Donny
directNIC.com

[mole]

Originally posted by goh
Mole said, "The new .info and .biz namespaces come with stronger security features, such as the authorization code."

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=22551

Yup, its so secure you can't even transfer your name just in case its a fraud

[PrimeDNR]

Dear Mole,

Then may be I should discourage my customers to register .info.

Currently most of my customers interest just .net or .com only.

Thanks for all you guy to help!!



Best regards


PrimeDNR

[DomeBase]

I am beginning to make some .INFO transfers, although not from Verisign. Is this the ways it works...?

1. Seller contacts his/her current name registrar and requests transfer authorization code. Seller gets code.

2. Seller submits transfer request with code (for example, in an e-mail?) to the new registrar.

3. New registrar initiates transfer... which happens like a .COM would?

DomeBase - You hit the head on the nose.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Donny

[anothernewbie]

William9,

My situation with getting auth-info codes from Verisign is the same as yours.

Definitely, something must be done about this.

[William9]

Domebase - You asked what is the .INFOs [or .BIZs] transfer process? Indicated below (and the next post) is my experiences. There are about 200 ICANN registrants, each with their own process, so your results between any two may vary. The thoughts of one registrar is indicated on their web site ¡V ¡§Due to certain anti-competitive business practices by a few registrars Alice's Registry is not offering Domain Transfers to Alice's Registry at this time.¡¨ https://www.ar.com (click on transfer). So please renew your blood-pressure medicine before attempting the process indicated below.

With you medicine in hand, I recommend that before you even think of transferring, first check Whois to verify that you are all the necessary E-mails contacts for the domain. I have had several registrars, on their own volition, change E-mail contacts to themselves! It is important because you may not be able to complete a transfer unless you can respond to E-mails. [I forgot to tell the FTC about that issue.]

I landed one Verisign domains because I submitted a couple a hundred LR1 preregs to Registrars.com. They obtained one domain for me, and then MERGED with Verisign.

Based on my limited experience, dealing with 7 different losing registrars so-far ¡V the KEY MILESTONE of success, is obtaining an auth-info code that WORKS.

Why should you attempt to obtain the auth-info code before even choosing a gaining registrar (in my opinion)? It is because the gaining registrar may (as I have experienced) TIME-YOU-OUT (cancel the transfer totally) if you do not input the auth-info code within their time limits. In addition, you are paying for the transfer at the time of request, not at the time of transfer! Most registrars will credit you for unsuccessful transfer-ins, but not all will give you a charge credit.

Generally you will go to the gaining registrar, type in the domain name, and pay for the transfers. The gaining registrar appears to compare whois info to you account info at that registrar. Within a couple of hours, the gaining registrar will send e-mails to the whois admin and the registrant. The admin and registrant can e-mail back acknowledging the transfer is wanted, e-mail back denying the transfer, or do nothing [thereby also denying the transfer]. Another couple of hours and an E-mail is received from the gaining registrar asking you for the auth-info code. „²-----

If you have the auth-info code, you input it. If not, take another blood pressure pill and read the next sequential post of mine in this tread. Within three to five days (if you had the correct auth-info AND the losing registrar did not deny the transfer), Afilias indicates in the Whois STATUS LINE ¡§transfer in progress¡¨. Congratulations - You are cooking - within a week (assuming you did not file for bankruptcy or cancel the x-fer) the transfer process will complete and the domain will appear in your account.

Please see next post in tread for experiences on gaining Auth-infos.

[William9]

My experiences trying to obtain Auth-Info codes (excluding the Verisign experience at the start of this thread).

I have to complement Dotster on being the best (least anti-competitive?) so-far for transfers-out. Log on your account and click send me the code (paraphrased) and poof, the auth-info code appears in your e-mail. And – the code worked! Joker on the other hand worked, but it was like an IQ test – written in German! After clicking their web-site, you had to respond to the two E-mails by negative assurance. That is, the pre-formatted e-mail had something like vote yes or vote no and you deleted what you did NOT want to do. I read on other boards that if you deleted one extra space, it is construed to be a no vote. They also had strict time limits to all the responses. Even after you obtained the auth-info code, they would reject the transfer if you did not wait about one week BEFORE submitting the transfer! The time they say they will accept the request for transfer is set out in their E-mail. So do not be so happy to get an auth-code that you run to submit the transfer request. It worked for me because I read everything carefully – although they did not translate everything perfectly. Two other registrars had no info on their web site, however, eventually responded to my E-mail requests indicating that they were resetting the auth-info to my password. A registrar in Australia keeps telling me that the auth-info code is my registry key. I have had transfer requests fail on 5 occasions since July using it. I do not have sufficient information to determine the root cause yet.

I forgot to mention, even if you have the auth-code, the losing registry will deny the transfer if you do not meet additional requirements. They depend on registrar but are something like – have xx number of days (where xx is 10 to 90) before expiration, don’t owe the registrar money, and possible something I am too tired to remember – so - gota go.

Good luck Domebase and everyone else with your transfers.

P.S. I will keep everyone on this board, the FTC, and Afilias up to date if I ever receive an auth-info from Verisign and if the transfer-out request is granted.

OpenSRS displays the auth code on request in the doman control panel. You don't need to ask or have anyone email you anything.

-t