Terrible Situation - Advice Needed Urgently

[RAH]

Hi,

Situation: I recently purchased a Hosting company. Basically everything has went smoothly up until now...

Problem: His server has went down. I had got everyones accounts transferred already lucklily enough. However 99% of the customers domains are locked so I can't change the name servers to point to my server hence customers websites are down. From what I've been told by the domain registrar in question the only way of getting them unlocked is to either get him to call them or for me to fax them identification. However it has to be his identification as the domains are under his name...

His main email accounts were hosted on the server hence I can't contact him that way.

I can't contact him via phone as there is no answer.

Can I somehow get these domains unlocked or transfered?

I really appreciate any advice I can get on this matter as I'm currently very worried about it.

Thanks.

[DNjet]

you are in no way going to unlock or transfer any domain that is not in your name , this is very confusing to me , are you talking about the webhosting customer base nameservers? all clients should have been informed by email to change their nameservers if you changed the domain and nameservers to the company.

[RAH]

The problem is that the customers can't change the name servers themselves - I have to.

The domains are registered in the company name. You see I have login details for the domain manager thing at domainpeople.com however I need individual details for each domain in order to edit the name servers.

[DNjet]

ok , you are saying you bought the company but do not have control of the domains? were the domains included in the sale? and these are actually the clients domains?

is the whois email to the domains in question now your email? they should all be your whois info if you bought them , or you would not pay until this was completed and all the domain were in a account with new passwords.

[RAH]

Yes,yes and yes.

The email in the WHOIS is his email address which does not work anymore...

[DNjet]

well, you made a huge mistake then , you should have used an escrow service which would not have released payment to him until the domains were securely in your account with your whois info , you need to stop payment if you can until this is resolved, you are completely stuck if he don't answer your phone calls.

since you do have login info , the only other hope is if you can create a new account at that registrar with your whois info and "push" the domains into that account.

[RAH]

I paid through PayPal using my debit card/PayPal balance.

[NameWolf]

Well, do you have the control of the name server domains ?

For example, if the customers are pointing their sites to ns1.hostname.com and ns2.hostname.com, do you own/control hostname.com ? If that is the case, you can then update name server IPs with two new ones that point to your new server and all clients dns will update automatically.

[Banned: VioxxLawyers]

If you file a PP complaint, he wont receive the email because he has no access to his email, and after 10 days you will win. Hope the money is still on his PP account and was not transferred.

[DNjet]

Well, do you have the control of the name server domains ?

For example, if the customers are pointing their sites to ns1.hostname.com and ns2.hostname.com, do you own/control hostname.com ? If that is the case, you can then update name server IPs with two new ones that point to your new server and all clients dns will update automatically.

I think he is saying that he bought the client base and domains ,and moved the sites to his server , but the client base domains were registered "by and to" the webhosting company he bought , but he did not take control of these domains before he paid.

[RAH]

The name servers required seperate login details for the main domain just like all the other domains.

After speaking with DomainPeople they need me to fax them proof of ownership.

However I have just received an email from the seller so I am communicating with him now ,so should get this resolved hopefully.

I got in touch with the seller and this has now been resolved.

Thanks for all your help and advice.