Time to sue this registrar ??

[jester]

A registrar wrongly suspended an account. Mistakes happens and that is perfectly understandable. But they are not replying to my emails to correct this situation. And some of the most valuable domains that were in the account now have new owners.

I am wondering if they sold it for profit.

I would like find other people who have been screwed by this unscrupulous registrar and join me in class action law suit.

Am I allowed to mention name of the registrar in this forum?

 

[DnPowerful]

Let me guess:

Starts with a "Veri" and ends with a "sign".

A one year registration in hell if I'm right...

 

[draqon]

legally, you certainly can mention the name of the registrar, but you have to be very careful to only say truthful statements or you can be found guilty of libel.

 

[draqon]

verisign is the Enron of the domain industry.

 

[StockDoctor]

Could it be Names4ever?

They are the worst, fraud dealing, crooks in the game. Even worse than Verisign.

 

[RMF]

It would be nice for you to post the registrar to give us a chance to prevent that from happening to us. Also, if others have had any similar problems with the same registrar, you can work together on this.

RMF

 

[ReignDomain]

Tell us the name of that registrar.

 

[DnPowerful]

Originally posted by jester
A registrar wrongly suspended an account. Mistakes happens and that is perfectly understandable. But they are not replying to my emails to correct this situation. And some of the most valuable domains that were in the account now have new owners.

I am wondering if they sold it for profit.

I would like find other people who have been screwed by this unscrupulous registrar and join me in class action law suit.

Am I allowed to mention name of the registrar in this forum?

This forum has a lot of eyeballs. I would post your story here, and take it from there. You'd be surprised how much heft gets thrown around here.

 

[jester]

Thank you everyone for your responses.

The name of registrar is Registerfly, reseller of Enom.

Here are the facts and only facts:
I have someone who has been doing some work for me as contractor. He does not have credit card so I have made various online payments on his behalf in return for his work. He has registered about 40 domains at Registerfly with the money I've deposited for him. About 4 days ago he ran out of money. So I deposited another $300 for him using my credit card. Shortly afterwards, his account was canceled.

message on the log in said something like the account was suspended due to use of stolen credit card. If it was an error then I should fax them copy of my credit card statement.

I tried their fax number but it could not be reached. So I emailed [email protected] as per their direction. No reply, so I also emailed to John and Tim at registerfly. John answered next day saying it was due to the fact that I made chargebacks on my credit card. This was not true and I checked with my credit card company twice to make sure nothing like that happened by accident.

to make longer story short, 13 of the 40 valuable domains now have new owners. John denies anything like that could happen and told me to email to risk@registerfly. So I emailed again and got no response.

Those are the straight facts with all the documentations to prove it.

The next question is what happened. I am hoping this was all a big misunderstanding but the fact remains that account was suspended. many valuable domains have new owners. rest of the domains have ads that are making money for someone else. The account holder already had atleast one offer to buy one of the domains from him but can't sell due to account suspension.

Is he being screwed or is this just a big misunderstanding that they are not responding to.

 

[bidawinner]

Surely a misunderstanding I hope ... I have used them over year no problems at all..

It may have something to do with possiblly your CC company seeing 2 different names pop up as you are filling out the domain registratin forms...address not matching is one of their verification tols...? You may want to check that route..an automation type thing..

 

[GeorgeK]

Have you tried talking to eNom? Perhaps they can freeze those domains, so that they can't be transferred elsewhere, until the issue gets resolved.

 

[jester]

I've used same cc before with them before without any problem.

still waiting to hear from enom and registerfly.

I am not hearing any negative responses about them so I am just hoping it is all a big misundertanding BUT the fact remains. The domains were transfered to other owners AND not getting any responses from them.

 

[Lew]

In my opinion, something is VERY wrong. Even if there was some account cancellation, there is NO reason the names should show as a different owner or be redirected to different pages in such a short time period. That could only happen if the names were immediately deleted and went back into the pool of names, in which case very few people would even know that they were now available to register.

The question then becomes - if nobody knew they were deleted, how would so many of them be picked up so quickly?

No reputable company is going to delete the names without a fair hearing on what exactly happened, so it sounds like you were scammed somehow and I would get a lawyer immediately. The more time that goes by the less chance of recovering the names.

 

[yesonline]

Originally posted by Lew
In my opinion, something is VERY wrong. Even if there was some account cancellation, there is NO reason the names should show as a different owner or be redirected to different pages in such a short time period. That could only happen if the names were immediately deleted and went back into the pool of names, in which case very few people would even know that they were now available to register.

The question then becomes - if nobody knew they were deleted, how would so many of them be picked up so quickly?

It was not necessary to delete those domains, my guess is that those names were "pushed" into another account and modified the contact infos already, that is why those names show the different owner so quickly.

 

[Lew]

That is another possibility.

But, that doesn't explain what happened to his names in any better light.

Whether they were deleted or just pushed to anothers account, any reputable registrar would have looked into the matter fully before "giving" the names away. And if memory serves me correctly, a registrar cannot just give names away, they must let them expire through the normal channels.

Either way - something is fishy!

Perhaps our new legal expert can offer his opinion on this situation

 

[Success]

Hi jester,

I think there must be an misunderstanding.

I have been using them since they started.

Have encountered some problems over time, all minor technical bugs and credit card related. However all were solved when I contacted them. All my mails to them were replied and action taken. I have confidence in them.

Try explaining clearly to Tim what happened, give evidences such as forwarding your registerfly domain registration confirmation emails to them.

 

[jester]

Thanks again everyone for your inputs.

rather than guessing I think I go with facts and only facts.

1. account was suspened. it said credit card was stolen. NOT TRUE. It is exact same credit card I have been using on that account.
2. It said to fax a credit card statement if I thought this was an error. The fax phone number did not work.
3. It also said to email [email protected]. After 2 emails and 5 days, still no reply
4. Wrote to Tim Shor at registerfly. He said account was suspended due to chargeback on credit card. NOT TRUE. I checked with my credit card company and they had no record of any chargebacks ever.
5. All Tim kept on saying was to email to [email protected]. No help there.
6. In mean time many of the valuable domains in the account has new owners.

Called Enom and they said they will have registerfly contact me. Have not heard back from either one of them since.

I really would like to settle this quietly but they are not responding to my emails. I really have no choice and considering two actions.
1. contact icann since this sounds like fraud.
2. post message in all known boards to see if I can find people in similar situation to join me in class action law suit.

I really would like to settle this quietly but not sure whatelse I can do since they are not responding to my emails.

 

[Lew]

Success,

You may have had no bad experiences with them, but that doesn't help Jester as his names have someone else as the OWNER.

That single fact alone would be enough to scare the heck out of me. Even if this was a big mistake and it isnt a scam, just a big misunderstanding, it will be next to impossible to get those names back through the registrar alone.

When Verisign makes a big mistake like this, they say "oops - sorry, there is nothing we can really do about it at this point" .

I would get as loud as I could with as many people as I could and do it right NOW.

Just my opinion though.

 

[Togoodhlth]

If this is in fact an error on their part it is entirely possible that internally they are "passing the buck". I wouldn't want to be the one telling you that some of your domains were pushed into someone elses account.
Depending on the value of the domains I would:
A) Fire off a detailed, certified letter including all documentation. I would also let it be known the seriousness of the "error".
B) In the event the Domains were going to be developed or were very valuable to me I would have an attorney do it for me.

A proactive approach is necessary and will hopefully get their attention.

Good luck to you and let us know how everything shakes out.

 

[world2er]

Have you tried RegisterFly's "Live Help" ??

In dealing with them for almost a year, I had only one problem ... A domain registration I was doing froze (has anyone else noticed how incredibly lagged RegisterFly's servers have been the last couple of months ?) ... In the end, the registration went through, but it didn't so for a couple of days, and then it showed up ... Their Live Help was what solved the problem for me ...

As a side note, I have since switched over to a straight reseller account at eNom ... Much faster servers ... Cheaper domain registrations ... Everything that people in "our line of work" pretty much need ...