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Some Hope During Registerfly's Meltdown

Posted by kdawson on Mon Feb 19, 2007 09:41 PM
from the back-doors dept.
The Internet Businesses
hookmeister writes "If you registered your domain at Registerfly.com, then you should know it may be locked, and you are at the moment unable to access it through Registerfly's website (video). You may even be unable to renew your domain because it has expired into a status known as 'redemption' through no fault of your own. By all accounts there are just under 2 million domains at risk here. Enom dumped them as a reseller; their SSL cert has expired; it's a mess. Fortunately the principals in this are trying to restore order. The external website registerflies.com, originally crafted as a gripe-zone and forum for Registerfly users, has gotten inside the ranks of the post-shakup Registerfly management, made some friends and connections, and is creating a back-door problem-reporting form that goes directly to those who can correct a domain problem. The official Registerfly support ticketing system remains clogged with thousands of unanswered complaints."

Related Stories

[+] ICANN May Act Against RegisterFly 63 comments
1sockchuck writes "ICANN says it will terminate RegisterFly's accreditation as a domain registrar if the company can't fix its problems within 15 days. The edict comes with RegisterFly in chaos and current management blaming a departed executive for its woes. The situation is complicated by the fact that RegisterFly sold some of its domains through a reseller agreement with eNom, and others using its own accreditation."
[+] Registerfly's Accreditation Terminated by ICANN 111 comments
Punker22 writes "Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly.com's accreditation. Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and provide all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously. 'Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers,' Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said today."
[+] ICANN Set To Review Accreditation Policy 31 comments
tinkertim writes "ICANN is re-evaluating the scope and purpose of its accreditations, apparently sparked by the recent collapse of garage domain name registrar Registerfly. In a press release dated March 21, 2007, President and CEO of ICANN, Dr Paul Twomey is quoted as saying : 'What has happened to registrants with RegisterFly.com has made it clear there must be comprehensive review of the registrar accreditation process and the content of the RAA.' Dr. Twomey is blaming (in part) 'weaknesses in the RAA' for severe and undue hardships that many registrants encountered when trying to transfer names away from the failing registrar, Registerfly. Many new points to be discussed include allowing registrants to view the performance of registrars in an 'independent comparative way', as well as new language to allow ICANN to forcibly intercede in the face of wide spread, persistent and consistent complaints. 10 good points for discussion are listed by Dr. Twomey in the release, who invites all ICANN stakeholders to participate in re-evaluating the RAA. Registerfly, the catalyst for this re-write does not officially lose their accredited status until March 31, 2007, and continues to display the ICANN seal on their web site."
[+] Your Rights Online: 850K RegisterFly Domains Moved To GoDaddy 120 comments
miller60 writes "The long-suffering customers of RegisterFly should soon be able to manage their names again after ICANN arranged for the transfer of its 850,000 domains to GoDaddy.com. ICANN terminated RegisterFly's accreditation back in March but it took a court order to pry the domains loose so they could be transferred to another registrar. For those just joining the story (see earlier discussions on Slashdot), RegisterFly is the New Jersey domain registrar that collapsed amid management chaos in February, leaving most customers unable to manage, renew, or transfer their domains. ICANN, which was widely criticized for its inability to do more for RegisterFly customers, expressed relief at the saga's apparent conclusion."
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  • Registerfly? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zaydana (729943) on Monday February 19 2007, @09:53PM (#18076698)
    Excuse my ignorance, but what actually happened in the first place? I'm kinda confused as to what has happened to registerfly? I'm presuming its a registrar, but that doesn't actually tell me all that much...

    • Re:Registerfly? (Score:5, Funny)

      by EvanED (569694) <evaned AT gmail DOT com> on Monday February 19 2007, @10:01PM (#18076764)
      Well, judging by the headline, its coolant failed and it went all Chernobyl.
      [ Parent ]

    • Re:Registerfly? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2007, @10:06PM (#18076824)
      Registerfly used to be an eNom reseller, but recently became an independent registrar. In the process they left a large number of accounts as orphans with eNom. Those account holders, who I happen to be one of, received notices from both eNom and Registerfly several days after the accounts had been orphaned. Both companies were kind enough to offer to transfer the domain for a fee. Seems like it should be free since they decided to split their business not me. I may have to split after this treatment.
      [ Parent ]

    • Re:Registerfly? (Score:5, Informative)

      by hookmeister (585456) on Monday February 19 2007, @10:11PM (#18076878)
      (http://hd1080i.com/)
      Yes Registerfly is Domain name regisration company. like Network Solutions, and GoDaddy.com ... when the post was written, registerfly's site was still up , so i assumed it would be self eveident to anyone not already aware but curious about it. -- Now www.regsiterfly.com is down because the 2 guys from inside the company that can fix it, are fixing it, right at the datacenter. ( they had to lock out one of the partners first, that guy was the one causing all the trouble) its a long story.

      best read for the moment can be found here http://registerflies.com/welcome-to-the-registerfl y-gripe-site-6.html [registerflies.com]

      A lot of people have been burned by the circumstances leading up to this.
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:Registerfly? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cmacb (547347) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @01:33AM (#18078466)
        (http://blog.macb.net/ | Last Journal: Monday March 05 2007, @04:38PM)
        I remember getting burned a few years ago by a hosting company. I had every reason to believe from their website that they were a good sized outfit that was a subsidiary to one of the local phone companies in Florida. All the photos of their "datacenter" were so convincing, and in fact for a couple of years the services was quite OK. But then screwy things started happening that should have shouted out to me: "This company is operating on a shoestring budget in some kids parent's basement!".

        Actually it turned out to be a small warehouse office space with a few servers and high school drop-outs for staff. The tie-in with the phone company was total BS and some sleuthing revealed that the other family business was closer to being a fertilizer business (no really!) than anything else. I got off that system just in time. I lost some things, but not much, people who waited a bit longer lost everything including access to their domains etc.

        When I looked for a replacement I was much more careful to look for telltale signs that it was the same kind of, for lack of a better term "soft-fraud" operation. I think I got pretty good at it, but what scared me was the percentage of fairly well known companies that were using the same boilerplate text and generic graphics of their facilities. One thing I especially looked for was if no actual peoples names appeared on the web site. Big companies have "Chairmen" and "CEOs" who love to get their pictures on the corporate web site. These fly-by-night outfits on the other hand just have support contact numbers that go to an answering machine and not indication that anyone associated with the company wants their actual name to show up anywhere. You have to wonder why. Or maybe you don't.

        I'm almost positive that Registerfly (and I think they had a hosting come-on too) was one of these fairly obvious scam operations. I'm SOOOO glad I stayed away.

        My hope is that in the not too distant future Google and some other big names will get into the free-to-low-cost hosting and registration business and put these low-life vermin out of our misery.
        [ Parent ]
    • Re:Registerfly? by binarybum (Score:2) Tuesday February 20 2007, @02:09PM

  • I was one of those people (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2007, @09:59PM (#18076746)
    Enom sent out a rather vague email that sounded a bit like spam when I first read it. They told me how I needed to transfer my domain... blah blah blah. Then a day or so later, I received a notice from registerfly that this previous email spoke truth. Registerfly also wants me to spend money on domains that I have already "paid up" on so to speak. I'm not making a move on this until I see what is coming of it. I may go to someone else entirely. I just keep wondering - why did they make a change effective Feb. 1, 2007, yet take until Feb. 6, 2007 to notify me of something they had been planning for a year or longer?

  • Are there any... (Score:2)

    by Bin_jammin (684517) <Binjammin@gmail.com> on Monday February 19 2007, @10:05PM (#18076806)
    big domains hosted there that this will cause to expire? I could use a couple hundred-thou extra spending money.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • These guys should not be in business (Score:1)

    by felix9x (562120) on Monday February 19 2007, @10:11PM (#18076866)
    (http://www.zaslavskiy.net/)
    Registerfly has horible service I dont know how they are even in business.
    Their software does not work at all.

    I had 2 big issues:
    1. One of the domains I owned just disappeared from my account. After man minutes on the phone it was restored.
    2. When I tried to pay to renew did not seem to work. The credit card submit page just died on you. I tried again. Later got a failure notice in the email and my credit card was charged twice.

    Thankfully switched in time

  • Simply awesome (Score:5, Informative)

    by jyoull (512280) <<jim> <at> <media.mit.edu>> on Monday February 19 2007, @10:11PM (#18076874)
    They ripped me off for the price of two transfers-in that never happened ($15) then when I disputed the charges on the credit card (the money was charged but never refunded), RegisterFly "seized" a dozen totally diffent paid-up domains of mine and marked them "fraudulent," taking them offline with no notice.

    These domains were completely unrelated to the two that were never transferred in but for which I was billed. RegisterFly staff called me names on the phone, and finally handed them back in exchange for my payment of a $75 ransom over their threats that if I didn't pay up, they'd sell them, as was their "right" under their unconscionable contract terms.

    I hope everyone affiliated with running the scam known as Registerfly burns in hell.. and my friends who didn't listen to my advice to get out of their while they still could: sorry suckers, but i tried to warn you.

  • Any recommended registrars out there? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2007, @10:18PM (#18076930)
    After the GoDaddy debacle, I tried to transfer my domains to Domainsite.com but they appear to be drunk at the moment (they cancelled my transfers and then sent me a notice that my refund failed - I've been calling and emailing for weeks now with no response).

    What is a reasonable registrar, these days?

  • Well (Score:3, Informative)

    by sulli (195030) * on Monday February 19 2007, @10:20PM (#18076942)
    (Last Journal: Monday October 22, @04:01PM)
    Should have stuck with Network Solutions [archive.org], then! I always say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    • Re:Well by robogun (Score:2) Monday February 19 2007, @10:46PM

    • Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Apple Acolyte (517892) on Monday February 19 2007, @11:59PM (#18077802)
      I hope this post was a joke, but if it wasn't everyone who is currently with Network Solutions should know what kind of company it is. You can read all about it on various sites, or you can read my personal horror story [slashdot.org] with NetSol. NetSol stinks.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Well by Linkin99 (Score:1) Tuesday February 20 2007, @02:04PM

  • What Happened? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mysteerie (972719) on Monday February 19 2007, @10:22PM (#18076964)
    (http://www.bihira.com/)
    From what I heard Kevin Medina was fired (one of the partners) of Register Fly. Obviously, disgruntled about bieng forced out, decided to mess with the backend systems of registerfly. Thus thier own support department wasn't able to access thier systems to correct any issues, etc...

  • Enom Sucks (Score:2)

    by aldheorte (162967) on Monday February 19 2007, @10:30PM (#18077042)
    They'll apparently take anyone as a reseller. I had this same exact problem with another reseller of there's, only they also changed the legal registrant without notifying (though they claimed they did), and the domain was lost.
  • An now, after being announced on Slashdot, the backdoor support form will be clogged too.
    (I prefer Bluehost, which manages it's own hosting servers and nameservers on-site.)

  • Explanation:- (Score:5, Informative)

    by gigne (990887) on Monday February 19 2007, @10:43PM (#18077162)
    (http://www.headfuzz.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 26 2006, @08:49PM)
    In case anyone has no idea what this is all about, I summarised the points:

    * Joint Director Kevin Medina was removed from the company for embezzlement of funds due to Registerfly's inability to pay it's upsream registrars.

    source http://registerflies.com/docman/cat_view.html [registerflies.com]

    complaints Filed in new Jersey:- Claims
    1) Wiring 3x $9000 to personal accounts
    2) $10000 to pay rent on apartment on a monthly basis
    3) Paying large personal credit card bills
    4) $6000 for liposuction
    5) tens of thousands on "personal spending"

    * they terminated Kevin Medina
    http://registerflies.com/docman/doc_download-5.htm l [registerflies.com]

    * Kevin Medina caused other untold system problems *not verified from any source, just speculation on registerflies

    * Registerfly seem to be concentrating on fixing this.

    Pretty confusing though.

  • Long Time Coming (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NilObject (522433) on Monday February 19 2007, @10:56PM (#18077296)
    (http://www.fallingbullets.com/)
    I've seen this coming for a long time. I chronicled my trials and tribulations of trying to get my domain names back on my blog, which some people may find interesting:

    http://fallingbullets.com/blog/2006/dec/10/registe rfly-scam/ [fallingbullets.com]

    Thankfully, I managed to get all my domains back.

  • Demand that ICANN invoke para. 3.2.3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animats (122034) on Monday February 19 2007, @11:27PM (#18077566)
    (http://www.animats.com)

    It's time for ICANN to invoke paragraph 3.2.3 of the Registrar Agreement [icann.org]. The Registrar then has ten days to provide a data dump of all their registrations, allowing bulk transfer of a failing registrar's data to another registrar.

  • personal experience at IYD.com (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2007, @11:40PM (#18077682)
    There are a lot of phishy goings on in the registrar business. I'm not a squatter myself so I don't transfer domains in and out of registrars on a daily basis. I just have one domain. ItsYourDomain is where I'm at now. Haven't been screwed yet. Slightly more expensive than GoDaddy, but it seems to be run by real people. I'm sure there are some other good, maybe even better ones. Sort of like I'm not convinced bash is the best shell, but its good enough that Its not worth my time to research anything else. Unless some one were to reply to my post...

  • Registerflybynight... (Score:2)

    by flyingfsck (986395) on Monday February 19 2007, @11:47PM (#18077742)
    Should have been obvious really - give a dog a bad name.

  • Clueless support for .CA domains (Score:2)

    by TMacPhail (519256) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @01:42AM (#18078518)
    I registered a .CA domain with them and they were abolutely clueless about it. I didn't receive my inital CIRA e-mail necessary to activate the domain until I filed a support ticket for it. When I tried to renew it a year later, the renewal failed repeatedly. And instead of the support people trying to fix it, they would refund my money and tell me to try again. In several cases they charged me twice. I gave up and transfered away a couple months ago. I still had some money left in their broken 'quick checkout' system that I gave up on ever trying to recover or use. (I tried to use it to register a different domain that never worked either)

  • Burned (Score:1)

    by triphius (1003636) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @03:02AM (#18078902)
    (http://www.tripslair.com/)
    I have also been burned by RegisterFly. After months of trying to negotiate with their support department over one specific domain, I had my lawyer send a demand letter... the letter was marked return to sender, the "RegisterFly Legal Department" address didn't exist or didn't accept the letter. To this day, I still have yet to regain control of this domain. I was however able to move the remainder of my domains over to eNom after this mess started happening, and they have provided me with excellent service thus far. For anyone who is interested, all the details are on my blog: http://www.tripslair.com/category/caveat-emptor/re gisterfly/ [tripslair.com]

  • why I respect PayPal (Score:1)

    by u235meltdown (940099) <qayshp.gmail@com> on Tuesday February 20 2007, @05:12AM (#18079568)
    (http://qays.net/)
    While RegisterFly was still part of eNom, everything was fine and dandy. During that time they had a 800 customer support line, and were very responsive. I never had any problems with them that weren't solved in a 5-10 minute phone call.
    Later, after they became a "Certified" registrar, problems started occurring. Items I purchased in my cart charged my PayPal account, but were never actually recorded as purchases. This happened 3 times before I got ticked off and tried calling, note that they no longer had the toll free number. They had a total of around $30 unaccounted for, deducted from my PayPal account but in no form credited to my RegisterFly account.
    I called their support line, well within operating hours, and was on hold for over 5 hours one time. I never got through to a representative, after multiple days spent with hours (usually over 2 as "First in line") on hold.
    They did however respond to a "Instant Online Chat" after about 3 hours of waiting with the Java chat window open. When they did respond, they were "unable to access" my account and thus do anything about it. I was told to call again, and email sales. Neither of those worked... big surprise huh?
    Eventually I filed a PayPal dispute and they *GASP* responded to that quickly. I have been transferring over my domains as they expire, and hope that there will be no problems with that in the future.

  • I recommend moving your domains elsewhere ASAP (Score:2)

    by Arrogant-Bastard (141720) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @07:32AM (#18080246)
    Registerfly is one the few registrars that has earned a
    blacklist-on-sight policy for any domain registered with
    it. Their complete failure to take any action against any
    domain -- for spamming, spyware, phishing, and worse --
    indicates to me that the registrar is run by incompetent amateurs.

    I won't recommend another registrar because I don't want
    it to seem like I'm shillling for them; but I'll recommend also
    avoiding GoDaddy, Bulkregister, GKG, Nameking and Domains at Cost
    simply to avoid sending someone from frying pan to fire.

    But I don't think you can possibly do worse than Registerfly.

  • I've worked with Network Solutions, 1&1, GoDaddy, Register.com, and others... honestly I have been dissatisfied with all of them. Back in the day, Netsol was the only game in town, but that's not true anymore. But in the full range, either the service or system sucks (e.g. 1&1), it's too expensive (e.g. Netsol, Enom), or I really detest their advertising (e.g. GoDaddy).

    So now I use CheapCheap.biz [cheapcheap.biz] for a few reasons: the prices are decent, the DNS controls are actually intelligent and usable (unlike 1&1's, for example, which are hideous), and I know the folks who founded it (so I'm happy to give them my business and promote them). Obviously you should take this with a grain of salt, but still... I don't stick with it just because I know people, but because it actually WORKS for me.

  • Just goes to show (Score:2)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @09:12AM (#18080940)
    (http://robvincent.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 09, @01:55PM)
    you can't trust anyone with "fly" in their name.

    ...oh, wait.

  • FINALLY (Score:1)

    by screwem (1066446) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @11:12AM (#18082488)
    They were a complete scam. I lost two business domains because of them, and got charged for the renewal at the same time. It was such a surprise to find out how easy it is these days to commit a fraud... Good lesson though.

  • GKG (Score:1)

    by Puppet Master (19479) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @11:13AM (#18082496)
    (http://www.mindslayer.net/)
    Glad I've been using GKG.NET [gkg.net] for years.

    Their prices compare to other registrars (including GoDaddy) as far as domain names are concerned. I've never had a problem with them. They've been in business over 14 years, so if you are looking for a new registrar, give GKG.NET [gkg.net] a try.

  • Registerflies.com down also? (Score:2)

    by sunset (182117) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @11:27AM (#18082666)
    (http://www.sunsetsystems.com/)
    Suddenly registerflies.com and www.registerflies.com are unresolved - or is it just me? Anyone have their IP address?

  • Registerflies Problems - IP Address (Score:1)

    by tldagent (1066396) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @12:11PM (#18083232)
    Our site is not down. Been some propagation of new nameserver issues that have not fully made it to the world. We had 6 hours notice of this and registered new nameservers and moved site to dedicated server to handle the increased traffic. Below are some useful instructions.

    Please follow these directions. The site had to be moved and you may be on the old server as the propagated nameserves haven't reached the world yet.

    Please follow these instructions to see the new site on the new server:

    You will need the domain name (eg: example.com, test.example.com) and the IP address of the target server. Make sure you close all open browser windows before doing this.

    Common locations of the 'hosts' file: /Windows 95/98/Me:/ *c:\windows\hosts
    */Windows NT/2000:/ *c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
    */Windows XP (Home OR Pro):/ *c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
    *(you may need administrator access for Windows NT/2000/XP)

    NOTE: 'hosts' is the name of the file and not another directory name.
    It does not have an extension (eg: .exe, .txt, .doc, etc.)

    1) Copy the location to your 'hosts' file from the respective Operating System above (copy only the bold area)
    2) Open Windows Notepad (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad)
    3) Click on the *File* menu and choose *Open...*
    4) Paste that location into the *File name:* field and click the *Open* button
    5) Start on a new line at the bottom of the file
    6) Type the IP address, hit the TAB key, then type the domain*
    7) Save the file and close all open browsers before attempting to browse to the domain.

    *You can add more than one hostname on the same line, just make sure you have at least one space or TAB in between each one.
          Example line: *192.168.0.10 example.com test.example.com www.example.com*

    This is the line you want to enter at the bottom of your file: 67.18.218.82 registerflies.com www.registerflies.com

    Simlpy, just browse to the proper file on your system and open it and add this line to the bottom and save. Make sure to open it in notepad.

    67.18.218.82 registerflies.com www.registerflies.com

  • IP address please (Score:1)

    by tismike (1066496) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @01:11PM (#18084346)
    This is nuts...why can't you just post the ip address of the new site? It's not 67.18.218.82. That's just a placeholder page on the server. Have you put up the content yet?
  • I fell for these guys because of the cheap price and over 3 years of doing business they have been the absolute worst registrar I have ever used. Switched to godaddy right after this fiasco (lost about 5 domains... dont care that much they were useless anyways). I know godaddy gets a lot of shit too, but compared to registerfly, they are like registrar angels.

    Registerfly's main problem (besides this fiasco) is their horrendously bad website. For years it took 15 seconds per page request to edit changes on a domain.

  • I moved to eNom... (Score:1)

    by leobard (1066778) on Wednesday February 21 2007, @08:15AM (#18094766)
    I had three domains at registerfly and clicked the links provided in eNoms e-mails to registerfly accounts. They read like this: ".... registerfly is going down in flames ... click this link to move your domain to eNom .... have a nice day ... " Note that I got the e-mail only once, and the links in the e-mails contained some authorisation code that was bound to the domain names. I don't know if it is now better at eNom or if I can push the domains from eNom to somewhere else, but at least it seems I am out of registerfly ... or, am I? who knows. More thoughts in my blog. http://leobard.twoday.net/stories/3348089/ [twoday.net]

  • Registerflies.com is down as of 22:30 EST 2/22/07 (Score:1)

    by lsylvain (1067532) on Thursday February 22 2007, @10:39PM (#18118228)
    I hope it was only due to heavy load and someone will help the admin who has put together and maintained the site out of his own pocket.

  • Re:Do I need to transfer right now? (Score:1, Troll)

    by jyoull (512280) <<jim> <at> <media.mit.edu>> on Monday February 19 2007, @10:30PM (#18077044)
    Definitely I'd advise continuing to be a cheapwad, and then coming back to Slashdot to whine to people who can't possibly help you, about how you were "victimized."

    yes, definitely do that. It'll be amusing. Not interesting really, but amusing in an "oh there goes another cheapwad, who saw his fate in the future and ignored it" sort of way, which makes it slightly more interesting.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • And what's with all the totally unnecessary swearing?
    [ Parent ]

  • MOD PARENT UP! (Score:1)

    by ImprovGuy (541110) on Tuesday February 20 2007, @06:01AM (#18079778)
    Seriously, I agree 100% with this post. Following this advice would greatly improve the quality of this site.

    Not to invoke the old "think of the children" chestnut, but... think of the children! As much as I'd like to think younger computer junkies read Charles Dickens in their spare time, the reality is that sites like this make an impression. A *little* effort in improving the writing style and grammar will have, I think, a significant positive impact.

    So think of the children in Soviet Russia beowulf ckuster profit! *iaa sux and all that.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • 10 replies beneath your current threshold.

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