On 24/04/11 01:45, Isaac Close wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> What with the financial 'downturn' it seems so many companies deploy new ways to rip people off.
>
> Anyway, i'm looking for a honest and reliable registrar so that I can move a handful of domains from my current registrar (that just ripped me off).
>
> I have a few .co.uk's and these are important to my business and one .com which i've not yet started to use but plan to soon.
>
> Any recommendations ? If they accept paypal that would be an advantage.
>
> many thanks,
>
> Isaac.
>
> --
> Please post to: Hampshire@???
> Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
> LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
I, a volunteer webmaster*, had serious problems with Registrant Agents following their takeover. It culminated in a large .co.uk website going off-line for 48 hours - a considerable commercial hassle!
I ended up bypassing agents altogether and registering the website direct with Nominet [they administer all .co.uk domains.]
Nominet were excellent and prompt in restoring access once they knew who they should be dealing with and got paid! Despite their warning that they might cost more, it didn't seem expensive considering the hassles of dealing through 'registrant agents'.
My published explanation for the website downtime is copied below.
(*The website (
www.watercressline.co.uk - which at peak reached 10 million hits a month) is now administered through the Mid Hants Railway Marketing Department and has been updated in format; I have no involvement with the 'new' website.
The original site is archived at (e.g.):-
http://archive.watercressline.co.uk/tw/yetmor53.htm
http://archive.watercressline.co.uk/locoshed/movies.htm
http://archive.watercressline.co.uk/topica17.htm )
Webmaster reportson why our website was down
from the afternoon of 22nd to early morning 24th April 2007
(UK time):
When my wife and I returned home at around 7pm on Sunday 22nd April
2007 from a family lunch 85 miles away in Somerset, I checked my e-mail
to see if anyone had sent in any photos of Wadebridge on its
first day in service at MHR. Shock, horror -- no website!
As you can imagine I spent some time finding out
why, with several frustratingphonecalls to USA aiming for a
remedy. The muddied waters have become clearer since I talked this
afternoon with Nominet (who license ".uk" domains).
It seems that our original registrant agent in 1999 (NetLink)
provided Nominet with no contact details for our account beyond their
own, then they were taken over by ClaraNet, so erratic a web-host that
we migrated to SupaNames for web-hosting and registrant agent services.
We migrated again to ServInt VPS when we found that SupaNames, although
an excellent company, could not accommodate the traffic our site
generated.
In all this time, no-one told Nominet who the account holder
was, but we had a paid-up 2-year contract with SupaNames so our domain
was safe until mid-March 2007. When our registration with Nominet was
coming up for renewal, I transferred 15th February 2007 (at ServInt's
recommendation) to Register.com as our Registrant Agent with Nominet.
WHOIS then reported our Registrant Agent as Register.com. (The job of a
registrant agent is only to take care of a domain name registration and
pay fees on time.)
This is where things seem to have really gone wrong:
Register.com told me on the phone (23rd April 2007) that they do not
act for .co.uk domains and it seems they just abandoned us. Nominet
had no one to contact so 30
days after expiry pulled the plug on our domain. (This meant that when
you addressed your browser to www.watercressline.co.uk
the Nominet index which normally would direct it to our name servers in
McLean, Virginia, refused to provide your browser with that
information. Our
ServInt VPS servers stood idle other than for my direct updating
activity.) Nominet told me on 23rd April 2007 that
Register.com are indeed registered with them as agents for .co.uk
domain names! It is all a sorry business from our
viewpoint with careless incompetence by all our registrant agents.
To remedy the situation I have now paid our licence fee
direct to Nominet and notified our complete account details to them so
they can invoice us in future. Our domain was reactivated
early morning 24th April 2007.
We have had exceptional service from ServInt and have been relieved and
delighted at their capacity to allow our traffic to grow.
Sorry for the inconvenience ... tw, 24 April 2007
--
Tony Wood
(from Linux Netbook)
