What to do when your registrar (NSI) ignores you?

Frustrated Webmaster writes "For the past two days, I've been trying to make modifications on a domain name I registered through NSI/Verisign. The problem is, they refuse to accept changes through email, and their login system is apparently broken. What are my options? How do I transfer the domain away from NSI if I can't even login to their system?" CD: When I heard that NSI was going to go through yet another interface change, I moved the domains that mattered to me to another registrar. For what it is worth, I can totally reccomend EasyDNS.

Dotster

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally think dotster [dotster.com] is the best. They have great online management tools and bulk management tools for managing all your dumb novelty domains at once.

They're cheap and the customer support is good too.

I don't work for them, I just like them, disclaimer, etc.

Registrars

[1alpha7]

NSI is the worst registrar out there. Here is a list of registrars [internic.net], any one of which is better than NSI. Personally, I use Bulk Register.

1ALpha7

Give JumpDomain a try.

[Snowfox]

JumpDomain [jumpdomain.com] has been pretty amazing so far. They're not the cheapest, but they're under $20 a year with no premium on the first year, and commitments in one-year intervals, including a single year.

They've been really responsive when I've suggested features or had a question, typically responding in under an hour business days, and same day even on Sundays.

I don't know if they have an e-mail interface, but after NetSol, I sure as hell don't miss that. The web interface is nice, letting you apply changes to one or all domains at once, view domains sorted by expiry date, and there are no locks on company names like NetSol and all have or had.

Just Typical Shenanigans

[Lokni]

That's typical registrar behavior, especially with NSI/Verisign. Since they have had to deal with competition, they have been doing some pretty nasty things including not doing domain transfers. Their reasoning is that they don't know whether it is actually the owner requesting the domain being transfered, and they don't want to be liable for domain jacking. Well, that should be solved by a phone call and maybe a fax of ID, right? Wrong. They have made it super tough to transfer a domain because to transfer a domain means they are losing business to competition so they are going to hold onto your domain for as long as they can. Call it Reverse Domain Jacking if you will.

directNIC.com

[Electrum]

directNIC.com [directnic.com] is $15 and has nice features like free hosting, paid DNS and paid POP3 email accounts. They also have the best interface I've ever seen for a registrar. They make it really easy to mange lots of domains (even hundreds), which is really nice if you have more than a couple domains. Transfering your domain to them or another registrar is a painless process that doesn't involve the original registrar.

Lumber Cartel (tinlc) aproved registrars

[strredwolf]

These ones spam:
NSI/Verisign/Register.com
Joker.com
Dotster

You can find out more by asking on news.admin.net-abuse.email. However, here's some that don't spam, haven't given any problems, and are groovy all around.

DomainDiscover
GANDI.net
Stargateinc.com
awregistry.net
netwiz.net

EasyDNS

[Ron Harwood]

They rock. They're cheap. They do dynamic DNS, a store and forward MX...

I haven't found a better service.

what about joker

[BlueLines]

i've been using Joker [joker.com] as my sole registrar for the past 2 years. Super cheap, free dns, easy interface, good service. Only minus would be the sometimes awkward translated website / documents (they are a german registrar)....

The new registrar does the transfer

[pyros]

I transfered a couple from NSI to Gandi [gandi.net] and it was fairly painless. The new registrar you choose should have instructions on how to transfer your domain to them, and as part of the process, NSI should contact you to verify it. I had a bitch of a time getting NSI to do things, but they kept pace on the domain transfer. Check out this site [domainname...sguide.com] for a review of registrars that includes ratings of their terms of service (privacy and who owns the domain). Gandi is currently ranked first for legal policies. =D

Switch To OpenSRS

[tomblackwell]

OpenSRS resellers have a super-easy set of password-protected web forms for updating all of your info. The cool thing is, if for some reason your reseller goes out of business (imagine that!), you can still do maintenance through opensrs.org.

Two that I like and have used are

Domainmonger [domainmonger.com]
and 000domains [000domains.com]

Plus, the price is usually cheap ($13-17 per year).

It's easy to switch from NSI/Verisign to these guys. The instructions are on the sites.

Registrars

[kupekhaize]

Personally, I like Domain Discover [domaindiscover.com]. Their privacy policy is good, and you also own your own Domain. Tierranet (the parent company of Domain Discover) actually states that you own your own domain name, and they can't take it away from you if someone were to offer them a truckload of money. NSI recently changed their policy to indicate that they own all domain names registered through them, and they can sell your domain to someone else if they want.

Also, Domain Discover makes it incredibly easy to transfer your domain to them. They have a SSL web based interface for making changes.

Note: I don't work for them, but I do have ~15 personal domains registered through them so.. Slightly more expensive them some of the other registrars out there, but I think its worth it to know that my registrar won't steal my domain name if it suits their interests...

I highly recommend joker.com

[SendBot]

The only bad thing I've seen in the threads so far is that they spam you. I have NEVER found this to be true, and in all the years I've been using them, I've had the BEST service, the LOWEST prices, and the overall best experience with this registrar.

I even have an opensrs reseller account, and I like this better. (costs like $1 more per domain/year, but don't have to buy in bulk).

In the early days of their service, I even got quick replies from their head admin for some issues I was having transfering domains.

Re:Do What I Do...

[MeNeXT]

Then they freeze the domain untill you pay back the fees plus processing charges or such.

Before you do anything like that read the terms of use from your cc. This is not an acceptable form of use. Your card may be suspended. Call their 1-800 and let the charge accumulate untill someone responds.

EasyDNS

[Anonymous Coward]

EasyDNS is by far the best. Many people will recomment others. They'll say they allow you to do everything and more, for a low price.

The problem is these places never come through. EasyDNS is *very* professional, and their service is *very* flexible.

For instance, will others be a back-up mail-exchanger? EasyDNS will, with no hassle
and through a beautiful interface that isn't
dumbed down.

Their services run the whole gambit, from full-blown domain hosting to just being a secondary/slave authority for your domain.
My old employer went through some horrible server
downtimes, and EasyDNS was quite helpful and attentive in managing the domain end of things
by allowing them to switch over all domain servers
very rapidly, w/o red-tape and a lot of $$. They also took over the mail-exchange part and forwarded
their mail very quickly.

EasyDNS is the absolute best bang for the buck, bar none.

Network Solutions

[Micah]

Network Solutions is BY FAR the WORST place to register a domain.

Their forms are confusing, even when you know exactly what you're doing. And that assumes you can find the right form in the first place -- even the list of them is confusing! Changing basic things like DNS servers is a nightmare.

Compare to Domain Maniac. [domain-maniac.com] It's a snap to change basic info -- you just log in and do it.

So on a purely technical basis, pretty much anything is better than NS.

Oh yeah, then there's the fact that DM charges less than half of what NS charges.

Re:Switch To OpenSRS

[The Dev]

I use Domainmonger [domainmonger.com] for all of my personal and business domains. I absolutely love their service. If there is any kind of problem with a transfer, *they will call YOU* to straighten it out before you even know something is wrong. I also like the way you can
apply one set of changes (like contact info) a bunch of domains at once.

NSI just doesn't care

[CrystalCut]

I've been dealing with NSI since 1995. During the middle 90's, they were the only registar company, and when dealing with them for the local ISP I worked for, found them to be un-responsive and totally non-caring.

It took me 6 months to move a personal domain away from them. I tried using their website, and their email forms. Old but still valid email forms from my ISP days. Made some 30 phone calls, and spent over $150 dollars on long distance, because at the time, they did not offer an 800#.

Then, when they did offer an 800#, the call volume got so bad that the only way to reach them was via email, and that was just a large black hole.

In the last 2 years I've migrated every domain I admin to a small registar who offers wonderful website control of my domains, 24 hour tech support (who know what they are doing) vian an 800#, and IF they f8ck up, which happens now and then, they have, EVERY single time, excalated the problem to the right deptartment and it's fixed within a few hours.

NSI is one of the very worst service companies I've ever encounted, and I'm aghast that they are still in business, and screwing with people's domains left and right.

Re:Dotster

[Carlos Laviola]

Well, I guess I was wrong. I've checked out Stargate Communications Inc. [stargateinc.com]'s page, as a comment in this story suggested, and found out they're charging only 8.85 dollars. 8.85, man! That's like a meal or something! :) I'm gonna be transfering my domain over to this registrar next year if they keep up with this price.

Anyone registered a domain with him, BTW? How are they?

Re:Registrars

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree... Jumpdomain has been awesome for everything I have ever asked from them...they are quick and call even on Sundays (which suprised the hell out of me). NSI is the worst I have ever dealt with. We had to talk to them for 2 WEEKS to get them to finally transfer some nameservers because of ISP's always shutting down. Stay away from NSI...or else deal with days or even weeks (perhaps months?) delays w/ incorrect pointers...they are a nightmare to deal with.

godaddy.com is $8.95@yr

[corebreech]

Great website, tools, etc., don't know about service cause I haven't had to bug them yet... have done dozens of registrations and transfers... highly recommended.

Transfer Away ...

[RWarrior(fobw)]

Any of a number of people have suggested transferring your domain away from NSI, and have suggested replacements. There is one big hiccup to beware of, however:

If you try to transfer your domain away from NSI by letting your domain expire and then reregistering it with another registrar, you may find that NSI is holding it hostage.

A customer of mine let one of her domains expire for lack of funds; when the money came in to pay the $30 registration fee, NSI didn't want $30 or $35 or even $70 to re-up it ... they wanted $150 for a year. Calls to customer service to get the mess straight proved totally fruitless. We're still unable to register it with another registrar because NSI won't let it go, and NSI won't reregister it for anything like the usual price.

Also, I moved a domain from NSI to another registrar back in July; in September I started getting bills from NSI for the domains' registration which expires in October, 2005.

You don't need to contact NSI to change registrar

[harangutan]

You can transfer to another registrar without initially contacting NSI yourself. Instead, your new registrar will handle everything. If things go as they should, NSI will shortly send you an automated message asking you to approve the change. You merely reply to the message, filling in a couple of fields in the form. I've done it several times now, it only takes about 48 hours.

DomainNameBuyersGuide

[ftobin]

I highly recommend checking out the DomainNameBuyersGuide [domainname...sguide.com] to see how various registrars rank among various dimensions (legal, pricing, etc). This is how I found my excellent registrar, DomainDiscover [domaindiscover.com], which has proved to be great.

For the record, I too, am a huge fane of EasyDNS; they provide 4 secondary DNS sites and 2 backup MX for $15 yearly.

Re:Switch To OpenSRS

[XenonOfArcticus]

I can't say enough good things about DomainMonger. Incredible service, good price (cheapest is not always the best deal), and excellent control/management software. No complaints.

Gandi.net

[Phil Hands]

NSI are utterly without value.

The only way I ever got them to do anything was by listening to their phone system for an hour or two (I'm not joking, and that was at international phone rates, several times over the years) until someone picked up the phone, and tried to do the Dogbert-esque "How may I disconnect you" thing.

With a just a little bit more persistence they would finally react.

I transfered to gandi (which went totally smoothly, and only took about 3 days to happen, and costs about half what NSI charge) and have never had a problem with them. They have a web interface that works, they have a mail system that means that a human gets to see your queries within less than a day, and replies --- In short, they do a proper job.

Why the bloody hell NSI are still allowed to have anything to do with domain administration is totally beyond me. It's about time that someone brought a class action against them for wasting tens of thousands of hours of other peoples time.

Further examples of their uselessness:

• They took to returning every request I sent, saying that it must come from one of the domain contacts. The only address I ever used was listed as all three contacts. The bounce would helpfully inform me that the domain contacts had been informed --- I never saw a single such message --- several phonecalls did nothing to rectify this
• They switched my account to PGP authentication at some point, without associating a key with the account (or at least, no key I've ever used. I tried them all), thus locking me out.
• They also managed to look after a mail they sent to me for 2 months, in a queue on their web server, before delivering it to their mail server, and then (about 5 seconds later) finally to me.

Use gandi, use anyone --- just run screaming from NSI and your problems will be solved.

Re:Dotster

[kilgore_47]

I used to really like dotster, and still have several names registered through them, but the past few times I've used their site it was painfully slow. A few weeks ago, when I went to renew a domain, it took so long to send me the confirmation page that I eventually gave up and did it later.

I suppose I still like their service -- I just hope they get their act together and buy some new servers/bandwidth/whatever-it-takes.

You don't worry about it...

[chuckw]

Dude, I hate to break this to you, but you're worrying about nothing. You don't need to log in/e-mail/whatever to NSI to transfer your domains away. Simply choose your registrar and request a domain transfer from them. All the rest is done for you. End of story. You never have to touch NSI at any time during the process...

Powerpipe.com

[ChiefArcher]

Powerpipe.com rules.. $8.88.
Can do multi-domains at once..
very easy to transfer domains as well..
Web based changes.. .. They'll even do DNS for no additional charge.. (A and MX records)

ChiefArcher

I moved my domains away from these crooks...

[pinkpineapple]

Last year, I decided to move away from NSI. I was in the same boat : broken web site links, no email reply, etc... A total mess. I lost about one month of getting nowhere with NSI. I contacted a company to do the transfer and then took it from here. The name of the company is tigertech.com. They charge a very reasonable fee, and most importantly they offer the best support I've ever seen on the web so far. Writing a mail on Sunday gets me an answer in the following hour.

I don't have any stock in this company, don't even now if they are public, all I know is that they deserve to succeed in this market, compare to some huge sharks who don't give a darn about your problems.

Try them, you won't regret it.

--PPA

Re:Do What I Do...

[macrom]

And then what? Now you have a domain being held by NSI, they're not receiving payment from you for it and you're going to expect them to suddenly comply with your request? If anything, a tatic like that will get your domain stuffed in a hole even further from reach.

You may try GKG.net [gkg.net] They've helped me get domains away from the clutches of NSI in the past. Like all of the other registrars mentioned here, they have good customer service, bla bla.

greg

OpenSRS/Tucows

[NatePWIII]

Granted I am a bit biased, since we are a Tucows/OpenSRS reseller. However, I have not found a more reliable and friendly company to work with than Tucows. The development team is awesome and their support staff is more than willing to work with you. We have been registering our domains through them over a year and a half now, and have never once regretted the move from first NSI and then later registrars.com
We currently retail domains at $13.00 per year (which isn't the cheapest price out there) after buying them wholesale from Tucows at $10.00 year.
If you are serious about registering lots of domains I strongly suggest becoming a Tucows reseller.

Re:Lumber Cartel (tinlc) aproved registrars

[pongo000]

I can vouch for GANDI.net [gandi.net]. I've been a customer for little over two years. Everything -- I mean everything -- is done via e-mail and browser. Which means the only authentication required of you is your password. In fact, they discourage phone calls, which is fine by me, as they have been most responsive to e-mail on the few occasions I've had to ask a question.

Their TOC is reasonable as well: You own the domain, plain and simple, until you let the registration lapse.

Re:Give JumpDomain a try.

[jCaT]

Seconded! jumpdomain handles all of my domains, and even some hosting for me. They rock! :)

Re:Transfer Away ...

[NatePWIII]

Yes, this is a problem that plagues almost 90% of our customers transfering their domain away from Verisign. It is simply their policy to lock the domain name down, I unfortunately have to deal with it on a dail basis, as a result I have posted up a warning on our transfer page: Registrar Transfer Page [npsis.com]
Even with this notice posted, most people ignore it somehow, then when the transfer comes back declined they want their transfer fee refunded which of course we lose money on since crediting back a credit card (even a small amount) costs us a dollar. Its gotten to the point that I don't even want to try to do registrar transfer anymore. Too much hassle and headaches...

Re:I use Register.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I have about six or seven domains hosted with them. Their web interface is FAR superior to NSI's fucked-up type-your-password-and-then-we-mail-you-a-form-whi ch-you-must-then-mail-back-to-us nonsense. They are not the cheapest, but their interface is consistent and easy to use, and the couple of times I've had to call (there was a screwup when I transferred my main domain from NSI to them) they always picked up the phones immediately and knew exactly what was up - whereas NSI puts you in a queue and then you talk to someone who feeds you a pile of hasty bullshit in order to hang up on you quicker and thusly lower their average call time.

Register.com did accidentally double-bill me, but they reversed this after I wrote them an e-mail, and they were dutifully apologetic. Their ticketing system is workable (would be nice if you could write longer entries into it though), and they actually send you surveys after you have used it.

Re:Transfer Away ...

[Legion303]

NSI didn't want $30 or $35 or even $70 to re-up it ... they wanted $150 for a year.

That sounds like fraud. Has your friend contacted the BBB and state attorney general's office for her state and the state NSI pays taxes in (Virginia)? If not, she should give it some serious consideration.

-Legion

Re:Give JumpDomain a try.

[wytcld]

Yup. Jumpdomain is just a Tucows reseller, but the guy running it has _always_ responded to questions within a day, and has a perfect attitude. (I can be nasty in my quest for perfection too; I don't say that lightly.) Plus the Tucows scripts he's running are really pretty good (altho Konq can choke on some of the Javascript - fine under Netscape though). Transfers usually process in about a day, too, and then you're in control. I _always_ have clients with NetSol-registered domains move 'em to where we can control 'em without the never-ending NetSol glitches. It's basically free, just the $15 for whenever the next year starts. Someone who wants to see the service for less than that, I wouldn't trust 'em to stay in business.

Stay away from domainsatcost.ca

[Geek Boy]

I am dealing with these jerks right now. They store your credit card without telling you and insta-charge it if you show interest in any domain. They also charge you for a domain even if the registration fails.

Sometimes the cheap choice isn't the best. Actually I must admit that I've never had any big problem with NSI other than the fact that they promised me a t-shirt if I renewed for 2 or more years and never sent it. (and didn't respond to my email asking why they didn't send it)

NSI Stinks - Try Stargate

[KC7GR]

http://www.stargateinc.com -- I moved to them after Domain Bank started spamming me. I've found Stargate to be very inexpensive ($8.85/domain), and they have a full-blown web-based configuration section where domain owners can make whatever changes they want at any time.

As for the service, Stargate really does make NSI look like the sick joke they've become. When I had some minor trouble assigning two new domain names I'd registered to my own DNS boxes, I simply dropped a note to Stargate's tech support. The problem was promptly fixed in less than 24 hours, and I had a courteous and informative response to show for it.

Whatever registrar you select, let THEM take care of the transfer paperwork for you. SG did an outstanding job here as well.

FWIW: I wouldn't go with Dotster. They support spammers. Avoid register.com as well -- big-time spam support, despite their ToS.

Good hunting.

Re:what about joker

[macdaddy]

They are also the exclusive registrar of Alan Ralsky [spamhaus.org], a notorious spammer. An excellent method of blocking Ralsky spam to to declare that all joker.com domains are spamming domains. I've seen it done. If you use it and than it's highly likely that soon you'll come across someone that rejects your mail as spam. Then you'll become a casuality of war, an anti-spam war.

Re:Lumber Cartel (tinlc) aproved registrars

[Basje]

FWIW. I've yet to get any spam from joker.com
I've one domain with them, and on that domain I haven't received a single piece of spam yet.

Furthermore I haven't received any mails from joker, apart from confirmations of changes I made to my DNS.

I am not in any way affiliated with them. But the parent looks more like a commercial post to me, slandering a few large registars to draw to some small ones. Cheap promotion.

How to get NSI to do their job.

[howiefl]

I worked for a hosting company and it was my job to deal with NSI daily. They only way to get anything done is to CALL Verisign and ask to speak to the BAO (Business Affairs Office). They are the ONLY people there that have any power. The customer service reps that you talk to sound like indians for a reason.. Verisign uses a Call Center in India (no lie).
Virginia Office
21355 Ridgetop Circle
Dulles, VA 20166
Main Number: 703-742-0400

Good luck!

Read your email. NSI are moving to a new system.

[Lord Kenja]

Well...

Since one of my domains was also registered directly at Internic (back when it was called that) I got an email that NSI are migrating their domains to a new webbased admin app.

And I recently got an email that the domain in question had been migrated. And that they would be sending out new logins at some point soon...

So I'd guess that's the problem here.

Re:Lumber Cartel (tinlc) aproved registrars

[bfree]

Let me also add my vote for these guys. They have the right idea and business model (imho) where they simply resell domains through an automated system for a tiny cut. Domains cost 12 Euros per annum (.com, .net, .org) and that includes the ability to use an email forwarding and web forwarding service or even to edit your own zone (but no sub-domains at the moment). I chose them (along with some friends of mine) for the seeming perfection of the legal side of things and between us we have over 100 domains (maybe more like 2-300) and no complaints.

Still paying some monkeys like NSI to host your new domains? Then get a life and a brain and stop! For existing domains however, I hope you are a masocist as NSI seem to be just plain nasty about everything to do with stopping giving them money (unlike gandi who couldn't care less what you do and provide straight forward ways to do it all)!

The closest to a complaint I have had about gandi was that when someone set up a new domain with a wrong email address, we had to send passport shots AND a copy of the marraige cert to confirm the person had changed their name! Personally I thought this was great! True reassurance that theys guys are diligent (as if the site and srvice didn't give that away).

My apologies to any other registrars who are as good, but I don't know or have experience of any! And btw I have zero affiliation with gandi except that I register domains there.