Hawk’s Babble-Log

Herein lyeth me sad Registerfly story.

In the beginning…

Someone at the company–prior to my arrival–had registered a bunch of domains with Registerfly. The person who did this originally probably had no idea that this was a huge mistake. But later on, people in the company discovered that this was a mistake due to various contact with Registerfly over the years. Alas, they had no one who could transfer these wayward domains to a better registrar.

Later in history…

I arrived at the company. I took over the position of WebMaster. I found all manor of things that needed to be fixed, and I got busy. One of these was… yes, you guessed it: moving all domains registered with Registerfly to a better registrar. Currently, we’re using GoDaddy, and they seem to work just fine.

Registerfly, on the other hand, does not. Registerfly doesn’t work very well at all. In fact, I’ll go one step further and say that they suck ass. That’s a technical term; means “bad”, “lousy”, “incompetent”, and most importantly: “doesn’t work in really annoying ways”.

Around Feb 12th, I started transferring our last seven domains away from Registerfly to GoDaddy. This was also about the same time that Registerfly crashed. They crashed almost completely. Their website was down, and their backend service was down, meaning that almost all of their domain-supporting services were non-functional, even to the people who worked there.

According to some reports I read, Registerfly lost 75,000 domains in January 2007 due to failure to pay ICANN registry fees.

ICANN is the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, and they should be responsible for the global coordination of the internet’s system of unique identifiers. I say “should” because as far as I’m concerned, they hold no real power to do anything but accept fees from domain registrars such as Registerfly. See for yourself: http://icann.org/

(2007-03-21 update: ICANN has decided to make some changes to their agreement with registrars the next time they meet–due to this Registerfly debacle. My response: It’s about friggin’ time!)

An article on The Register titled “Registerfly files suit against ousted CEO” states that one of the original owners, John Naruszewicz along with Unifiednames is sueing previous CEO, Kevin Medina, for all kinds of criminal actions, including embezzlement alleged to include tens of thousands of dollars for luxuries such as escort services, personal credit card bills and even liposuction. It also alleges that Medina used $10,000 in corporate funds per month to cover rent on a Miami Beach penthouse apartment.

There is a website dedicated to Registerfly’s incompetence:
http://registerflies.com/

On this site you can find much information about Registerfly over the past two years, posted by Registerfly customers and disgruntled ex-employees. This site also criticizes ICANN for not revoking Registerfly’s accreditation and I agree with this criticism. I think ICANN should have revoked Registerfly’s accreditation _at least_ a year ago.

Recently on Registerflies, there was a message posted by John Naruszewicz–at least, it appeared to be from him. It stated how he was going to take the reins of the company now that they finally got rid of the criminal Kevin Medina and turn the company around and make it into something grand. This message stated how he had leveraged all of his personal funds to help the company in this goal, including a second mortgage on his house and some other unnamed investments.

I’ve been calling Registerfly every day that I’m here at work (Mon thru Fri) since before Feb 12th, to get various things resolved. I once asked the guy I spoke to about the article mentioned above, and he claimed that it was false, a work of fiction, and that it was posted by someone else. He also said the real criminal was John Naruszewicz (the apparent author of the above article). So now I’ve got conflicting information about the company.

Bottom line: RUN AWAY! I’ve been calling the company because, basically, their website was not working. The website was there (most of the time), but the info that I needed was not, and it would not unlock one domain.

Here are the three problems I was having:
1) Registerfly wouldn’t give me auth (authentication) codes for two of our domains. Auth codes are required to complete a domain transfer.
2) Registerfly wouldn’t unlock one domain. A domain has over 20 different states, and if it’s locked, then it’s not possible to initiate a domain transfer. This mechanism was put in place to prevent “domainjacking”.
3) The email address registered for one of our domains was “support@registerfly.com” rather than my webmaster account, and Registerfly’s website could not update it.

I called daily, trying to get them to fix these problems. It became part of my morning routine. Some days I got hung up on. Other days the number would ring endlessly without answer. Other days I spoke to someone and they would tell me that their backend system was down and that they couldn’t help me but to try back in a few hours.

When I first started calling, the time frame for resolution was “an hour”. Then it became “a few hours”. Then it became “tomorrow”. Then “Friday”. After that, they gave up trying to guess and didn’t give me an estimate.

There are two numbers that you can call, one goes to an office filled with Americans who speak regular English and are here in the States. The other number goes over VoIP (I can always tell due to the delay) to India (I’m guessing), where they speak “Indiglish”, or “Englindian”. Both numbers are dead-ends because Registerfly’s techs are incompetent. But the guys and girls at the first number are real nice about it. It’s not their fault and they really can’t do anything about it, so I usually don’t take it out on them. I used to work tech support, so I know what it’s like on the other end of the phone.

I remember once I called up the Indian guys and, after they told me that their backend system was down and that they couldn’t help me (which was usual at the time), I told him that I thought the techs in the back were incompetent and that I could have built a whole new system in 10 days. He agreed with me! He agreed that they were incompetent!

The saga continues…

On Feb 19, 2007, I initiated transfer of three of our domains to GoDaddy. On Feb 23rd, I got two of ‘em transferred. On Feb 24th, I got the last one. These would have been started earlier, but I had trouble updating the email address for these domains. The contact email address is vital because that’s where the transfer authorization is sent. The contact info recorded for these domains was a mess, but I cleaned it up.

The saga continues…

On Feb 27th, 2007, Registerfly finally gave up the auth codes for those two domains! Now I could initiate transfer of one of ‘em, but I still needed to update the email address for the other one. This was accomplished a few days later.

The saga continues…

On Mar 1st, 2007, the transfer of another domain from Registerfly to GoDaddy finally completed. Big win! I’ve been beating on Registerfly with my big sledgehammer for weeks and finally getting somewhere. Just two more to go.

The saga continues…

On Mar 2nd, 2007, the transfer of another domain from Registerfly to GoDaddy finally completed! Big win! Just one more to go!

Note about Mar 2nd: Registerfly is no longer picking up the phone. With the first number, it just rings without answer… forever. With the second number, you get the automated menu system; 1 for sales, 2 for customer service. Dial 2 and get an instant busy signal. Things are looking bad for Registerfly.

The saga continues…

Mar 6th; to my complete lack of surprise, their website is down, as well as their entire system. Calling either number, you get to speak with someone right away, but they are quick to tell you that they can’t do anything for you. This is reminiscent of the first few calls I ever made with them. Are we making negative progress now? We’ll see.

The saga continues…

Mar 7th; no one ever answers at the first phone number. My call survived meetings, bathroom breaks, and a building-wide fire drill. I must have been on hold for over an hour.

The saga continues…

Mar 8th; to my complete lack of surprise, they are still down. Still, no one answers at the first number. I have a feeling they’ve shut down their NJ office. Their website is up, but as usual, it is non-functional. At least, it can’t unlock our last domain.

The saga continues…

Mar 12th, one-month anniversary of my first trouble-ticket with Registerfly. Today, the first number is just ringing with no answer at all. I heard that they had closed the Miami office. Their website still doesn’t work. I spoke to a guy with an Indian accent on the second number and he said that the Miami office was indeed closed for a few days, but now it’s back open again. Not according to five minutes go! It was just ring-no-answer.

The saga continues…

Mar 13th, both numbers were ring-no-answer all day. I let it ring for over an hour and no one ever picked up. Not even a machine picked up the phone.

The saga continues…

Mar 14th, both numbers are still ring-no-answer, and the second number has been like this all day. I went to the bathroom, meetings, lunch, etc, and I’m still on hold. Now it’s 1:40pm and I don’t think they’re ever going to pick up.

The saga continues…

Mar 16th, the first number is busy and no one ever picks up the second number. You’ll stay on hold forever, listening to the same annoying hold music looped over and over endlessly, while an automated female voice tells you that you can find answers to your most commonly asked questions on their website. I tried looking for the answer to, “Why are you so incompetent?”, but they didn’t have that one.

The saga continues…

Mar 19th, ICANN terminates Registerfly with extreme prejudice!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/17/icann_withdraws_registerfly_accreditation/
This is good news! Now they have to supply authcodes and unlock all domains by the end of the month! Now I know why no one is picking up the phones. Registerfly is now officially out of the domain name business. About friggin’ time!

The saga continues…

Mar 21st, Registerfly is still incompetent, not picking up the phone, and probably busy trying to file for Chap 11 or trying to sell the furniture… or something. I went to registerflies.com, set up an account, and jumped in to their new chat interface. I asked, “Does anyone know how to unlock a domain with Registerfly?” I got back a few responses such as, “Oh, no! Another one!” But one suggestion had merit: push the domain to a new account and then unlock it from there. Without getting too technical, here’s what I did: 1) set up a new account on the registerfly website, 2) “pushed” the domain to the new account, 3) logged out of the original account and logged in to the new account, 4) unlocked the domain (amazingly, this worked!), 5) re-initiated transfer from GoDaddy, 6) acknowedged the confirmation emails from GoDaddy. Now we wait.

Mar 22nd, 2007: The last domain transfer went through!!! Everything worked and was successful! Another BIG WIN! We’re now completely free of Registerfly!

The saga IS OVER! I’m going to throw a party in celibration of being free from Registerfly!

References:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/22/registerfly_ceo_lawsuit/)
http://registerflies.com/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/17/icann_withdraws_registerfly_accreditation/