Is Registerfly a scam ?

Robb · Mar 16, 2005

Hi everyone,

I'm new here, and decided to join because I really think I may have bought into a scam.

I'm new to domain registration and everything, so after a bit of research, I went with registerfly.com

It was okay for the first week or two, but after that, it has me really wondering if this is a big farce.

My site has been down more than 50% of the time, and I have been unable to check my e-mails. Suspiciously, every time I log onto their online support, it seems like I'm dealing with someone who constantly repeats themself and has no idea of what is happening. I constantly receive answers such as

"We are having server problems. We will be back up in 2-3 hours. Check then."

I have had that reply for 5 days now. And nothing.

So, I decided to call their office. After trying several times, I was finally connected to their "manager" who was rude at best. She reminded me of a collection agent or something like that. Very quick, rude and unwilling to offer any advice. Sure enough, after she put me on hold, she came back and said

"We'll be back up in 2-3 hours. We're having technical problems, that is our ETA".

For 5 days now. Over and over.

Here are 2 conversations that I had with their so-called "support" online help- and note, it is the SAME person for both conversations. Notice how "Darrell" has no clue what is happening.

At a certain point, I begin to play dumb and realize that this is no support site- that this is more than likely some kind of scam- a company that offers you service, but provides it 50% of the time so they can save money on their end. The first conversation was the first of the day, and the second one was right after it (Darrell disconnected me) - and notice how he has NO CLUE who I am the second time around (less than a minute later):

RegisterFly Conversations

Date: March 15, 2005, Approx. 6PM
FIRST CONVERSATION

Please wait for a site operator to respond. Chats are handled in the order that they are

received.
You are now chatting with 'Darrell'
Darrell: Welcome to registerfly.com sales support chat, all our operators are busy assisting

other clients, so kindly hold on. We will soon be with you. Thank you.
Rob: hi darrell
Rob: how are you
Darrell: Welcome to Registerfly.com Live Chat Support. How may I assist you ?
Rob: still can't log into my email
Rob: since friday now
Darrell: Domain name please.
Rob: www.thepenmanillustration.com
Darrell: Yes, please check in about 6 hours, and the servers will be up again,.
Darrell: The admin is upgrading the servers right now.
Rob: really?
Rob: why, what's wrong?
Darrell: Some memory trouble untill I know.
Rob: oh, i see. how long have you been having troubles?
Darrell: 12 hours.
Rob: what about prior to that?
Darrell: It was working prior to that.
Darrell: Ok, as soon as the servers are up, contact us, and we will get it working.
Darrell: Is that ok?
Rob: oh. okay- but you told me on friday the same probloems were occuring
Rob: you had server problems on friday
Darrell: Yes, that one was working in about 2-3 hours.
Rob: and what other problems did you experience between friday and today
Darrell: I do not have more details.
Darrell: You can mail on address [email protected] for further details.
Rob: they don't reply.
Rob: you are my only contact.
Darrell: Well then, I have already given you an ETA>
Rob: darrell- i have been given ETAs since friday- and none have worked- what is your policy

to these kinds of situations
Chat session has ended

Date: March 15, 2005, Approx. 6:15PM
SECOND CONVERSATION

Please wait for a site operator to respond. Chats are handled in the order that they are received.
You are now chatting with 'Darrell'
Darrell: Welcome to Registerfly.com Live Chat Support. How may I assist you ?
Rob: hi darrell
Rob: what happened?
Darrell: I got disconnected..
Darrell: SOrry.
Darrell: Give me the details again please.
Rob: oh, okay!
Rob: which details?
Darrell: What was the issue?
Rob: ? we were just talking one minute ago
Rob: remember, my account not being credited?
Darrell: Yes, I recall, but then i had 4-5 issues together, so just brush up..
Darrell: Yes,,,,ssl?
Rob: yes.
Darrell: Check account,I have refunded.
Darrell: Now just re-order.
Rob: re-order which one exactly?
Darrell: The SSL you want..
Rob: oh, ok, sorry, i'm not sure what you mean by ssl.
Darrell: Hmmm, what was the issue actually?
Darrell: give all details again.
Rob: pardon me? didn't you just credit my account?
Darrell: Give me the user ID.
Rob: i'm not sure what my id is, could you help me?
Rob: but you just credited my account, did you not?
Darrell: No, it was an issue mix up.
Darrell: Not you.
Darrell: what were we working on before you disconnected?
Rob: you were supposed to credit my account
Darrell: For what?
Rob: because i have no access to my service
Darrell: Yes, that I cant do.
Darrell: You will have to give the details on address [email protected]
Darrell: they can give you a compensation.
Rob: they will not reply.
Rob: who else can help me?
Darrell: They will, need not worry.
Rob: they do not reply. not for weeks now.
Rob: i have tried.
Rob: do you have a telephone number i can call?
Darrell: (845) 586-5300
Rob: it has been busy since friday, all day long, 24 hours a day
Darrell: Traffic.
Darrell: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Rob: when can i check my services?
Darrell: services?
Darrell: I didnt get that.
Rob: hi, could you tell me what is the status of your company right now? are you in transition?
Rob: well?
Darrell: Yes?
Rob: hi, could you tell me what is the status of your company right now? are you in transition? Rob: well?
Rob: sorry, i cut/pasted that, didnt want to re-type it
Darrell: what is transition?
Rob: you don't know thast word?
Rob: do you know what transition means?
Darrell: No.
Rob: oh, ok. It means are you guys moving
Darrell: moving where.?
Rob: that's what i am asking you. are you moving to another location?
Darrell: No.
Rob: oh, okay. What are you doing with your servers?
Darrell: Upgrade.
Darrell: Done, the servers are already working, sites will get working fine, in a few minutes.
Rob: my website has been up today. my email cannot be checked. it is not working.
Darrell: It will get working in about 30 mins.
Darrell: Check later.
Rob: how long will it be working for?
Darrell: Till your hosting doesnt expire.
Rob: but when will it go down again?
Darrell: after 1 year, for annual maintainance for a few minutes.
Rob: are you updating servers?
Darrell: Yes.
Rob: how long until they are back up ?
Darrell: 1 hour.
Rob: you just said the servers are back up.
Darrell: Propagation takes time.
Rob: what does that mean.
Rob: what does Propagation mean
Darrell: Domain activation phase.
Rob: okay. have you credited my account yet?
Darrell: No.
Rob: when will you do that for me?
Darrell: I cant.
Darrell: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Note the utter stupidity of this person- what do you all make of this?

Notice how he says he credited my account? then goes back on it???? I hadn't ever mentioned crediting my account!! I was playing dumb and he fell for it? I really think I'm finding out this is a fake company.

Is this a scam? Should I play along a while longer and gather evidence?

Rob · Mar 16, 2005

Hey,

Firstly, nice username...

:P

But back to the point... I think although support is scetchy, there is no big scam. I use RegFly email hosting and when there have been problems I got a quick and fast answer, via email.

Cant say I would use LiveChat as it has a reputation within any company of being a little... well... useless!

regfly · Mar 16, 2005

robb

I will PM for more information so I can look into this for you. We did complete a pretty large server migration recently although I do not know if this is related.

Thanks

Paul V

Mark · Mar 16, 2005

Edit : See ^^^

I've dealt with them for over two years now and have never had any major Problems ~
I'd suggest you contact Member Regfly Here in the forum ~

You stated you are new to this stuff - So you may want to Get ready to Test your Patience a bit - Because there will always be a problem of some sort No matter where you do Business ~

- But by getting a Membership here - You can learn a good bit - Browse the forums Via the Search Menu and you'll See there are plenty of members (As well as Company Representatives) to assist you with most anything !

Good Luck ~

Robb · Mar 16, 2005

Thanks Rob,

well, I was worried for a while there, because that online agent "Darrell" is totally absurd. How can that be legitimate? What does that say for this registerfyl.com ??

Even upon phoning them up, their "manager" was incredibly rude and unhelpful- quick, to the point and no conversation. Sounded like some chick in a basement running a scam, I swear- no professionalism whatsoever.

So- what do I do here?? I am running a small business which is still in its start-up phase, and having my website down half the time is going to kill me. Worse, I'm not getting e-mail access- so I have no idea who is sending me mail, and even when i DO have access, I am not able to view any previosuly sent mail prior to their server 'breakdowns'.

They now have my domain name- I want to transfer it to another more reliable host (even though i already paid these registerfly guys)- can I do this??

You're not a little suspicious of that online conversation, Rob? I can log right back on and "Darrell" will have no clue who I am again, let alone speak proper english.

I don't know, but I'm worrying now, because i can't get my business running without my website. And I surely can't rely on these guys.

Rob · Mar 16, 2005

I understand your concern... we all get it. And I felt the same when I had problems... especially as my main form of contact had the problem... >_< as I used their email hosting package.

RegFly are a nice company overall and I always recommend them - don't fret too much, they will get you back on track, especially now you have made this thread... :P

Robb · Mar 16, 2005

Well, I feel a bit better now, and under no circumstances am I here to upset a company or slander anyone, but this has been 100% unnacceptable to me since last Friday. I truly believed this was one of those scams where they take your money, ignore you, then shut down.

I even ran a search on them and found an abundance of negative feedback on them, so this is what fueled my worry. (No big deal in the long run, it was only 30 bucks or so) but there are so many users complaining of unauthorized withdrawals, un-answered emails, and ignored phonecalls.

Hopefully they are infact a legitimate company here. But I need my website up, i understand that won't happen 100% of the time, but I expect some level of reliability if I want customers to visit my site.

I was ready to go nuts here and gather up all the evidence I could, lol, but I'll wait this out a bit longer and see how it goes.

robertjr · Mar 16, 2005

I agree with Rob, NICE username!

I completely understand your concerns and disappointment in the service you have received, certainly seems valid from your posts. That being said, I assure you that RegisterFly is not a "scam". I have domains numbering in the hundreds with them and have always had a positive outcome with issues that have arose.

As a business owner with domains at a dozen or more registers I have had the "pleasure" of dealing with my fair share of customer service reps, your experience does not surprise me. It seems that many registers do not value their customer service as much as the rest of us would like. Hopefully, post such as this will increase awareness and improvements will follow.
"searching for problems" with registers, it is likely you will find the same thing with almost any register you perform a search on. I think it has to do something with human nature.

One thing I can tell you for sure, as mentioned by all4cost and apparent by Rob's post, you will benefit from being a part of NamePro's.

I do want to thank you for posting this as I have been shopping VPS hosting and thought RF's looked good, but I think I may have to reconsider.

Good luck and welcome to NamePros!

Robert

Robb · Mar 16, 2005

Here are the links that worried me:

http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/history/badcompanies/registerfly.html

http://www.webservertalk.com/message925050.html

http://forums.webhostdir.com/showthread.php?t=4532

http://www.ftpplanet.com/cgi/_listr...egisterfly.dat&URL=http://www.registerfly.com

http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/showthread.php?t=3741

somewhere in those links, you can also find the information which officially states that The Better Business Bureau of New Jersey has blacklisted them and does not include them in their list of legitimate businesses. They have stated the exact same problems when dealing with customer complaints- no answers to telephone calls, no answers to emails, incompetent customer service and excessive downtimes with their servers.

I'm going to give them another chance here to clean it up, but I'm going to DEMAND my refund if this goes on for a full month.

snoopi · Mar 16, 2005

I can't believe what I'm reading...

Registefly is blacklisted by the BBB? Sorry but this is not a joke!

dgridley · Mar 16, 2005

Of course, if you compare Registerfly to any other dozen hosts or registrars, you begin to see how GOOD they look by comparison.. Regfly remains in my top 3 of preferred registrars.

marisolblue · Mar 16, 2005

They are my fav registrar. Support has been very good which is more than I can say for many others

AdoptableDomains · Mar 16, 2005

Tip:

Rule #1: Don't buy domains from hosting companies, and don't buy hosting from domain registrars.
Rule #2: Don't forget rule #1

Registerfly has by far the best domain control interface in the industry. Unfortunately, they have some of the poorest customer service when you have a problem. Their first level support has no authority and little knowledge, and they resist sending problems to the next level. They recently failed to notify me both in my control panel and by email of the renewal of about 20 domains that were all registered in the same batch. Support really didn't care, and just said to re-register them when they drop. My request for further review and resoration of the domains was basically brushed off. My response was that they have lost the renewals of about 900 domains in the next year, of which about 100 have already been initiated. I have better pricing at 3 other registrars anyway.

-db- · Mar 16, 2005

Robb said:
somewhere in those links, you can also find the information which officially states that The Better Business Bureau of New Jersey has blacklisted them and does not include them in their list of legitimate businesses.

Where is somewhere?

Can somebody please provide a specific link showing the BBB information?

By the way Robb, welcome to NamePros - where people of all experience levels are welcomed with open arms, and big ego's get checked at the door.

dgridley · Mar 16, 2005

Darn, I thought you said "Eggo" and it made me hungry!

-db- said:
and big ego's get checked at the door.

-db- · Mar 16, 2005

Haha... David, that reminds me. It's time for my midnight snack.

birdman5 · Mar 16, 2005

I had the same problems for a few days while they were apparently upgrading the servers, but since then no problems at all. I would go so far to say they are my favourite at the mo.

I did have the (mis?) fortune to speak to Darrel, though - man, that guy must have the quickest fingers in the west! Either that, or everyone in RF is called Darrel

Anthony · Mar 16, 2005

Anyone have a link to the NJ BBB about RegFly? I couldn't find one.

jim · Mar 16, 2005

link

Anthony said:
Anyone have a link to the NJ BBB about RegFly? I couldn't find one.

http://www.trenton.bbb.org/nis/newsearch2.asp?ID=1&ComID=0221000010002016

jim

EbookLover · Mar 17, 2005

Not a scam but a very unethical, vengeful company.

You can read some of my experience with them in other threads. But I know for a fact now that they are a very unethical company. After they closed my account for disputing a charge that was unjust (and they would never respond to my billing inquiries), they took back all the domains I bought from them up until that point.

BUT WHAT"S WORSE???

I have an online storefront that is active and generating income. They took the .NET of my domain away from me. Luckily, I registered the .COM at a more reputable registrar. They keep reregistering the .NET of my .COM storefront. I will not tell you the domain name, however, I can tell you that it is something like "HabibsDiscountStore" which is virtually useless to anyone but the owner of a store with that name.

But they keep renewing it. Sorry, but with a domain like that, I cannot help but think that they are simply renewing it because they know I do not want them (or anyone else) to own it.

Luckily, i am in the process of changing my domain with very little loss in icome. RF is a very shady company. The bottom line is when you go with a registrar just becaue they are the cheapest, there are bound to be problems. HOwever, some of the problems are very hard to deal with and also teeter on the edge of unlawful.

If I were you, I would seek a more reputable domain reg. Just about any of the more popular one's mentioned in this forum will do. But stay away from the fly if you want to do business wth a reputable company.

jim said:
http://www.trenton.bbb.org/nis/newsearch2.asp?ID=1&ComID=0221000010002016

jim

Also, you might want to do some searches on UnifiedNames.com. That is the company that owns registerfly.

Also, be aware that the BBB is not a good source for checking if a company is a good one or not. HOwever, in the case of these folks, their "unsatisfactory" status with the BBB happens to be accurate from my experience.

Robb · Mar 17, 2005

Yeah, I have already checked with my ISP about hosting my webpage with them. It's a heck of a lot more per month- about 10 bucks or so, but I know they are always up and have outstanding, immediate, live-and-on-the-telephone support. I think it's worth the extra cash each month so I don't have to worry about my webpage being down. Peace of mind.

On the up side, my site with regfly has been running smooth ever since I posted my message here, which is a good sign so far. I'm hoping it truly was just a rough weekend and they were having technical problems. As for the online support guy, well, I still can't figure that one out, nor will I try, lol!

I want to believe they are reliable, and contrary to all the problems I've been having and other people have been having, there are a large number of satisfied customers, too. I'm not one to act without thinking reasonable first- so I'll stay where I'm at and keep hosting with them. But if it goes down even once more, then I gotta make the switch and host with my ISP- I can't take the risk here, especially when I'm trying to get my biz off the ground. The minute a potential customer tries to log on to my website and sees that it's down, they'll think it doesn't exist or that my business is just not professional. And I can't afford that.

The user here, regfly, has been quite helpful to me though- he's the first sensible contact I've had with registerfly, so for that I'm thankful. Let's see how it goes.

Sabre · Mar 17, 2005

Registerfly are generally good, but that kind of thing has happened to me once or twice there, so i tend to go elsewhere (NameCheap or Enom) for my domains now..... as quality is more important than quantity to me! :tu:

Robb · Mar 20, 2005

Okay, I thought I'd provide an update on this.

Since I posted the first message in this thread, about a week ago, I have had no problems at all.

100% up time, and no problems with my e-mails.

I don't know if regfly/Paul actually helped me out and solidified my service with them, but if he did, then I thank him big time.

That said, if I continue to get good service from here on, then I'll stick with Registerfly for my hosting for good.

Just thought I'd clear it all up a week after the fact now.

Is Registerfly a scam ?

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