About namebio.com

[tom365]

I discovered that Namebio has set up the strictest access restrictions, solely to encourage people to purchase their website subscriptions. For instance, Cloudflare verification is difficult to pass, and VPN access is not allowed. I hope they can unblock my VPN IP visit, but they refuse to do so. They insist that I must purchase a membership. Isn't that the case?

I paid for two years fees to namebio.com, but the reason I'm not paying now is because I feel like I'm paying to remove VPN restrictions. I have submitted a fixed IP, but there is no restriction lifted; it only requires purchasing a membership. Without this access restriction, I would actually be more willing to pay.

 

[tom365]

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[tom365]

We were taking payments for our Featured Listings through PayPal, and we were including the domain name in the subject of the payment. Someone ordered a Featured Listing for a domain name they recently caught on the drops, and it was apparently on a blacklist because it was previously used for something sketchy.

PayPal, seeing the blacklisted domain in the subject of a payment, banned our account without question or investigation. We reached out to them, and with the help of the community bombarding them with mentions on X, got it resolved in less than two weeks. This was more than five years ago.

Our PayPal account is just fine, and we still use them for Featured Listing payments to this day. But we don't integrate with them for memberships because I still don't trust them. This was all covered on our blog at the time.

The OP, yet again, has no idea what he is talking about or is outright lying.



So here's the story, since OP left most of it out intentionally. The OP signed up for an annual Domainer membership in 2024, immediately used his entire monthly quota, and then emailed me SEVEN times in 15 minutes complaining that he thought it was a daily quota and asking to be downgraded to Collector and get a refund of the difference (i.e. not pay for Domainer at all).

Since he had already used the quota, he was no longer eligible for a refund. But to be nice I offered that he still pay for a month of Domainer, I downgrade him to Collector as requested, and I refund him the difference.

We reached a different agreement where he would switch to Collector, I not refund him anything, and he agrees to stay on for a second year with the balance applied to future renewals. So he paid nothing for the exports he did while briefly on the Domainer tier.

He used the site fine for two years. But then when the credit ran low enough that it couldn't cover the next renewal, and he actually needed to pay something, the payment failed.

Just 17 minutes after the failed payment, he emailed me complaining that he can't access the site and asking to be whitelisted, or for a refund of the remaining credit from his two-year-old payment. 30 minutes later I gave him the refund as requested. Odd that he had no trouble accessing the site until the payment failed though, huh?

So spare him your sympathy. He's been a headache from day one, and I've done nothing but try to work with him and be helpful, short of whitelisting a massive hosting company and opening ourselves up to endless abuse. And then to thank me for the hours I spent helping him, he tries to start drama publicly and waste more of my time.

Two years ago, I told you that you should clearly state that it's for one-year usage. Why didn't you make it clear? Aren't you misleading others? You actually explained in an email to me why you didn't explicitly label it as one-year usage, saying that everyone should know it's for one-year usage.

 

[tom365]

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[tom365]

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[Future Sensors]

It's impressive how essential your service has become, @Michael.

Keep the momentum going.

 

[tom365]

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[tom365]

Also worth noting that OP says this in the original post:



But he posted that just 6 minutes after emailing me his IP address, before I even had a chance to look into it much less reply. The guy is a piece of work.

It was 8 hours after you replied to my email that I came to the forum and posted this thread

 

[Michael]

You can't conceal your mercenary nature. After all these years, why didn't you specify that your quota is per day? It's obvious that you want to deceive others. I explained this to you at the time, but you persisted in not changing, just to let others misunderstand that the quota is for each day

I submitted a request to unblock my fixed IP address used for VPN access. I have not attacked namebio.com, so why can't my IP access be unblocked? Instead, namebio.com only require me to pay for a membership.I don't like this kind of forced consumption.

It's not a quota per day, it's a quota per month. It's a monthly membership, quotas are per month unless stated otherwise, it's common sense and not that complicated. You're literally the only person who has ever emailed me saying they thought it was a daily quota, so that doesn't exactly warrant updating the site.

You said earlier in this thread that we incorrectly identified you as using a VPN. Now you're saying it is a VPN. So which is it? Your story keeps changing.

So you know that I purchased your membership just to use the VPN, and you are well aware of this. When I emailed you asking to remove my IP restriction, you refused and instead asked me to purchase a membership. You just for earn money, you are such a hypocrite.

I posted this just to share this matter and my perspective with others, and you're already getting angry and frustrated

The IP of the VPN I am using have not attacked namebio.com, so why can't my IP access be unblocked?

I am posting this discussion thread without any intention of making demands on you. I am simply expressing my opinions about your website.

That is a lie. This was your original email, and it is everything you said:

Hello

my IP: [REDACTED], when I visit namebio.com show: Sorry, you have been blocked. You are unable to access namebio.com

can you unblock my IP: [REDACTED], Cloudflare Ray ID: 9c04cb632fed88cc

And then you followed it two minutes later with this, also the complete email:

I also have a subscription balance of $23.33 from before. Can I get a refund？ or can my subscription period be extended by this amount

And then 30 minutes later I responded with this, and it is the complete email I sent you:

That IP address is owned by Tencent Cloud Computing, which is a hosting company that we blocked due to abuse. I can't whitelist a server IP unfortunately. I issued you a refund as requested.

So tell me, where in there did you use the word VPN? And where in there did I tell you to buy a membership? Quite the opposite, I cancelled your membership and issued you a refund of your account credit. I wasn't trying to get you to pay anything, actually after I refunded you I blocked you from making future payments in Stripe.

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Two years ago, I told you that you should clearly state that it's for one-year usage. Why didn't you make it clear? Aren't you misleading others? You actually explained in an email to me why you didn't explicitly label it as one-year usage, saying that everyone should know it's for one-year usage. You are so hypocritical. You are a hypocrite

It's not for one-year usage. It's a MONTHLY quota for a MONTHLY membership. Even if you pay 12 months in advance for a 50% discount, it's still a MONTHLY membership with a MONTHLY quota. Got it? Not daily, not yearly... it's monthly. Like I said two years ago, but you still somehow don't understand.

You actually told a lie. ashamed!

You said you hadn't had time to read my email. I sent you an email asking to remove the IP restriction on my VPN. You clearly know that I purchased a membership just to use the VPN. You replied to my email and stated in it that my IP is Tencent's. The restriction cannot be lifted, only membership purchase is allowed for use.

How dare you say you haven't had time to read my email. You replied to my email, but you didn't even read my email before replying?

@Michael. You told a lie. hypocritical and dishonest! ashamed!Actually, you read the email and replied to me regarding the issue with my VPN's IP, then It was 8 hours later that I came to the forum to express my opinion

It was 8 hours after you replied to my email that I came to the forum and posted this thread

You told a lie. hypocritical and dishonest! ashamed!

My bad, I thought NamePros was showing me timestamps in my local time, but looks like it was set to New York. It wasn't intentional. All the other timelines I posted were accurate though.

You starting this thread 8 hours AFTER I responded is even worse though. Because that means you already had your explanation of why I couldn't whitelist that IP address, and you already had your refund.

I see in our search logs that you're back to using the site for free, but with your VPN off. Was that so hard? Are you being forced to pay anything? That's all you had to do from day one... simple.

 

[tom365]

It's not a quota per day, it's a quota per month. It's a monthly membership, quotas are per month unless stated otherwise, it's common sense and not that complicated. You're literally the only person who has ever emailed me saying they thought it was a daily quota, so that doesn't exactly warrant updating the site.

You said earlier in this thread that we incorrectly identified you as using a VPN. Now you're saying it is a VPN. So which is it? Your story keeps changing.



That is a lie. This was your original email, and it is everything you said:



And then you followed it two minutes later with this, also the complete email:



And then 30 minutes later I responded with this, and it is the complete email I sent you:



So tell me, where in there did you use the word VPN? And where in there did I tell you to buy a membership? Quite the opposite, I cancelled your membership and issued you a refund of your account credit. I wasn't trying to get you to pay anything, actually after I refunded you I blocked you from making future payments in Stripe.



It's not for one-year usage. It's a MONTHLY quota for a MONTHLY membership. Even if you pay 12 months in advance for a 50% discount, it's still a MONTHLY membership with a MONTHLY quota. Got it? Not daily, not yearly... it's monthly. Like I said two years ago, but you still somehow don't understand.







My bad, I thought NamePros was showing me timestamps in my local time, but looks like it was set to New York. It wasn't intentional. All the other timelines I posted were accurate though.

You starting this thread 8 hours AFTER I responded is even worse though. Because that means you already had your explanation of why I couldn't whitelist that IP address, and you already had your refund.

I see in our search logs that you're back to using the site for free, but with your VPN off. Was that so hard? Are you being forced to pay anything? That's all you had to do from day one... simple.

If you misjudge the time, it will lead to more attacks without understanding the situation

I can only use mobile data without being identified as using a VPN, while all other networks are identified as VPNs, some of which are incorrect identifications. As a 2-year paid member, I sent you an email request lift an IP restriction(so I sent email to you my Tencent's VPN IP. using Tencent's VPN IP was the simplest way to solve the problem.), but it was rejected. Therefore, I can fully consider it as a request for me to continue purchasing membership.That's why I posted to express my opinion.

I checked the email and confirmed that it's the monthly amount, not daily. I misdescribed this part. At that time, I asked you, Why don't you specify in the description that the 10,000 bulk search results are provided monthly? It should be described, otherwise, is it 1 day, 1 month, 1 year, or 1 quarter

I also hope this matter can end here. It was originally a very simple matter

 

[Michael]

If you send me the IP address when you get blocked even though you aren't using a VPN, there's a chance I might be able to do something to correct the situation. Even if you're not a paying member. It depends on who owns the IP address and how the block of IPs was registered with the authorities, but I'll try my best.

If you send me the IP address of a Tencent server, I'm not going to be able to help you even if you're a paying member. I understand why you thought that would be the easiest solution, but I'm not comfortable with it.

Thanks.

 

[tom365]

If you send me the IP address when you get blocked even though you aren't using a VPN, there's a chance I might be able to do something to correct the situation. Even if you're not a paying member. It depends on who owns the IP address and how the block of IPs was registered with the authorities, but I'll try my best.

If you send me the IP address of a Tencent server, I'm not going to be able to help you even if you're a paying member. I understand why you thought that would be the easiest solution, but I'm not comfortable with it.

Thanks.

In many places, the IP address of a computer accessing the Internet may change every day. Once mistakenly identified as a VPN, it is difficult to lift the restriction because the IP changes every day, which is why I sent you the Tencent VPN IP.

But the matter has come to this point, and I don't want you to lift the restriction on this IP. Let's end the matter here.

 

[Michael]

I understand, but if it is happening to you frequently, maybe your ISP bought a block of IPs from a hosting company we blocked, and we need to update our list. It's rare but it happens. If that's the case one fix would solve it across all the random IPs they keep putting you on.

That's probably what is happening here, since again we don't try to detect VPNs and block them, we block hosting companies. So if your ISP shows as a hosting company we might be able to fix that. But I can't fix it if you don't tell me at least one of the IP addresses.

 

[tom365]

I understand, but if it is happening to you frequently, maybe your ISP bought a block of IPs from a hosting company we blocked, and we need to update our list. It's rare but it happens. If that's the case one fix would solve it across all the random IPs they keep putting you on.

That's probably what is happening here, since again we don't try to detect VPNs and block them, we block hosting companies. So if your ISP shows as a hosting company we might be able to fix that. But I can't fix it if you don't tell me at least one of the IP addresses.

you are right. maybe ISP bought a block of IPs from a hosting company we blocked. and these IP now used for home network. and mistakenly identified as a VPN. I sent you email IP

 

[Michael]

you are right. maybe ISP bought a block of IPs from a hosting company we blocked. and these IP now used for home network. and mistakenly identified as a VPN. I sent you email IP

This is fixed now, thanks for sending the IP. There was a range of residential IPs we had blocked a while back due to a massive attack. Every time we banned an IP they would immediately cycle onto a new one within the same block and continue the attack, and they wouldn't give up, so the whole block of IPs had to go. But at this point it's probably not a threat, so I'm fine with removing it and giving it another chance.

 

[tom365]

This is fixed now, thanks for sending the IP. There was a range of residential IPs we had blocked a while back due to a massive attack. Every time we banned an IP they would immediately cycle onto a new one within the same block and continue the attack, and they wouldn't give up, so the whole block of IPs had to go. But at this point it's probably not a threat, so I'm fine with removing it and giving it another chance.

Just now Michael helped solve the issue of access restrictions. The root cause of the problem is that many users in our area have their computers controlled by viruses and access websites everywhere, resulting in a huge amount of abnormal access to many websites. Therefore, some IP segments have been banned, making it impossible for normal users to access namebio.com. Therefore, I misunderstood the purpose of namebio's judgment that my IP is a VPN. At present, it seems that namebio does need to do something to prevent these days of garbage access.

Here, I retract my previous negative opinion about Namebio. I'm sorry, I hope Michael can understand.

 

[AnX]

Good to see this is resolved, but I'm curious, why not just stop open free access altogether?

1. Enter your email to log in/register.
2. We have sent you a code to log in.
3. That's it.

Wouldn't this solve most issues with bots/scrapers? It must have been thought of/tried a million times before though, so what are/were the issues?

 

[URL Stream]

If you send me the IP address when you get blocked even though you aren't using a VPN, there's a chance I might be able to do something to correct the situation. Even if you're not a paying member. It depends on who owns the IP address and how the block of IPs was registered with the authorities, but I'll try my best.

If you send me the IP address of a Tencent server, I'm not going to be able to help you even if you're a paying member. I understand why you thought that would be the easiest solution, but I'm not comfortable with it.

Thanks.

Saint material.

 

[Michael]

Good to see this is resolved, but I'm curious, why not just stop open free access altogether?

1. Enter your email to log in/register.
2. We have sent you a code to log in.
3. That's it.

Wouldn't this solve most issues with bots/scrapers? It must have been thought of/tried a million times before though, so what are/were the issues?

Free accounts are only marginally less disposable than IP address, so it wouldn't solve anything. Actually most free abuse comes from registered accounts anyway, to get 25 results instead of 10. I don't want to get too much into security stuff for obvious reasons, but suffice it to say you're severely underestimating what we're up against.

 

[Vertibox]

The obvious and free solution is to turn off your VPN when you visit the site, it's really not that complicated

That is not realistic option.
Many people have multiple tabs or windows open at the same time, for many sites. So turning off their VPN leaves them vulnerable to those sites, even if those sites are not risky.

And so it is highly unlikely that someone who wants to use your site is just doing nothing and not looking or using any other sites when they think of visiting your site.

Plus, your abrasive manner shown in this thread is so amateur and also, unnecessary and it tells me you are not a professional or serious person. This will likely lead to your demise.

 

[Vertibox]

The amount of time the namebio person is spending typing out their replies on this thread is mostly unnecessary as is the lengthy content of them. It tells everyone what he is about.

But if he really doesn't care about the OP and their complaint, why engage like this?

I am not getting involved in the validity or otherwise of the OP's complaint, nor the issues namebio has to deal with/fight in its operations and integrity. I just know, from long life experience, that someone who engages in multiple back and forths with users/customers and in the manner that this Michael has, is likely headed for the dumpster of failed companies.

Ultimately, if enough people don't like the offering of namebio, they won't use it/pay for it. Plus, competitors will also emerge if they detect this.