Well, I am completely out.
I unlisted all domains. I was going to keep them all, without BIN, as "listed" but after logging in yesterday and seeing that the 382 domains I have there, and removed the BIN on all of them, 103 magically reverted BACK to having a BIN. Why? I actually do not care anymore. Tired of this.
Lately I do nothing but sign in, inspect my portfolio to make sure the numbers look right and all is how I left it the day before, and then download the data to CSV. Thats it! So somehow AN has decided
for me that 103 additional domains needed the BIN reverted back to what it was prior to my bulk changes of removing all of those BIN.
When I make changes to a database and the company cant hold those changes SAFE in a database, a trust issue develops.
While I do not have "Domain King" level domains I also do not have pigeon sh!t domains as he defines it. I still dont want my domains to randomly have pricing changes! During July and August I even thought that some of the LTO settings were changing / reverting on me but I didnt have the energy to investigate that. This is more blatant as its visible right on the portfolio page.
Last, I am not simply an angry customer with a negative experience and opinion of the service. I am a seasoned software / database developer with 45 years of IT experience dating back to before the IBM PC in the late 1970s. I've created everything from small one-off commercial applications to very large real-time transaction processing applications for financial services and reservation systems which hit against huge databases. I've worked for companies as part of large development teams which were spread across time zones. I know first-hand how successful IT projects are supposed to be designed, developed, tested, and implemented for the customer.
So I can say this with the utmost confidence: my experience with AN is NOT normal. The fixes to problems are like patch-work of bandages over wet skin that eventually peel away. It gives the user the appearance of playing
whac-a-mole but with software and database bugs, even hardware bugs...
Nothing is perfect. I do not believe human can create perfect applications free of bugs. I dont expect that. However, I gave Afternic SO MANY CHANCES over the many years. I've seen the comments here, going back and back and back... its like a broken record! Shouldnt we expect them to LEARN from their mistakes, correct the bugs so that they dont come back and not just once but over and over an over! To expect a different outcome after experiencing the same perpetual mistakes is insanity.
In addition to my technical experience I've also been a customer with Afternic, in its various forms, since 2004. IMO the best form of Afternic was the one I joined back in mid-2004. Back then it worked very nicely and I sold a lot of domains. No gimmicky boost programs. We simply listed our domains and the site allowed people all over the world to find the domains.
My domains were with Godaddy since 2003 when I moved what I had back then into GD. I eventually took them all out by 2021 after losing confidence with bugs at the registrar level and IMO a horrible UI, as well as renewal costs helping me decide to leave. The experience at GD was much better way back in the beginning, too.
IMO things should be getting better, progressing forward, but they're not! Its so convoluted now!!
So, how much time do I give a billion dollar enterprise to get its act together????
Amazingly, "How GoDaddy’s CEO Strives to Be Better Every Day" is the title of a recent
Time.com article How about
ACHIEVING better, not just
striving for it.
Acheiving is really not that difficult!!!
I dont want to delete my names because there is a bug (or perhaps a feature) that if I delete them then I may find them listed by someone else. Another bug that hasnt gone away.....
So, good-bye. I'm
out unlisted.
Tired of the perpetual bugs......
A few weeks ago when "boost" started I removed the BIN from all of my domains. Hundreds. That action sent all of my domains to "in review". Whatever.
Over the next week that number dropped to 8 domains. These same 8 domains would randomly end up "in review" from time to time over the years.
I would contact support, they'd remove the "in review" status, and it would be OK until it randomly happened again at some random date for some unknown reason that no one could ever explain to me. I'd contact support and the same removal of "in review" would happening and then randomly return AGAIN. Round and round we went for a LONG LONG time over those 8 domains.
So when these 8 domains didnt leave the "in review" a few weeks ago I just said to myself: Screw it, I am tired of going round and round with support over these 8 domains and so many other issues. So I've ignored it.
Its bad enough that I MUST list ALL of my domains at Afternic, regardless if I want to sell them or not, because of some "bug" (or is it a feature) which forces us to list all of our domains otherwise we run the risk of someone else listing them. Lets also not forget about the multitude of errors at the main GD site...
Today, I check my portfolio - mainly because I dont trust AN with my data, and what do I see? 4 additional domains are now "in review" making 12 total. WHY??????
I havent performed ONE EDIT to any of my domains since removing the BIN from all domains weeks ago. So why??????
This leaves me with ZERO TRUST regarding data storage and safety at Afternic.
If a database can not retain the values a customer has added to it then this indicates there is a massive IT problem, among other issues since its gone on this long.
I have to ask: Is this happening to me only? To others too? Is this happening to only the BIN field or is other data, that we're supposed to trust the database to store and keep, going to revert or change to some completely unknown value?
How can anyone trust this company/site/service?????