ALPNAMES.COM - WARNING! WILL DELETE YOUR DOMAINS & HIKE PRICES WITHOUT NOTICE.

[tomcarl]

As someone who has experience with almost every major registrar out there, I am very unhappy with my AlpNames.com experience. Here's why:

1. They raised their .COM renewal fees from $8.75 to $15.00 with NO warning, NO email, NO reminder or alert. A few days prior I renewed a few domains at $8.75, a couple days later I add expired domains to my cart to renew, they're all set at $15.00 each. Dozens of them.

2. They will DELETE DOMAINS from your account OR CHARGE YOU a $60 Recovery fee, a DAY BEFORE the deadline date they specified in their emails when the domain expired! For example: "You must renew domain before the 3rd or it may be unable to recover!" , Ok fine, then on the 2nd, not the 3rd, they're all deleted or a 60 recovery fee is slapped on them. And I checked time-zones, that had nothing to do with it, they were clear in all time-zones!

3. Slow responses for support. I've contacted their support regarding the price hike, then about the domains being deleted before their due time, going on 4 days still waiting for response on time-sensitive/urgent issue.

4. Lastly, Visa doesn't seem to like this company as they're always blocking payment to them. I had to call my bank several times.

I was introduced to AlpNames because of the transfer promo a couple years ago, without issues which is why I didn't transfer out, $8.75 was reasonable so I paid back the savings to them AND THEM some, renewed my domains (HUNDREDS) for 2+ years with them AFTER promo and was going to again, NOT NOW.

If you have names with AlpNames, again, they hiked .com renewals up from $8.75 to $15.00, so if you have dozens or hundreds of domains to renew and you're not looking for an unpleasant surprise during renewal time, here's your fair warning which they won't give. And they lock your domains so you can't transfer out after expiry date and they may just delete your domains or put them in grace period early. Enjoy.

 

[Kate]

So this ICANN bulk provides a mechanism in even the case of total shutdown the registered users could unlock and get their auth codes for transfer?

It means all domains are transferred to another registrar, selected by Icann after hearing expressions of interest.
Then the new registrar has to reach out to the registrants, set up accounts etc.

Registrars also have to submit data escrow. In the past there have been unpleasant surprises with registrars whose poor record-keeping practices resulted in unreliable or missing whois info - making it more difficult to properly reallocate domain names after bulk transfer.

The problem is when you have domains nearing expiration and you can't renew them in time.
Bottom line, if you have valuable domain names renew early and even a few years in advance.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

OK I am an optimist most of the time, but this does not seem to be a really good day.

On the positive side, thank you so much for people like @Rob Monster, @Kate, @Jurgen Wolf and others who have the experience and are so willing to share and help us at stressful times. I truly thank you.

NPs also seems to be exploding in flames in a couple of other threads. All of us who are not moderators should be thankful we are not, and we also should thank the moderators.

To paraphrase from a famous book, most of what you need to know to be a good domainer you learn in elementary school: be kind, be truthful, work hard, have fun, help others, be happy, be creative, be responsible, play well with others, don't fight, don't break things, follow the rules, share the toys, respect that others are different, make a difference.

Bob

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

AlpNames website is just frontend.
Backend - LogicBoxes... so you may safely log in using the mentioned address above.
+ API is available as well (for resellers).

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Transfer lock (so-called "Theft protection") with LogicBoxes registrars can be disabled in a bulk even for expires.

Yes, just unlocked my expires and other domains via Bulk request:
https://apal516804.myorderbox.com/servlet/ListAllOrdersServlet

 

[Rob Monster]

Andee Hill at ICANN confirmed that the buck stops with her on this case. For anyone not able to use the logicboxes workaround, you can send specific issues to the following:

[email protected]


@Andee Hill

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

You may also try to call/email... to recheck if somebody replies there...

ICANN listed contact
Damon Barnard
Phone: +44.2031379682
Email: [email protected]

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

And what registrar is shown in WHOIS for your .COMs?
Exactly AlpNames or something else?

 

[alcy]

 

[Rob Monster]

You may also try to call/email... to recheck if somebody replies there...

ICANN listed contact
Damon Barnard
Phone: +44.2031379682
Email: [email protected]

Already talked to him. He no longer works there. He interviewed with Incite.

He sent me this:

####
Hi Rob,

I've been trying to tell Kevin Murphy what I can today which, unfortunately, is not all that much.

I haven't worked with AlpNames since November and, in truth, my role for the 12 months prior to that was basically limited to local mind and management in Gibraltar, the shareholders having decided to move all day-to-day operations to London in November 2017. The majority shareholder decided to terminate my appointment as a director to save costs for AlpNames and, also, due to the fact that he wished to be more "hands on" with the day-to-day of AlpNames and that he wanted to properly relocate the business to the UK - how far those plans were progressed, if at all, are unknown to me, as I've had no correspondence with him.

I am an AlpNames customer myself, and currently don't have access to critical domain names, .. . (Section removed due to personal info)

That's about the extent of my knowledge. I'm really very saddened by what is happening, as I spent years of my life building AlpNames as a brand.

Hope all's well with Epik!

All the best,

Damon.

###

Seems sincere.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I rechecked my Login history...
My last visit to AlpNames was on February'15... and it worked...
So this issue happened just recently...

 

[alcy]

as I said in a previous post somewhere.. I logged in without issue on march8th last.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

And I can confirm that Payment gateways are disabled for their Resellers as well...

So log in via https://apal516804.myorderbox.com and transfer your domains (if no plans to drop them)...

 

[Mario Venturini]

Dear Sirs, your information here was useful.

Unfortunately I have domains on Alpnames and some are expiring this month: they send me daily emails urging a renew... but login is impossible even via myorderbox, because two months ago I have activated the so-called 2-step phone verification ...and now (commencing a week ago) they no more send the code.

Of course.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

...but login is impossible even via myorderbox, because two months ago I have activated the so-called 2-step phone verification ...and now (commencing a week ago) they no more send the code.

Well, here's one lesson and reason not to activate 2FA

Makes you wish more registrars offered the very simple, but effective alternative security measure of limiting access to the control panel from predefined IP's...

 

[Internet.bs]

If they don't come back online, as an accredited registrar ICANN will put out a tender process to all ICANN registrars and select a provider to take over the domains. Might be worth transferring names you want to keep before then if you can as you won't have control over where they go.

 

[Damon Barnard]

Already talked to him. He no longer works there. He interviewed with Incite.

He sent me this:

####
Hi Rob,

I've been trying to tell Kevin Murphy what I can today which, unfortunately, is not all that much.

I haven't worked with AlpNames since November and, in truth, my role for the 12 months prior to that was basically limited to local mind and management in Gibraltar, the shareholders having decided to move all day-to-day operations to London in November 2017. The majority shareholder decided to terminate my appointment as a director to save costs for AlpNames and, also, due to the fact that he wished to be more "hands on" with the day-to-day of AlpNames and that he wanted to properly relocate the business to the UK - how far those plans were progressed, if at all, are unknown to me, as I've had no correspondence with him.

I am an AlpNames customer myself, and currently don't have access to critical domain names, .. . (Section removed due to personal info)

That's about the extent of my knowledge. I'm really very saddened by what is happening, as I spent years of my life building AlpNames as a brand.

Hope all's well with Epik!

All the best,

Damon.

###

Seems sincere.

Hi all, I would just like to clarify that I didn't "interview" with Domain Incite - Kevin approached me to ask if I was still working with AlpNames and I provided him with the same info that I provided to Rob, which is that my involvement ceased in November. It was not anything nearly as official as an interview.

As you can tell from Rob's copy/paste of my message to him, I am in the same boat as an AlpNames customer, and hope to see the situation resolved ASAP.

This is a great community and the support you are providing each other is outstanding - use the non-branded OrderBox link already shared in this thread to access your accounts. I am not sure if you will be able to complete any actions that involve sending funds to AlpNames, as the payment gateways seem to have been disabled, but you should be able to unlock and transfer out domain names.

 

[hemirate]

Glad I checked this thread.

We used to have probably 100 domain names with AlpNames (transferred with their promo) but moved most of them out on renewal. Just had 1 left (a .asia) and in the process of moving it out now.

Their website is currently down

Thanks to @tomcarl for starting the thread and to @jorgeug to point out the login url for alpnames at apal516804.myorderbox.com

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Dear Sirs, your information here was useful.

Unfortunately I have domains on Alpnames and some are expiring this month: they send me daily emails urging a renew... but login is impossible even via myorderbox, because two months ago I have activated the so-called 2-step phone verification ...and now (commencing a week ago) they no more send the code.

Of course.

I'm not sure this is helpful, but you may try to contact https://www.logicboxes.com/support/ to disable 2FA per this disappeared AlpNames (their customer).

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I was wondering if anyone can tell me this...

1. Do we expect that the myorderbox way to control will stay working in long term?
2. If I transfer a domain out, after unlocking and getting auth code, from there does it require an approval from Alpnames, or after 5 days my new registrar will be able to complete the transfer without any response from Alpnames?
3. Does the 60 day transfer out restriction still apply? I have one name that I hope to protect that is less old than that at Alpnames.
4. I guess none of us know if there is a possibility of Alpnames coming back? I know sometimes even for companies in some form of financial problems they restructure or are bought out and come back.

Thanks for answers on any of the above.

Bob

 

[hemirate]

I can answer for #2

I transferred a .asia domain out just today.

It didn't require an approval from Alpnames side.

I just received an email from the acquiring registrar (NameSilo) and one (automated) email from Alpnames saying the domain was transferring out with a link in it to cancel the transfer. That's it

Just need to wait 5 day as there's no way to expedite the transfer out.

If I were you I would transfer the domain names out of Alpnames