Are you using Free Email for Domain Registrations? Be Warned!!

[NPer]

I used to have a free mail.com email address, until this week. I have had the account for really long time, i.e. since 2002. Before I used mail.com, I had a yahoo.com email address-which I eventually lost because it was inactive. Not that I cared because the "mail.com" address looked way cooler. So my mail.com address was my longest active email address I have ever had. (Dec 2002- Aug 2012).

I used this account as my personal email address. Gmail was not around that time.
Since 2009, I hardly used my mail.com for sending emails, but have been regularly checking the account since then just to keep it active and to see if there were perhaps any personal emails still coming to the address. (And glad to say, there have been close to nothing coming there). I realized it would look so much cooler if I had an email address @ mydomain.

I logged in to my mail.com quite regularly since then. In July, for example, I probably logged in 3 times, and in August about twice (both were successful).

Yesterday, I tried logging in, and I got a message saying that my account had been blocked and that I should contact mail.com. I was shocked.
So I did just that.

This is what I wrote:

Why has my account been blocked?
I have had my account since December 2002.
I would appreciate feedback as to why my long standing account has been blocked.
Thank you.

I listed my current (personal) email address (which was also listed as the alternative email address in mail.com account ) for the reply.

Today I received this from support:

Dear mail.com Customer,
We thank you for your inquiry. We have forwarded your request to our security department and it was determined that the account in question will remain blocked.
With kind regards, (more like f@#k you)
Your mail.com Support Team.

I have responded asking for the reason it was blocked and that they should re-activate it so that I can retrieve certain emails and attachments which I would like to keep.

I have done some “investigation work” today, and it seems that there have been many complaints posted all over the web regarding mail.com. Some saying that their premium service has many pop up ads and that their emails do not load. Strange, because I never used their premium service (which is supposed to block the ads) and never had ads popping up! :D And many users have plenty of other complaints too!

What does this mean for you?

Well, in my opinion, if you are using a free email address for buying domains (WHICH I HAVE NEVER DONE!! I thank the Universe for my wisdom), or for personal or business purposes, you could be at risk! I would not be able to list all the risks-there are too many!

A solution?

1. Use one of your domains for email purposes.

2. Pay renewals far into future (2 or more years) and slap the domain with some privacy. (This is important to prevent fraud, domain theft, and reduce/prevent spam, and a bunch of other stuff that you would not even be able to imagine especially if we are talking personal use of the domain)

3. Host your email separate from where your website is hosted (to prevent loss of service should your web host have downtime/should you miss payment-read next point).

4. Pay your web/email hosting in advance, preferably a year or more in advance vs. monthly (eliminate/reduce that risk of losing emails/traffic=customers because of non-payment-you never know where you could be at any point in point in time-life is that way).

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I am just sharing them with you because I have been using this myself for quite sometime (before this incident-I am very cautious).

That said, I think it’s high time people stop being cheap, and protect their investments (domains) and personal information online.

Luckily, I am not affected by this. But if you think free email is the way to go, I urge you to reconsider that way of thinking.

Please feel free to add anything which I may have missed, or if you had similar experiences, feel free to share them here.

 

[dompro]

unless you both:
1) loose access to your email account
2) forget your password(s) on registrar sites
I don't see it would be a huge problem. You can still login and update your email address on those accounts and domain's whois to the new address.

the issue would be if they give you account to somebody else, then they could use "forget password" to take over your accounts.

A solution?

5. keep your account login email different from your whois email. If some one wants to hack into your account - let them work on hacking your whois email not the one that can be used to reset your account password.

 

[NPer]

unless you both:
1) loose access to your email account
2) forget your password(s) on registrar sites
I don't see it would be a huge problem. You can still login and update your email address on those accounts and domain's whois to the new address.

the issue would be if they give you account to somebody else, then they could use "forget password" to take over your accounts.

I think any risk, no matter how tiny coupled with other risks can be magnified significantly. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is a good example that has since been used as an example by statisticians over and over again. A risk, no matter how small, can never be isolated.

Sure, you can go into your registrar account and update details-but there are many people, myself included, who use more than one registrar (I believe I am using much over 10, I am even unsure of the total myslef), it's sometimes possible to miss one or two registrars.

Besides that, if you deal in certain ccTLDs, your email address, serves as your account!! Without it-you cannot change registrant info or transfer domains!! And I actually deal in ccTLDs like this-and have quite a bit domains linked to my "account" which is an actual email address. Imagine if I had been using my mail.com account for these ccTLDs?? Investments gone! The process of recovering those domains would not be easy, having to prove that you indeed the owner, etc. In fact, you may not even know what is expiring, and someone else is now sitting with your names! The registry themselves would need to solve the issue, which I can assure you would not be easy for them.

This is but one recent example:

http://www.namepros.com/warnings-and-alerts/767029-caution-gmix-com-bbrz-com-other.html

You would be surprised, there are people who forget their passwords because they are not that active in domaining. Password reset goes to the blocked email. You may argue, what are the chances that both these events can occur-but that is the risk that some are willing to take. You and I may be actively logging in to our accounts at Registrars so we know our passwords, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

My email account was blocked for no reason, it could happen to someone else too.

5. keep your account login email different from your whois email. If some one wants to hack into your account - let them work on hacking your whois email not the one that can be used to reset your account password.

Nice one!! :tu: That is a good addition.

 

[Kate]

That said, I think it’s high time people stop being cheap, and protect their investments (domains) and personal information online.

Let me emphasize this :bingo:
I'm sad to see that so many domainers use gmail... and using your ISP address isn't a good idea either. Because you have no control over them. I never quite understood why domainers are reluctant to set up their own domain name. They should lead by example. Imagine that, you are E-mailing an end user concerning a domain you own, that they should buy from you. But you are so cheap that you conduct your business from a free E-mail account...

 

[NPer]

Let me emphasize this :bingo:
I'm sad to see that so many domainers use gmail... and using your ISP address isn't a good idea either. Because you have no control over them. I never quite understood why domainers are reluctant to set up their own domain name. They should lead by example. Imagine that, you are E-mailing an end user concerning a domain you own, that they should buy from you. But you are so cheap that you conduct your business from a free E-mail account...

That is absolutely true! Why should an end-user listen to someone who themselves do not use a domain to conduct business?!

I think it's unprofessional. I would be surprised if an enduser takes an individual serious who claims to be running a a business dealing in domain names and uses a free email service. So cheap.

Free email addresses have been known to be used for scamming. And when you are selling something, and expect the end-user to transact with you, it would be better for them to know that they are in fact dealing with a person who is running a legit business, rather than an individual/business who could be anybody other than the person that they claim to be. And that could be what makes or breaks a deal... all in the name of cheapness.

And then you also get those guys who use "Yola"/"Wix"/whatever free website hosting services. Plenty of guys at NP doing this. Very cheap.