Beware CentralNic. Thousands in profit lost

[Brian Masterson]

I highly recommend that you do not register any domain extension managed by CentralNic. A competitor is filing false "abuse reports", and CentralNic responded by locking the domain instantly with zero communication to myself or Namecheap. This domain earns thousands of dollars daily.

CentralNic did unlock the domain but locked it a few days later stating the domain was involved with abuse again. Obviously, my competitor will keep filing abuse reports. It's unfathomable that CentralNic takes fake abuse reports as true without question even though they happen all the time.

Why on Earth would someone start spamming after getting unlocked when so much money is at stake? CentralNic is the most illogical organization I have ever dealt with.

I had a back and forth between Namecheap and CentralNic with each party basically saying I needed to contact the other one. Obviously, I want to go straight to the source and communicate with CentralNic directly. However, when I called, the person I spoke with was extremely rude and insisted he would never, ever communicate with me, and that I should never call again.

CentralNic has not identified one instance of spam. I just called them for the fourth time. The representative stated the ticket is closed and hung up.

TLDR: Losing thousands per day due to false abuse report and domain lock initiated by CentralNic

 

[branding]

What's the domain and what is it they claim you're doing that would be concidered abuse?

Maybe @tamar could look into this?

 

[Rob Monster]

I highly recommend that you do not register any domain extension managed by CentralNic. A competitor is filing false "abuse reports", and CentralNic responded by locking the domain instantly with zero communication to myself or Namecheap. This domain earns thousands of dollars daily.

CentralNic did unlock the domain but locked it a few days later stating the domain was involved with abuse again. Obviously, my competitor will keep filing abuse reports. It's unfathomable that CentralNic takes fake abuse reports as true without question even though they happen all the time.

Why on Earth would someone start spamming after getting unlocked when so much money is at stake? CentralNic is the most illogical organization I have ever dealt with.

I had a back and forth between Namecheap and CentralNic with each party basically saying I needed to contact the other one. Obviously, I want to go straight to the source and communicate with CentralNic directly. However, when I called, the person I spoke with was extremely rude and insisted he would never, ever communicate with me, and that I should never call again.

CentralNic has not identified one instance of spam. I just called them for the fourth time. The representative stated the ticket is closed and hung up.

TLDR: Losing thousands per day due to false abuse report and domain lock initiated by CentralNic

Due process is price of entry for registries and registrars.

For a registrar or registry to take a heavy-hand, there would have to be incontrovertible evidence of unlawful activity.

There are rare cases where a registry will dump a registration. The last high profile case was this one:

https://mashable.com/article/incels-me-domain-suspended-by-registry/

The .ME registry simply dumped them.

While I don't particularly care for their content, I actually talked to the site owner, and ultimately agreed to be their registrar for an alternate domain.

They have dutifully complied with specific takedown requests that were demonstrable abuses of their own Terms of Service.

Perhaps you will elaborate about your site, and why you think you were targeted for a takedown without warning.

 

[Brian Masterson]

What's the domain and what is it they claim you're doing that would be concidered abuse?

Maybe @tamar could look into this?

The accusation is "spam". I've been given absolutely no information other than that one amazing word

I would rather not disclose the domain name.

 

[Brian Masterson]

Perhaps you will elaborate about your site, and why you think you were targeted for a takedown without warning.

The only thing noticeable on my end that happened is that I took over some high-quality traffic from a competitor for a few days, and then I got a serverHold on the domain.

 

[branding]

The accusation is "spam". I've been given absolutely no information other than that one amazing word

I would rather not disclose the domain name.

Could it be that your website/servers were compromised? That's usually what happens.

I get you want to keep the name private. @tamar is a Namecheap representative so you could ask her to take a look by PM.

 

[Brian Masterson]

Could it be that your website/servers were compromised? That's usually what happens.

I looked into it, and there was nothing. It's a DigitalOcean droplet that I monitor closely.

I have a feeling CentralNic doesn't have much since they won't just say what the specific reason was. Obviously, knowing what the problem is would allow me to investigate it.

 

[branding]

I looked into it, and there was nothing. It's a DigitalOcean droplet that I monitor closely.

I have a feeling CentralNic doesn't have much since they won't just say what the specific reason was. Obviously, knowing what the problem is would allow me to investigate it.

Ok. I would expect DO to monitor their Network closely for spam to keep their ips clean.

You should be able to pull logs from your server to support the fact you're not sending spam.

Also, take a look at your DNS settings. Specifically your spf records and look into DKIM if you haven't set that already.

I think they are required to unblock the name if they cannot come up with evidence that supports the abuse complaint but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[branding]

Maybe @Rob Monster could point us to usual procedure in cases like this?

Beside this case, it would be interesting info for future reference.

If what you're doing is legit, and I take your word for it, you might want to concider moving your domain to Epik.com to be sure your registrar has your back when you run into issues.

 

[Brian Masterson]

If what you're doing is legit, and I take your word for it, you might want to concider moving your domain to Epik.com to be sure your registrar has your back when you run into issues.

Yeah, that seems like a good idea actually.

 

[Brian Masterson]

Thank you for the help, Rob Monster and NameDeck. CentralNic has unsuspended the domain. It was indeed a competitor filing abuse reports. I have been assured by CentralNic that further reports should not result in a lock of the domain. CentralNic has also told me that they will improve how they handle these reports in the future so that it doesn't happen again.

I will be transferring my domains to Epik.com since Rob really went out of his way and saved me a ton of money without me ever giving him a penny.

 

[DomainRecap]

Thank you for the help, Rob Monster and NameDeck. CentralNic has unsuspended the domain. It was indeed a competitor filing abuse reports.

This is a very popular scam these days, and everyone seems to be doing it. It's far worse when they file a faked copyright infringement complaint against you, as that can cause immediate deletion or transfer, making it very difficult to resolve once the truth finally comes out.

 

[Rob Monster]

Thank you for the help, Rob Monster and NameDeck. CentralNic has unsuspended the domain. It was indeed a competitor filing abuse reports. I have been assured by CentralNic that further reports should not result in a lock of the domain. CentralNic has also told me that they will improve how they handle these reports in the future so that it doesn't happen again.

I will be transferring my domains to Epik.com since Rob really went out of his way and saved me a ton of money without me ever giving him a penny.

Wow, that's super-cool.

Thanks goes to Ben Crawford at CentralNic. I pinged him with a link to this thread and he got right on it. Much respect to Ben. He has been doing some very savvy acquisitions lately and integrating with high efficiency. This was the first time I have appealed to him in an ombudsman capacity. I am delighted to hear that he intervened on behalf of the registrant. I hope all registry CEOs take note that while (1) errors of omission and emission do happen, (2) it is better to apply due process when there is sufficient evidence that the reflex response was heavy-handed.

Congrats all around. I love stories like this one -- a connected domain community capable of self governance.

 

[Linda Burchett]

I find it strange that you state the domain lost thousands of dollars. It doesn’t sound to me like it was down for only a few hours. What was the total downtime for the domain?

 

[Brian Masterson]

Yeah, I guess I forgot to add that "tiny" detail.

CentralNic added a serverHold on July 1, 2019. I saw that it was down within about half an hour. Immediately, I contacted Namecheap and also CentralNic.

The serverHold was lifted on July 9, 2019, but was readded early in the morning of July 11, 2019. As you can see from the thread, I didn't get the domain back online until July 30, 2019.

During that time I spent a lot of time trying to get Namecheap and CentralNic to cooperate and get the domain back. However, all that effort was futile, and it wasn't until I posted here that something got done.

I am grateful that I have the domain back, but yeah, it was down for four weeks in total.

 

[Linda Burchett]

So let me get this straight. Your domain was suspended for four weeks due to the registry's incompetence in recognizing those abuse reports as false. They ignored you until you got public attention, and somebody at the registry finally cared enough to take a look? To me it sounds like a complete failure on the part of the registry. I wonder if there are precedents of successfully suing registries for gross negligence with compensatory damages being awarded in similar cases.