Beware of exabytes.com !!! Canceled my domains with no notice

[imadoer]

I registered 9 domains with this company last march. I decided to log in today to transfer some away since renewals were coming up in a month. Only to find out they canceled my account and deleted all my names and gave me no notice of it. So I lost all my domain names that I had registered there.

 

[tldboss]

That is really bad.

@exa-Edward

 

[DNWon]

Why do you think that happened?

What have they told you about why this happened?

 

[imadoer]

After contacting chat support they said that my billing info was never verified and told me to contact support by email. I never got an email or anything asking for verification after I registered the domains. They took the payments for all the domains. the domains were registered and were in my account. they never refunded me. never sent me anything at all to give me any notice that I needed to do an additional verification. This is definitely a screw up on their end and even if they give me a refund it doesn't replace the value I seen in the domain names.

 

[Asfas1000]

What happened to the domains ? Expired / deleted / owned by someone else ?!?

 

[imadoer]

they got deleted and they are owned by others.

 

[kunkka]

That's bad and very rude. What is the point of taking your payments and additionally asking for verification. That should be done before letting you use their services.

Maybe @exa-Edward can do something and help you.
And also @exa-Edward i am interested is there a need to do some additional verification to my account. I do not want to lose my domains.

 

[xynames]

Are you saying that you never paid and so they were removed? or that you did pay for a year but they were removed before the renewal expired?

Did you verify that your payments went through and remained as charges, or were they authorizations that did not finalize?

Or that they were paid for a year but removed after the year when your renewal payment failed?

Each of these is a different situation.

 

[JamesCrew]

Sorry to know about it buddy. I noticed that @exa-Edward hasn't responded yet but I hope he responds asap. Nobody wants to lose their domains like this.

 

[imadoer]

He pmed me but what's the point my domains got deleted I lost them there's no way they can make it better I don't care to discuss it at this point

What are they going to do give me $9 back lol

The domains have way more value to me than that

 

[VaibhavA]

I am surprised and also sorry for your loss.

I was using them for hand regs so far, but, seems like they are going to loose business if they dont come forward and resolve this amicably.

 

[xynames]

The point is - making a post like that and not following up with exact details of what happened doesn't even tell me that the registrar was at fault. Or if it was at fault, why.

Absent more details it's just a general "stay away from this registrar" thread....

For example here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/what-to-do-now-pls-need-urgent-help.1041646/
the OP followed up and admitted that it was his mistake, not Afternic's.

 

[imadoer]

The point is - making a post like that and not following up with exact details of what happened doesn't even tell me that the registrar was at fault. Or if it was at fault, why.

Absent more details it's just a general "stay away from this registrar" thread....

For example here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/what-to-do-now-pls-need-urgent-help.1041646/
the OP followed up and admitted that it was his mistake, not Afternic's.

I guess u cant read. Support said They deleted them becuase they said my billing details werent verified..

 

[xynames]

Are you saying that you never paid and so they were removed? or that you did pay for a year but they were removed before the renewal expired?

Did you verify that your payments went through and remained as charges, or were they authorizations that did not finalize?

Or that they were paid for a year but removed after the year when your renewal payment failed?

Each of these is a different situation.

As a merchant, if someone makes a payment with me and his billing address does not match AVS (address verification service) or there is some other mismatch issue, I will not accept the payment. This is standard practice. But in such cases I will not allow the charge to capture and it will drop off as an authorization only within a week or so.

I actually have my system set to reject all payments that AVS mismatch, but still an authorization will go through at payer's end. A mere authorization is not a payment.

In extreme cases I might refund the payment even after capture if I have an issue with AVS or something else, but again, my system is set to reject the payment if AVS mismatches although still it will show as an authorization to the payer.

 

[imadoer]

If i didnt pay for the domains why would i be saying something. According to suppoet they where removed because my billing info wasnt verfied. I dont know what you dont get

 

[xynames]

Because Visa/MC would not allow a merchant to accept payment and not release the goods. On the other hand if you had an authorization and no final capture that is not a payment. (Or if they refunded.)

 

[imadoer]

Omfg dude .. leave me alone before i lose my shit

 

[xynames]

Check your statements, you may find that they never did a final charge (authorization only) or they refunded at some point.

 

[Kate]

GD has done the same thing too. New user accounts usually undergo enhanced verification.
What can happen is that if you don't verify payment within 5 days, the names are cancelled within grace delete period (limited loss for the registrar).
Also, as per Icann rules they are normally required to verify your E-mail address. If you don't click on that link, then... yes I think the worst can happen. Welcome to the 21st century, the era of compliance and obedience.

Most likely, their mails were trapped as spam, so you didn't get them. End of the story. A good percentage of legitimate mail ends up as spam and never makes it to the intended destination. So whose fault is it ? Not always easy to tell.

It's one reason why I have always run my own mail servers:

1. privacy
2. security
3. flexibility: in particular control over whitelisting

Many legitimate providers still send mail that doesn't pass standard validation routines, for example lack of PTR records, or worse a misconfigured SPF record or an invalid DKIM signature. I even had to whitelist escrow.com in the past.

However I don't think it is right to charge you without providing service. I would like to hear their justification on that and the timeline of events.
PS: they don't seem to be an Icann-accredited registrar, so they must be a reseller. It means your only recourse is the upstream registrar. Had they been accredited Icann could have forced them to investigate the case, and produce logs and forensic evidence.
PS2: avoid resellers, only use accredited registrars. If you have a problem with a reseller (often a one-man show) it is not certain that the registrar will even be willing to help and Icann is normally unlikely to be able to do anything.

 

[xynames]

It's one thing to not allow an authorization to capture, or to refund a payment - which are both acceptable practices in the credit card industry, and quite another to take someone's money, keep it and deliver nothing.

 

[axus_auto]

My experience with them is sometimes the payment gets flagged and never gets through. It looks like the domain is in the account but it is not.

You should do a check to see if the payment did indeed go through.

 

[exa-Edward]

Hi all,

We’ve reached out to him (imadoer) personally by PM but was unable to obtain any further information.

According to our investigation, our system detected fraud taking place in the transaction, and we've not registered the domain.

Next, client (imadoer) asked to have "his domain or money back" via ticket on 28 March 2017.
*Refer to case ID #1891742

We already made a full refund via PayPal on 31 March 2017, since we didn't register the domain.

We hope this clarifies your concerns.

 

[imadoer]

Hi all,

We’ve reached out to him (imadoer) personally by PM but was unable to obtain any further information.

According to our investigation, our system detected fraud taking place in the transaction, and we've not registered the domain.

Next, client (imadoer) asked to have "his domain or money back" via ticket on 28 March 2017.
*Refer to case

We already made a full refund via PayPal on 31 March 2017, since we didn't register the domain.

We hope this clarifies your concerns.

Fraud lol thats funny. Because i paid for domain registration thats a joke. Why the hell did your support tell me it was because my billing wasnt verfied that you deleted the domains

Actually now that you point this out and i have a ticket number to search... yeah your company did give me a refund so that part was my mistake your right. Looking at it now I had to fight for my money back. I won't ever use your service there was no fraud on my behalf .. All I was doing was registering domains.. I thought they were in my account. Either way I lost some really good handregs over this and there are still names that I have paid for that i have NO ACCESS to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because your support says my account is closed. No Refund for those though? FYI that's not the only transaction that was made. Why cant i get to those domains? hmmm let me guess my billing aint verified.

 

[xynames]

Seems then that OP was aware of the issue 11 months ago, asking for his money back or the domain, 3/28/17. Which the Registrar obliged and refunded a few days later 3/31/17. So why the surprise reaction from OP 11 months later?

I'm not taking sides, just you can't jump to conclusions in these types of threads until all the facts are in.

 

[imadoer]

Seems then that OP was aware of the issue 11 months ago, asking for his money back or the domain, 3/28/17. Which the Registrar obliged and refunded a few days later 3/31/17. So why the surprise reaction from OP 11 months later?

I'm not taking sides, just you can't jump to conclusions in these types of threads until all the facts are in.

If i was aware of it i wouldnt have opened the thread i was when he sent me the case nimber i had that in my email i was able to look it up. But even so. Theres still domains i dont have access to because the closed my accout due to my billing not being verififed according to support so mr xynames please explian that.