Dotster, MyDomain and Netfirms - Which one do you prefer?

[Federer]

We have sold one of our recent registrations at MyDomain.com - does anyone know the link / or how to create a free account without having to purchase a product? It would be great for the end user to have immediate ownership over the domain, rather than waiting the 60-day transfer period.

 

[SuperBrander]

@Federer Send the buyer to the MyDomain chat and tell them to ask for a free parking account. They'll need to give their address etc. but no payment method is required. If the rep tries to give them a link to sign up, your buyer should ask that MyDomain will open the account for them instead. It usually saves some time and also prevents the need to provide a payment method. Be aware that people from some countries sometimes encounter difficulties signing up smoothly and might be asked to send proof of their identity. But usually it should be a pretty quick process. Good luck.

 

[Federer]

Thanks. Is it easier/simpler to set up a free account at Netfirms/Dotster?

Most of these discount codes seem to work at all these places. We would like the buyers of our domain names to be able to set up a free account (hastle-free) where the domain name is based. We have been buying mainly at MyDomain during recent weeks - but if it's complicated for buyers to set up an account each time, we may try Netfirms/Dotster - any opinions? Thanks in advance.

 

[Domain Monk]

It's same with all three

 

[SuperBrander]

Dotster, MyDomain and Netfirms are all sister companies of Domain.com. They all have a similar infrastructure and you can also push domains between them using something called a RSP push (the domains are always registered at Domain.com, including the one you're about to sell, but can be associated with the different sister registrars). Your buyer will have to go through the same procedure with any one of them. Their support is almost always from India so sometimes there are comprehension issues because of rather poor English skills and it can get quite frustrating at times. There's no way to guarantee that your buyer won't have issues. Perhaps you could try opening an account for them using their details to save them the hassle, but I've never tried it so I'm not sure if that's recommended or not.

 

[Federer]

Well a few weeks ago it wasn't this complicated to create a free account at MyDomain.com - something was modified.

I am thinking of contacting LIVE CHAT each time we sell a domain that is with MYDOMAIN.com with the following message (filled in):

Hello,

We would like a free parking account (where we can store domain names too).

Here are the contact details for the account:

Name:
Company Name:
Address:
City:
Post Code:
Country:
Telephone:
Fax:
Email:
Password:

Kindly send the confirmation email once the free account has been set up.
Thanks in advance for your support.

Best Regards.

 

[SuperBrander]

If they modified something, then I'm not aware and please disregard my previous advice. I was commenting based on my experience with these registrars so far. Personally, I prefer to ask buyers to transfer to another registrar because I don't find these registrars reliable. They have quite a few bugs and in the past year I encountered tons of problems. In your case, since you're within the 60 days... then perhaps you should try what you suggested. Please update about your experience so we'll know how it all ends up. I hope there won't be any issues.

 

[kaposzta]

Dotster, MyDomain and Netfirms are all sister companies of Domain.com. They all have a similar infrastructure and you can also push domains between them using something called a RSP push (the domains are always registered at Domain.com, including the one you're about to sell, but can be associated with the different sister registrars). Your buyer will have to go through the same procedure with any one of them. Their support is almost always from India so sometimes there are comprehension issues because of rather poor English skills and it can get quite frustrating at times. There's no way to guarantee that your buyer won't have issues. Perhaps you could try opening an account for them using their details to save them the hassle, but I've never tried it so I'm not sure if that's recommended or not.

Dotster and Domain.com support is excellent, they are very fast and they always solved the issue perfectly. I guess the same people are working for Netfirms support, too.

 

[SuperBrander]

Dotster and Domain.com support is excellent, they are very fast and they always solved the issue perfectly. I guess the same people are working for Netfirms support, too.

@kaposzta Perhaps you haven't had to deal with selling to end users or people who don't already have accounts. Or you'll encounter problems later on. If I had to start to list all the problems I had with Domain.com and their sister companies, I would have to write a book about it. Errors, bugs, rejected payments, impossible cart loading times in bulk, credits issued instead of registrations, domains remaining in the account after transfer to other registrars, clueless support people and the list goes on and on. I've wasted many many hours having to deal with problems and at the moment I still have an unresolved issue with Netfirms that includes screenshots that demonstrate bugs in their system that they insist don't exist despite the screenshots. Sometimes things are done quickly and things do end up getting resolved. I don't have issues with other registrars. There are a few members here at NamePros who I dealt with who can personally testify about issues they had. Some even refuse to use these registrars because of these problems.

 

[kaposzta]

@kaposzta Perhaps you haven't had to deal with selling to end users or people who don't already have accounts. Or you'll encounter problems later on. If I had to start to list all the problems I had with Domain.com and their sister companies, I would have to write a book about it. Errors, bugs, rejected payments, impossible cart loading times in bulk, credits issued instead of registrations, domains remaining in the account after transfer to other registrars, clueless support people and the list goes on and on. I've wasted many many hours having to deal with problems and at the moment I still have an unresolved issue with Netfirms that includes screenshots that demonstrate bugs in their system that they insist don't exist despite the screenshots. Sometimes things are done quickly and things do end up getting resolved. I don't have issues with other registrars. There are a few members here at NamePros who I dealt with who can personally testify about issues they had. Some even refuse to use these registrars because of these problems.

I've also had issues with them (their UI is terrible), but their support was world class all the time.

 

[SuperBrander]

I've also had issues with them (their UI is terrible), but their support was world class all the time.

When you need small things, the support is great. When you need something more complex or have a real problem- that's when things get crazy. Trust me on this. I'll give you a recent example: I had a few domains at MyDomain and the buyer wanted to have them at Domain.com. I asked for a RSP push to my Domain.com account (that's how you transfer between these registrars). The rep said he'll do it. He got back to me and said that he did the RSP push. Great. I push the domain at Domain.com to the buyer and think that it's done. But then the buyer reports errors. He tries to contact the chat and they ask him for my answer to my secret question in order to solve the matter. I try to contact them from my end. I manage to figure out the idiot rep from MyDomain didn't RSP push them. He just pushed them which leaves the control at MyDomain. They ask me for the answer to his secret question. They wouldn't solve the matter in any other way. So at this point, without one of us giving the other the answer to the secret question of the other person's account, this matter couldn't be solved. Eventually that's what we had to do. Does that seem logical to you? So: we have an idiot rep who didn't do what he was asked to do. We have a policy that forces users to compromise the security of their accounts. Still sounds excellent?

 

[kaposzta]

When you need small things, the support is great. When you need something more complex or have a real problem- that's when things get crazy. Trust me on this. I'll give you a recent example: I had a few domains at MyDomain and the buyer wanted to have them at Domain.com. I asked for a RSP push to my Domain.com account (that's how you transfer between these registrars). The rep said he'll do it. He got back to me and said that he did the RSP push. Great. I push the domain at Domain.com to the buyer and think that it's done. But then the buyer reports errors. He tries to contact the chat and they ask him for my answer to my secret question in order to solve the matter. I try to contact them from my end. I manage to figure out the idiot rep from MyDomain didn't RSP push them. He just pushed them which leaves the control at MyDomain. They asked me for the answer to his secret question. They wouldn't solve the matter in any other way. So at this point, without one of us giving each other the answer to the secret question of the other person's account, this matter couldn't be solved. Eventually that's what we had to do. Does that seem logical to you? So: we have an idiot rep who didn't do what he was asked to do. We have a policy that forces users to compromise the security of their accounts. Still sounds excellent?

Hm, no, this sounds lame Then I was just lucky

 

[premkumar]

@stellarname You can easily solve the problem, just give your account secret answer and ask them to remove domain from your account. And once done, you ask your buyer to add the domain from their "DomainCentral" by click the "Add existing" tab and entering the doamin name in the textbox. Using this step, domain will be add to their account

When you need small things, the support is great. When you need something more complex or have a real problem- that's when things get crazy. Trust me on this. I'll give you a recent example: I had a few domains at MyDomain and the buyer wanted to have them at Domain.com. I asked for a RSP push to my Domain.com account (that's how you transfer between these registrars). The rep said he'll do it. He got back to me and said that he did the RSP push. Great. I push the domain at Domain.com to the buyer and think that it's done. But then the buyer reports errors. He tries to contact the chat and they ask him for my answer to my secret question in order to solve the matter. I try to contact them from my end. I manage to figure out the idiot rep from MyDomain didn't RSP push them. He just pushed them which leaves the control at MyDomain. They ask me for the answer to his secret question. They wouldn't solve the matter in any other way. So at this point, without one of us giving the other the answer to the secret question of the other person's account, this matter couldn't be solved. Eventually that's what we had to do. Does that seem logical to you? So: we have an idiot rep who didn't do what he was asked to do. We have a policy that forces users to compromise the security of their accounts. Still sounds excellent?

 

[thedotsol]

@stellarname Unfortunately, I can feel your pain. I went through these issues as well.

Most recent one is for the domain I registered at Dotster on July 24. I sold it few days ago and pushed to the buyer's Domain.com account, just to find little later that the domain was actually registered at FastDomain, thus, couldn't be managed through Domain.com.

Now I have the situation where my buyer received the domain I sold to him, he can see it at his Domain.com control panel, but he can't use it, since it is actually at FastDomain.com. Issue still not solved, my deal is in question, many wasted hours trying to explain things to their support, but they always came back with a new stupid stories and you have to start from the beginning.

Main question: How on earth my domain went to FastDomain? Still not answered.

Another one is when my domain disappeared from my Domain.com account. You can't imagine their explanations.... It was sorted out finally after 4-5 days of agony...

I might decide to start a thread about these horrors I went through with these registrars...

 

[SuperBrander]

@stellarname You can easily solve the problem, just give your account secret answer and ask them to remove domain from your account. And once done, you ask your buyer to add the domain from their "DomainCentral" by click the "Add existing" tab and entering the doamin name in the textbox. Using this step, domain will be add to their account

Thanks, @premkumar . I'm aware of the 'add existing' method when one registrar is involved. But I'm not sure I could have asked to remove it from MyDomain and then the buyer could have added it to Domain.com. I might try that next time. Either way, this whole story is just one recent example. I'm saving the rest for my book.

 

[SuperBrander]

@stellarname Unfortunately, I can feel your pain. I went through these issues as well.

Thanks for sharing. Yeah, things certainly get crazy with them sometimes. The promos are great, but they should really solve some major issues with the UI and their support. The whole system that's based on domains having "listings" instead of actually existing in the account is so weird. Every time you transfer a domain to another registrar you have to contact their chat to ask them to remove it from your account. Why? Who the hell knows.

 

[campout]

@Federer You might try transferring out first. I don't think these resellers apply a 60-day lock.

 

[SuperBrander]

To the best of my knowledge a 60 day lock for new domains is something that ICANN enforces and isn't a registrar decision. In the transfer tab of domains at all of these resellers (as well as at Domain.com) there's a day count that doesn't enable you to transfer out until 60 days pass. Also, when you check the whois of any of these domains- they're all registered at Domain.com. So I'm afraid there's no real solution to the 60 day lock in such cases.

 

[Alex Nguyen]

i like netfirms bc i can transfer domain to it

 

[Banezer]

so no solution has been provided concerning this issue @
Federer how did you resolve this issue? because i have some names to sell to enduser i don't want to loose any deal because of this issue of push/ creating an account

 

[Beezy]

As someone that is coupon'ing hard lately, any solutions to this issue? Thanks.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

We have sold one of our recent registrations at MyDomain.com - does anyone know the link / or how to create a free account without having to purchase a product?

@Federer - Really enjoy your contributions to NP, so thought I'd look into this for you. Might be a little late though, hoping you already got this resolved.

Here's what I found:

Sign up for a free affiliate account via: https://www.mydomain.com/affiliate/signup.bml
(no need to check affiliate program credit as you're only setting up an a free domain services account)

The URL at the bottom really doesn't matter as you aren't setting it up for affiliate purposes. I suggest using the domain you're selling, but any domain will do.

It took me two minutes to set up a free account. I was able to login immediately ( even though email confirming account creation still hasn't been received)

Per one of @stellarname old post, remember to downgrade to parking account. Not sure it matters, or if they charge, but it states my hosting service will begin it;s next term one year from now. To do this go to Account > Account Renewal > Check 'Downgrade to Domain Parking Account' > Change Status.

>>

Hope this helps.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Figured I'd add registration links Domain.com, Dotster.com, and NetFirms.com while it's still fresh.

• https://www.domain.com/affiliate/signup.bml
  
• https://www.dotster.com/affiliate/signup.bml
  
• https://www.netfirms.com/affiliate/signup.bml