Dynadot.com problem

[Robert140]

Has anyone used lawyers to recover domains? I have a problem with Dynadot.com, which used trickery to lock my account, and the domains I registered (which were free for registrations) ) have been down for over a month, right from the moment of registration and payment, for over a month.

 

[jberryhill]

Maybe I’m missing some nuances here, but I don’t understand why Dynadot is so ignorant about the matter.

Having worked with a lot of smaller registrars, this is an easy one. First, there is a desire to cover as many TLDs as possible. Some of that is because there are large portfolio holders you'd like to have as customers, and they may incidentally have a small number of domains in non-major TLDs. However, if they can't put their portfolio in one place, or most of it, then you are a less attractive registrar. At Uniregistry, we had one person pretty much tasked full time with dealing with onboarding TLDs. They would do what they needed to do from a business end, let the developers know the technical requirements, let me know if there was any impact on terms of service, I would update the terms, and the TLD would go live. There were something like three people doing full time customer support. Did they keep track of every requirement of every TLD? Nope. So, sometimes, the idiosyncracies of any particular TLD just wouldn't be apparent to them, and they might answer a support question based on what they knew about gTLDs, etc..

It's why, as a rule, when it comes to forum topics along the lines of "I have a problem with a domain name", then anything following "Their customer support told me..." can be random-generated text for all I care. And, applying AI to come up with wrong answers is not any better.

A lot of ccTLDs have eligibility requirements, and so, sure, there is a cottage industry of proxy registrants who can provide "local presence" or whatever it is the ccTLD registry requires. But at the end of the day if you are relying on somebody somewhere whose job is to collect payments for basically doing nothing, because you want to get around rules which were really just designed to prevent you from registering a name in the first place, then I wouldn't have high expectations on service levels. Part of the reason why they are collecting payments for doing nothing is that they are fully aware that they are doing it for people who wouldn't otherwise satisfy the rules.

Whois privacy is included by default, yet I was never informed who provides this service—let alone given the option to choose a specific provider.

I feel your pain, but at the end of the day AFNIC doesn't care what the registrar put in your cart.

Some of these proxies who get these kinds of deals with registrars are just awful. There was one that EuroDNS used to use for .eu domain names who would simply surrender any domain names against which a .eu ADR was filed, without bothering to check with his "client". Just crazy stuff.

So, just offhand, I don't know how "DEUP Service Inc." came to be the privacy service used for the domain names about which the OP is complaining, nor would I have any idea what some rando registrar puts in someone's cart when they register a domain name. How would I even keep track of that kind of information anyway?

But if that's how it came to be, then I can guarantee you the privacy/proxy provider was not selected by the registrar on the basis of the high quality or reputation of the service.

For even more entertainment, you can probably go back through many years of my posts here if you want my opinion on privacy services in general, and the zillion reasons why they are a bad idea. It costs peanuts to register and maintain a business entity if you want to protect the privacy of your personal data, and in the long run it saves a lot of heartache over people whose business model is predicated on their perception that most of their customers are probably crooks in the first place. And that perception is reflected in the sort of respect they have for providing quality services.

 

[BrandingGo]

I think i should rename your thread - to .fr cctld not Dynadot

 

[Robert140]

An hour ago I received this witty email from Dynadot
-------
Hello,
Thanks for your email. The two domains you mentioned are in your account. May I confirm whether you received the Afnic verficatioin email?
All the best,
Sam Green
Dynadot Support Team
-------
Now, with full responsibility for my words, I can say that Dynadot, together with DEUP Service Inc, stole these domains.

 

[jberryhill]

The law is meant to make life easier and serve the community.

I'll put in a word with the management.

Now, with full responsibility for my words, I can say that Dynadot, together with DEUP Service Inc, stole these domains.

I don't know if I'd go that far. The domains don't work. If they wanted to "steal" the domains, they'd have two functioning domains.

It's obviously a shoddy arrangement between @Dynadot and DEUP Service Inc., and it is pretty obvious that the Dynadot support staff who have looked at your ticket have absolutely not the first clue wtf is going on here or why.

As I said about registrar support people and low-volume edge TLDs for them, Dynadot support simply has no idea how their own arrangement with the privacy service works, or what AFNIC is looking for.

In general I'm not a huge fan of ccTLDs, but if you do a lot of .fr registrations, then I would suggest not using a registrar in the US, and going with one of the more France-focused registrars who is much more likely to know what they are doing.

You *might* get some traction by replying to Dynadot support to explain that the problem is not with YOU verifying anything, but with the privacy service verifying their identity to AFNIC. Maybe they might grow a clue, maybe not. You could also try getting in touch with the privacy service as well.

But, ascribing ill-intent to what is obviously a festival of incompetence is really giving them too much credit.

If you put this on a credit card, you might consider disputing the charge.

It's irresponsible for Dynadot to offer this service if their support people are this clueless.

 

[Robert140]

I agree that if Dynadot can't handle it, they shouldn't be offering .fr domains.

But the reality is that their actions appear deliberate because:
1) they advertise themselves as professionals, so as a customer, I have the right to assume they know what they're doing and what's required to make domains registered by their customers "work."
2) the requirement to provide documents isn't some new procedure introduced a week or two ago; it's been in place for several years. I've gone through it myself with other domains registered elsewhere, and it's easily manageable. You can really learn and prepare quickly.
3) There are other ways to ensure domain privacy that allow Dynadot customers to use them. But Dynadot chose one that allows them to seize domains and/or prevent customers from using them.
3) In many places, Dynadot simply misleads me. For example, they once wrote that domains are assigned to me, while the information from AFNIC contradicts this. Even today, Barbara Biel wrote that the domains are assigned to me. We've been discussing this for two weeks, and she's still sending me false information. The fact that they listed these domains as mine in the Dynadot system doesn't reflect the actual legal status. The domains belong to someone else, and I have no ownership interest in them. So, judging by their actions, I have every right to believe they're doing this on purpose.
I'm not interested in refunding cost of domains to my credit card. Then someone else could take over these domains, and that's not why I registered them.
I've also reported the Dynadot issue to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). We'll see what happens.

 

[jberryhill]

So, judging by their actions, I have every right to believe they're doing this on purpose.

I understand you believe that. I just have a hard time imagining why. It's not like they get anything out of it, and the domain names are pretty much a loss at this point given that they have consumed support staff time (albeit giving you wrong answers).

Don't you think it would be of more value to them to have you register the names and potentially keep renewing them?

You're dealing with a rapidly-growing relatively small business on one of their minor services of which their support people obviously do not have a basic understanding. If they could get you to quit consuming support time, that would be the most economically rational move for them.

But, yes, I totally get how you perceive it.

You might also let AFNIC know some more details around this. I have a sense that AFNIC might have their own impression of this dodgy outfit that Dynadot's in bed with.

It might not solve your problem, but if you could suggest that maybe AFNIC should de-accredit Dynadot because Dynadot clearly has no clue wha they are doing here, then you could help others to avoid this obvious lack of competence.

 

[Jannes]

So, have they learned something? Hard to tell:

(fwiw, Dynadot doesn't seem to offer a trustee service)

 

[Hypersot]

I quickly read the two pages of this thread, apologies if what I'm about to say has been mentioned already but, imo, the problem with Dynadot is always the same: their normal support.

In this case,the problem would have been easier to solve by the registrant if they had simply explain two things:

1. the registry requires documentation for the registration to finalise or else the domain will be suspended (this is very common with EU tlds)

2. In order to do so we need to remove *our* privacy from the domain and simply use the appropriate toggle for privacy that the registry provides (Note: for FR domains, there is a specific option when registering the domain to disallow the registrant's details to be visible). That way the registry would know who the registrant is and -at the same time- their details would not be disclosed on a Whois.

Instead, I'm pretty sure, the support started to throw generic answers that made the situation worse.

With Dynadot, you either get proper answers by an account manager (Dynadot's AMs do care) or you get generic answers by the support. What I read earlier that Dynadot will always find a solution is *not* true.

 

[jberryhill]

Brilliant find, @Jannes

 

[jberryhill]

Something seems a little fishy.

Taking a cue from @Jannes I proceeded further down the purchase path and tried to pay for a .fr domain name.

It wouldn't let me unless I confirmed my eligibility, and again stated that privacy was not available:

How long ago did all these events happen, Robert?

It's interesting that the claimed automatic addition of privacy to .fr names upon checking out from Dynadot seems to be no longer possible.

It would be kind of odd if they changed their .fr registration procedure and support would not know whether a name was registered before or after that change.

But, to one of the earlier points, it does not seem possible to register a .fr domain name through Dynadot with a privacy service and, far from stuffing it into your cart, they actually won't let you check out unless you confirm your eligibility and acknowledge that AFNIC may reach out to do so.

These may be recent changes. If so, then their support people should be aware of what may have triggered these recent changes.

 

[Gube]

Robert, can you update your .fr domains contacts so it's linked to your private information?
(real name, real address etc)
I can also explain it in French if more helpful (Belgian here).

If able to edit your contacts, you should then be able to start the verification procedure from Afnic; and enable your domains. (it's automatic once verified)
We have a very similar process at DNSBelgium, the .be registry.

The first step is to have your correct contact info at the registry. (If you are a private individual, it won't be visible in WHOIS for .fr or .be)

 

[Robert140]

@jberryhill

Last night, I sent an inquiry to AFNIC asking whether Dynadot and DEUP Service's actions are compliant with AFNIC guidelines and European Union regulations. Maybe this will give them pause.

Yesterday, I sent DEUP Service a blatant inquiry as to why they're stealing my domains. As the response i got was "passed on" and no signature, no company info, nothing. This whole DEUP "company" seems highly suspicious to me. There's little information about them, and I haven't found their VAT number.

Looking at what's happening, I wonder DEUP Service if this isn't a "company" invented by Dynadot, which doesn't actually exist. When registering a domain, you can often enter anything you want, and this are accepted. The problem arises when AFNIC asks for company documents, perhaps information about management, or perhaps a copy of a utility bill to confirm the existence of such an entity. And that's when the problem begins, which lasts an unnaturally long time – as in my case.

I registered the domain on June 1st this year. It was a seamless process—just add domain names to shopping cart, pay with your card, and you're done. There were no questions about privacy, whether I wanted it or not, etc.

@Jannes
I registered the domain on June 1st this year, maybe they changed something

@Hypersot
Removing the privacy policy won't help. I spoke with AFNIC, and they don't consider me a party because I'm not listed on the registry. They're waiting for information from Dynadot and/or DUNE Service, but they haven't received it, at least not until Friday. I asked Dynadot this morning to remove the privacy policy, but so far, no word (Weekend).
I confirm, What I read earlier that Dynadot will always find a solution is *not* true.

@Gube
I can't do anything, because for AFNIC I'm not connection to these domains. They expect documents from Dynadot and DEUP.

 

[Hypersot]

Removing the privacy policy won't help. I spoke with AFNIC, and they don't consider me a party because I'm not listed on the registry.

That is why I mentioned that the registration was not created correctly; instead of you as a registrant with the toggle of do-not-disclose-details be on, they simply created the domain with their privacy details on the domain.

In short,
the domain has their dynadot privacy as the registrant and that's where the problem lies.

What they need to do now is initiate a transfer to you which has a chance to involve extra fees (don't remember if transfer is free for .fr domains).