Epik API support

[twiki]

These days I've finally decided to try out Epik, having domains about anywhere else.

Registered about 40 domains in 2 days, but now I am REALLY disapointed. Side note the context is drop catching and using their API for regging expired domains.

First off, as a note, I was not able to contact support at all. It's like trying to reach a black hole. All calls never reached a rep. I can see they also don't reply to emails. Tried calling many times - it's impossible. You just wait for 2 minutes then the call hangs up on you. No I won't leave a message, sorry; the whole experience makes me suspect nobody will ever call me back. The site is also made BTW so you don't actually find how to contact them, apart from calling the numbers nobody replies to.

Side note if I could call support, OR find any kind of documentation answering my problems listed here, this post would not have existed. But I'm left to my own devices with this. Hence this post.

First day, 2 domains didn't go through. Yeah, perhaps someone else was quicker, that's alright, I understand. But the funds were taken from the account. I mean, what? The inability to register the domains should automatically cancel the transactions, Paypal supports that. And they know instantly they couldn't reg the domain.

I can't really watch if each transaction is matched by a correct domain registration. Have better things to do. Any other registrar automatically sees such errors and reverts the transactions without me having to manually point each to them.

Mailed their support, received note somethone actually received it, and later that day the funds went into account credit. No email replies regarding problem solved, no warning that they actually did this. You have to discover on your own that actually something went into credit. Fortunately I took a look at it.

The worst thing by far is the API.

As a domain investor, I watch for expired domains and I use registrar API to quickly snatch what I need.

Unfortunately, that is not possible with Epik. Their API will not register any freshly dropped domain, although the manual bulk register interface allows for it. This is because, as I can see, the domains ARE NOT AVAILABLE IN REALTIME VIA THE API. While at the same time any other registrar I'm using shows them as available so you can register now. I could register 0 domains via their API. ( Edit: manual regs work though, but not freshly expired ones).

I have given up trying registration after a few minutes so then I'm doing manual regs via the bulk manual search. This meant for me, pointless work for hours at something that any other registrar API offers. Even GD is quicker than this and a more or less functional thing by comparison.

I suspect they only offer CACHED registrations via the API. Yeh, you can definitely register the same domain next day... if it's a crappy one therefore still left available. Sorry - but for a domain investor, 30-60 seconds later anything still worth picking (and not sniped by DropCatch/SnapNames) is looong gone.

Furthermore, you are limited to 10 domains max per API call. (edit: when searching for available domains, cause for registration it's obviously individual).

I mean, seriously? I often monitor up to 60 domains per day, this will likely go soon to hundreds (as I'm currently expanding), so what can any serious investor do with a 10 domains limit?? They know I'm that kind of user cause I've told them on signup. Okay, so be it - disabled search completely and broken the list in batches of 10 or less and tried even that as direct reg attempt. No luck. It won't reg anything. Even if it's just 1 domain call via the API. Minutes later, the domain is still not available. And yeah, it is available via any other registar's API already... sometimes for minutes already... (watched that unfold) but not on Epik.

I'm sorry but this is NOT how the swiss bank of domains should perform.

I'm not sure right now exactly who will actually use this API, who is this for? Us domain investors, certainly not - given the situation.

I hope that Epik takes this post as it should and as intended (as positive criticism from a domainer), and fix their service.

 

[Samer]

Exactly. Careful, Bob... Your post might

... and make Epik vulnerable to end up in hands of some private equity firm or some other "shark". Who will stop developing and downgrade existing platform. Such things happened before. Not exclusively in domaining, also in IT in general (hosting)... *I do not mean to say that Epik should not grow now*

Come on, Tony. Privately-held, debt-free, US company i am proud to support. Why say that

As long as Rob is at the helm..
“Nowhere to go, but up!”

Samer

 

[Rob Monster]

... and make Epik vulnerable to end up in hands of some private equity firm or some other "shark". Who will stop developing and downgrade existing platform. Such things happened before. Not exclusively in domaining, also in IT in general (hosting)... *I do not mean to say that Epik should not grow now*

FWIW, Epik is closely held. We have no institutional PE owners. Despite that, we have been able to move swiftly, opportunistically engaging in acquisition and empowering more people.

I do think there is a place for institutional PE in capital structures but maverick CEOs make PEs a bit nervous so I don't see us going that route.

If you ask me, that is good news for the industry because the "winner take all" game is rigged to keep as many people as possible in debt, and/or working 3 jobs.

Threads like "Shoot the Moon" and "Teach a man to fish" are sharing strategies for overcoming scarcity with abundance. The big PEs I know would not typically embrace such strategies.

 

[Ostrados]

I dont know about Epik API either I am relatively new Epik user I only last month started registering/transfering domains at Epik.. but I know them for longer than that and to be fair their support is more than great! more than 6 months ago I needed help on an issue from Epik, I bought a domain from a NP user that disappeared after receiving the money without transfering the domain to me, the domain was registered at Epik, so I contacted Epik support using chat and Rob was on the chat that day and he was very helpful, he followed up with Eric at Namepros to solve the problem, and he even called the domain owner on the phone.. at the end I got full refund.. thanks for Rob. Imagine same scenario if it was Godaddy support!

My only criticism for Epik is that they over promote themselves at the forums, they are trying to use natural promotion by engaging people in discussions, nothing wrong without but it should not be overdone and they should be totally transparent and make sure they only using 100% factual info and avoid speculations that could be interpreted as misinfo under some circumstances.

 

[tonyk2000]

Epik is closely held. We have no institutional PE owners

The industry needs Epik. Headed by Rob. Regardless of misc. controversial related topics including right here at NP (where different political and different personal opinions on various subjects are discussed). The history is teaching us that a number of IT companies became a victim of their own success (such as good hosts purchased and downgraded by EIG - Endurance). Hope that this would never happen to Epik.

 

[twiki]

No worries, Bob. He is still learning the secret handshake...

In all seriousness, his input was great. In the last 24 hours I have learned a whole bunch about competing APIs and where we stack up notably in the backorder area.

We have an active project to release a WHMCS plug-in that will empower a large number of resellers to resell Epik if they are not content to be an affiliate. We know there is an opportunity there.

As for the API power-users who write their own software, we'll learn from themttoo and hopefully have the industry's favorite registrar API before long.

It is becoming clear that the industry expects Epik to be increasingly perfect in every area. Fine. That is a good benchmark. We'll see how close we can get.

Thank you for appreciating the feedback. Glad to be of help - although I know I stepped on some toes by doing so. Hopefully not that hard.

Although my post has been indeed quite critical, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity. In fact there's yet one opportunity to shine, well, has been captured.

Side note, nobody is perfect so it's pointless to aim for perfection (that's not what needs to be done). But you have to always look at competitors and not remain behind on certain aspects. That's tough - the number of details to care for is always mind-blowing - but also the competition is always keeping a business on its toes and, in essence, pushing quality forward for the benefit of all users.

 

[Samer]

Thank you for appreciating the feedback. Glad to be of help - although I know I stepped on some toes by doing so. Hopefully not that hard.

Although my post has been indeed quite critical, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity. In fact there's yet one opportunity to shine, well, has been captured.

Side note, nobody is perfect so it's pointless to aim for perfection (that's not what needs to be done). But you have to always look at competitors and not remain behind on certain aspects. That's tough - the number of details to care for is always mind-blowing - but also the competition is always keeping a business on its toes and, in essence, pushing quality forward for the benefit of all users.

i agree with everything except no bad PR
.
thankfully got worked out.

Sorry if i stepped on your toes in initial post

Samer

 

[twiki]

This experience (with its pros and cons) has brought to me some interesting views, actually from both sides of the situation. Yes I've been on the other end, as an entrepreneur (doing different business).

First off, the negative feedback poster's end.

Most users will never give you this kind of feedback. They simply walk away and the problem stays hidden, driving away yet more valuable users. In the end, it's the business that loses. And the first reaction is, inevitably, to dislike the negative feedback commenter and to tell them they're not doing something nice. It's human to do so.

People are too afraid to voice out their negative feedback. And for good reason. It's quite stressful to do so, especially on a public forum; and especially when the business is quite loved by the community. Inevitably someone will go straight for the jugular, and in some cases you might even get eviscerated in public. The online world is great, but we are too judgemental - and this hurts everybody.

I'd love people to give me their precious negative feedback. Yet they don't.

I remember how many campaigns we had in the past to get such feedback, only to see clients keeping their teeth clenched and not saying a single world. We don't need a tap on the back - you gave us that by purchasing. Tell us what we do wrong instead, and why you walk away this time.

Example, we had our office phones set to ring while on call, so we can see there's another customer on the line and call them back when we're off the call. But this backfired. At times our lines are so busy that every line is on call, and the callers think nobody is taking any phone at this firm.

One such caller left an angry 1-star review on Google for the issue. We replied and apologized and thanked. Now the phones ring busy if we are all on call, well the callers now know they simply need to retry in order to get through. This has cost us some rating at the moment, but brought more clients on the long term.

But it's so rare to get this kind of feedback. Anyway, food for thought.

 

[twiki]

i agree with everything except no bad PR
.
thankfully got worked out.

Sorry if i stepped on your toes in initial post

Samer

No worries

 

[Ategy]

Re: Epik Support ... I still remember calling very late into the night (East Coast) and the phone was picked up after a couple of rings .. I recognised the voice right away and said "Rob?" .. lol .. Sure enough I was right and it was @Rob Monster answering support.

That being said .. when it comes to support, no registrar is perfect. But for the most part Epik is well above average.

One issue you touched upon was documentation, and in that regard, I honestly don't know of ANY registrar to which I'd give even a 7/10. FAQs and documentation is one of the most overlooked and undervalued aspects of just about every registrar. Most are so disconnected from their FAQs that don't even realise that most of the information in their FAQs are 1-2 Platform-Generations out of date. Most registrars are so happy about making an upgrade that they forget to document it. Which ultimately ends up being the largest source of frustration to clients, as well as a huge long term cost and financial drain on the registrar due to support costs.

While Epik certainly are not the worst in this regard, the fact they are on supercharged growth both in terms of number of clients/domains and features/services, does mean that documentations/FAQs are prone to be an issue.

I'm a fan of Epik .. they have some extremely useful and helpful features (and great prices .. lol) .. but I'll be the first to say that sometimes things aren't always obvious (again though .. they are FAR from being the worst .. I'm looking at you GoDaddy .. lol). It can be frustrating to those who just like to figure things out for themselves knowing that usually the type of information we look for isn't available with Tier 1 support, but in fairness to Epik, I can't think of any issue/question that I didn't get a reply to within a day or so (and usually less).

All that said ...The type of API level support you're looking for, in all fairness is not a quick-fix-holiday-weekend-expect-a-reply-in-3-hours type situation. When you're doing something as complex as integrating your custom made API integration software into a new registrar, you kinda almost have to expect a couple of issues, that in all fairness normally need to be handled by an upper-tier support or dev-level "weekday 9-5" staffer.


All that said .. I've reported several glitches, bugs, clarity/UX issues to Rob, and for the most part Epik has been fairly responsive and quick to address the issues in question. That's actually why I like Epik .. because I don't expect any registrar to be perfect .. but it's how they deal with and improve upon the existing imperfections that matters.

Epik is growing very fast and constantly adding new features .. in the tech world there is ZERO chance of evolving quickly without facing a few bumps in the road. But overall the Epik overall experience is pretty hard to beat .. and it's only going to get better.

 

[JB Lions]

This experience (with its pros and cons) has brought to me some interesting views, actually from both sides of the situation. Yes I've been on the other end, as an entrepreneur (doing different business).

First off, the negative feedback poster's end.

Most users will never give you this kind of feedback. They simply walk away and the problem stays hidden, driving away yet more valuable users. In the end, it's the business that loses. And the first reaction is, inevitably, to dislike the negative feedback commenter and to tell them they're not doing something nice. It's human to do so.

People are too afraid to voice out their negative feedback. And for good reason. It's quite stressful to do so, especially on a public forum; and especially when the business is quite loved by the community. Inevitably someone will go straight for the jugular, and in some cases you might even get eviscerated in public. The online world is great, but we are too judgemental - and this hurts everybody.

I'd love people to give me their precious negative feedback. Yet they don't.

I remember how many campaigns we had in the past to get such feedback, only to see clients keeping their teeth clenched and not saying a single world. We don't need a tap on the back - you gave us that by purchasing. Tell us what we do wrong instead, and why you walk away this time.

Example, we had our office phones set to ring while on call, so we can see there's another customer on the line and call them back when we're off the call. But this backfired. At times our lines are so busy that every line is on call, and the callers think nobody is taking any phone at this firm.

One such caller left an angry 1-star review on Google for the issue. We replied and apologized and thanked. Now the phones ring busy if we are all on call, well the callers now know they simply need to retry in order to get through. This has cost us some rating at the moment, but brought more clients on the long term.

But it's so rare to get this kind of feedback. Anyway, food for thought.

A lot of people here have been greased, hence the replies you're getting.

I've always had great support at GoDaddy since I have my own rep, but if someone doesn't, then that's their experience.

I've always been paid every month on time by Namejet but some people have posted they have payment issues. I don't jump in those threads attacking them, pointing out I've never had issues therefore you must be full of it. I say, I hope it gets worked out and they should have better communication with you.

So if you or anybody else has issues with anybody, or any company, you can post about it. Don't let people try to make you feel bad about it.

 

[Samer]

A lot of people here have been greased, hence the replies you're getting.

I've always had great support at GoDaddy since I have my own rep, but if someone doesn't, then that's their experience.

I've always been paid every month on time by Namejet but some people have posted they have payment issues. I don't jump in those threads attacking them, pointing out I've never had issues therefore you must be full of it. I say, I hope it gets worked out and they should have better communication with you.

So if you or anybody else has issues with anybody, or any company, you can post about it. Don't let people try to make you feel bad about it.

that’s nice. you have your own agent?

epik have your own CEO. OWNER.

(Godaddy has DIFFERENT owner/CEO...!!)

Support SERVICE is better, at Epik, period.

thread is proof, ur post off-topic GD fanboy

 

[JB Lions]

that’s nice. you have your own agent?

epik have your own CEO. OWNER

(Godaddy has different owner/CEO)

Support is better, at Epik, period.

this thread is proof, and your post offtopic

(Godaddy is irrelevant... to thread, nice try

My post is on topic, learn to read.

 

[Samer]

My post is on topic, learn to read.

Godaddy has inferior customer service supp — even if you have ur “own agent”— learn read

Rob personally handles all inquiries and has my business over GoDaddy’s any day of week

 

[JB Lions]

Godaddy has inferior customer service supp — even if you have ur “own agent”—

Rob personally handles all inquiries and has my business >>>> Godaddy any day of werk

You're proving my point.

I have great service, you say you don't. Are you even with GoDaddy?

He said he had some issues with Epik, people came in telling their stories, which has nothing to do with his experience. You're just trying to pressure him not to bring up issues anymore.

Also, while I'm here, retaliatory Disliking of posts by Epik employees is not very professional.

 

[Samer]

You're proving my point.

I have great service, you say you don't. Are you even with GoDaddy?

He said he had some issues with Epik, people came in telling their stories, which has nothing to do with his experience.

My mass-exodus migration is almost complete. Godaddy holds me hostage, even pushes, forced hold 60 —delayin inevitable (gd =titanic) unless i keep prev WHOis info same. I gave up

i’m just waiting out 60 day lock to get out GD!

there’s No-one i’d trust more than Rob,

Samer

 

[Ja Kai]

This experience (with its pros and cons) has brought to me some interesting views, actually from both sides of the situation. Yes I've been on the other end, as an entrepreneur (doing different business).

First off, the negative feedback poster's end.

Most users will never give you this kind of feedback. They simply walk away and the problem stays hidden, driving away yet more valuable users. In the end, it's the business that loses. And the first reaction is, inevitably, to dislike the negative feedback commenter and to tell them they're not doing something nice. It's human to do so.

People are too afraid to voice out their negative feedback. And for good reason. It's quite stressful to do so, especially on a public forum; and especially when the business is quite loved by the community. Inevitably someone will go straight for the jugular, and in some cases you might even get eviscerated in public. The online world is great, but we are too judgemental - and this hurts everybody.

I'd love people to give me their precious negative feedback. Yet they don't.

I remember how many campaigns we had in the past to get such feedback, only to see clients keeping their teeth clenched and not saying a single world. We don't need a tap on the back - you gave us that by purchasing. Tell us what we do wrong instead, and why you walk away this time.

Example, we had our office phones set to ring while on call, so we can see there's another customer on the line and call them back when we're off the call. But this backfired. At times our lines are so busy that every line is on call, and the callers think nobody is taking any phone at this firm.

One such caller left an angry 1-star review on Google for the issue. We replied and apologized and thanked. Now the phones ring busy if we are all on call, well the callers now know they simply need to retry in order to get through. This has cost us some rating at the moment, but brought more clients on the long term.

But it's so rare to get this kind of feedback. Anyway, food for thought.

Try an API at Godaddy and let us know how that works for you.

Also, domains drop at specific times. Are you runnning your API for the full hour and 15? Or, for a couple minutes?

 

[Ategy]

@JB Lions .. my rep at GoDaddy is great. In fact I think if there's one thing I can say about GoDaddy, is that just about every person I've talked to has had fantastic customer service skills. Something that is not easy nor should be taken for granted with a company the size of GoDaddy. Their recruitment department is seriously operating at an all-star level!

However .. many times I've had issues that simply had no answer .. or the answer was "that's the way it is". I've reported extremely serious bugs only to have the standard "thanks, your feedback has been passed to the proper department .. bla bla bla" .. then no follow up. It's just as frustrating to my rep as it is to me. For a while a couple of years ago (before I just gave up on reporting things) I often started my emails to my rep with an apology knowing that I was simply constantly putting him in the middle of no win situations and that he was effectively facing a brick wall when it came to certain issues.

And don't get me started on GoDaddy's UX and documentation. I dare anyone here to justify how they could be given anything above even a very generous 4/10 on that front. It's just horrendous!

Again though .. Epik isn't perfect either .. but the difference is that you're not facing a brick wall. They do listen .. and they often even implement your suggestion (if it's a good one) within a matter of days.

I reported a CRITICAL level security issue to GoDaddy 4 years ago .. and it's still there. I've also reported other EXTREME level bugs that stayed for months/years+, and the only reason they are closed today was because they upgraded their entire platform.

In all fairness though .. I'm not a big user of other registrars. I'm a big user of GoDaddy because they have the best aftermarket (in terms of pricing/domains), so I've always stayed there and had a secondary registrar when I was too late to renew or when I saw special pricing. I'm thinking there are a lot of good registrars out there that I'm simply not aware of or simply haven't given a chance.

The one big difference with Epik in that regard is their special transfer in pricing ... it's a great way to introduce domainers to their service .. but after that they have to keep you there with good service/features .. and let's be honest .. while Epik isn't perfect (no registrar is) .. they do have a lot of great features .. their customer support is above average .. and more importantly they listen to their clients both in terms of usability and more importantly in terms of new features.

 

[JB Lions]

@JB Lions .. my rep at GoDaddy is great. In fact I think if there's one thing I can say about GoDaddy, is that just about every person I've talked to has had fantastic customer service skills. Something that is not easy nor should be taken for granted with a company the size of GoDaddy. Their recruitment department is seriously operating at an all-star level!

However .. many times I've had issues that simply had no answer .. or the answer was "that's the way it is". I've reported extremely serious bugs only to have the standard "thanks, your feedback has been passed to the proper department .. bla bla bla" .. then no follow up. It's just as frustrating to my rep as it is to me. For a while a couple of years ago (before I just gave up on reporting things) I often started my emails to my rep with an apology knowing that I was simply constantly putting him in the middle of no win situations and that he was effectively facing a brick wall when it came to certain issues.

And don't get me started on GoDaddy's UX and documentation. I dare anyone here to justify how they could be given anything above even a very generous 4/10 on that front. It's just horrendous!

Again though .. Epik isn't perfect either .. but the difference is that you're not facing a brick wall. They do listen .. and they often even implement your suggestion (if it's a good one) within a matter of days.

I reported a CRITICAL level security issue to GoDaddy 4 years ago .. and it's still there. I've also reported other EXTREME level bugs that stayed for months/years+, and the only reason they are closed today was because they upgraded their entire platform.

In all fairness though .. I'm not a big user of other registrars. I'm a big user of GoDaddy because they have the best aftermarket (in terms of pricing/domains), so I've always stayed there and had a secondary registrar when I was too late to renew or when I saw special pricing. I'm thinking there are a lot of good registrars out there that I'm simply not aware of or simply haven't given a chance.

The one big difference with Epik in that regard is their special transfer in pricing ... it's a great way to introduce domainers to their service .. but after that they have to keep you there with good service/features .. and let's be honest .. while Epik isn't perfect (no registrar is) .. they do have a lot of great features .. their customer support is above average .. and more importantly they listen to their clients both in terms of usability and more importantly in terms of new features.

So you're a big user of GoDaddy, big enough to have a rep.

Those issues you brought up with GoDaddy, you won't see me telling you, you're not having them, they're not real. Issues have been pointed out with everybody.

The transfer pricing, great, all registrars have deals to get people in. GoDaddy used to have $1 transfers.

Side note, I've always said Epik seems to have good support, good to see the CEO participate. We'll see if that holds as they get bigger and all the side projects they have going. And with more people using them, more issues are bound to come up, that's natural.

 

[twiki]

The transfer pricing, great, all registrars have deals to get people in. GoDaddy used to have $1 transfers.

It still baffles me how GD got this big. My thought so far is, has to be related to their $1 deals, including new $1 registrations.

 

[Ategy]

@JB Lions .. I am indeed a user of GoDaddy .. and I'll be the first to say that most of the gripes against them are either unreasonable or unfounded. I appreciate GD specifically because of the size of their expiration aftermarket, say what you want about the technical side of the platform, but in terms of getting good expired domains at great prices, GoDaddy auctions literally can't be beat because they have about 50% of all expiring .com's pass through their aftermarket each day). But at the same time, you can't honestly say their platform isn't a glitchy mess!

I won't comment on any ongoing security issue, but in the past I was able to see other bidders secret proxy bids (so if the current bid was $40, and the proxy bid was $200, I could have bid up the competition with my own $199 bid knowing that I would never need to pay it). This backdoor info was there for months and possibly years, I wasn't an active domainer at the time, but this bug could have cost domainers countless thousands if not millions in aggregate .. while at the same time going to profit GoDaddy. The only reason that bug was closed was when they moved to a revamped platform (so they never actually fixed the bug).

With the last generation of platform also had tons of bugs ... including one where some of my bids would actually be placed on a different domain than was showing. When I told them about it AND showed how to duplicate it, I was told I had to pay for the domains or I would lose access to GD auctions. Then no follow up or even thanks for reporting the crucial bug. Again, this bug was only closed with the platform level upgrade in Dec 2017 (or was it 2018).

There were certain parts of my portfolio that could not be accessed on mobile, so I lost a couple of domains while on vacation a couple years ago because some extremely messy/flawed menu logistics.

There are so many technical issues at GoDaddy .. that for a company that size is just inexcusable. Their big problem is that there is a brick wall between departments. Because indeed if it's something simple, then yes I'll agree 100% they have fantastic customer service. But for cross-department issues, it's like issues are deliberately lost and forgotten. Now obviously GoDaddy is a significantly larger ship to navigate and control than any other registrar. I most definitely do not expect them to be perfect .. but it's their culture of sweeping things under the carpet that annoys me almost as much as their disastrous mess of a platform.

But .. at the end of the day, once I hit a bug/problem there, I am usually able to work around it .. so yes .. I do continue to use GoDaddy because of their aftermarket expiration stream .. that's a no brainer .. but it doesn't change the fact their platform is a mess! lol