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ICANN suspension leaded to domain name loss(Netsol)

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alexccs

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Here is my story:

TLDR: "To reactivate the ICANN suspended domain I have to first login my locked Netsol account, but to receive the reset password link, I need to have domain reactivated" = a vicious circle, or to change the Primary contact which is now impossible for us to fulfill the requirement.

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The Netsol ICANN verification email had gone to the junk mail and I didn't read it, and months later now our domain which registered from Networksolutions over 10 years was suspended. We're using our own DNS servers and that had also been changed to some Netsol server for suspension.

I then tried to login the Domain Admin interface but I seems forgot the password (rarely login unless renewal) and eventually the account was locked, and I had no choice but to click the Forget Password link. Due to the DNS had been suspended, the primary contact which used the suspended domain never receive the reset password link.

I talked to the Live Customer Service chat, they first requested me to answer the security question which I am able to answer, and they just ignored the fact that my DNS was also suspended and insisted to send me the reset password to the domain email again.

I talked to them again and again the mail will not work for serveral days and they turned to asked me to change the primary contact which required me to provide the registered company name's business registration matched with the registered organization name(which we already switched to another business name in this 10+ years and we are not in the US), and pay local lawyer for the PUBLIC NOTARY on the documents. As we can't provide the Business Registration with the same name anymore. We got stuck here and unable to get back the account.

But hey, they never asked us to verify the registration with documents when paying for the name!

I don't know what can we do now. Can ICANN help? I wonder...
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Even though netsol is definitely not the best registrar around, in this particular case they did nothing wrong imo. Yes, registrants are supposed to "verify" the contacts. Yes, registrars are not supposed to change account emails simply because somebody asks them to, some ownership proof should be required. So, unfortunately, preparing notarized paperwork is the only way imo. Maybe you have original business registration certificate and can visit the notary as if the company is still active?
Can ICANN help?
What exactly do you want them to do?

P.S. Account email with any registrar should never use the domain registered under the same account!
 
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Or, if the domain is indeed valuable, you may contact a lawyer (who must be familiar with domain-related matters, better U.S.-based lawyer) to check everything - companies, trademarks (if any), all the relevant information. Should lets say a court prescribe netsol to do something - netsol will comply, but you need a lawyer to explore such options...
 
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A registrar will probably have a procedure for verifying your identity when you have lost access, but Netsol is notorious for bad procedures and being unresponsive.

You don't say when your domain expires, but you need to act quickly to stop it expiring and then being sold to a third party.

You may be able to persuade Netsol to renew it even without full access to your account.
 
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Thanks for the detailed and constructive feedback, I have learned a lot.
Never knew the consequences of carelessness was likely irreversible as it's far too easy to own a domain.

The domain is not our primary domain, I just rechecked whois, it's 16 years old.
There will be some trouble and it's a pity losing it but there's too much uncertainty if the documents would be accepted even after notarized, our company management decided to let it be.
 
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When the domain expires you can "backorder" it via various services - many people on here do that. Netsol domains should afaik appear on Godaddy's platform for getting expired domains before they become available to anyone to register. If nobody else wants it you'll get it cheap, but if others want it there, or after it becomes free for anyone to register, it will cost money.

If there are links to it and/or it is attractive, the likely scenario is someone will get it and offer it for sale - and they can set up a catchall email address and capture all incoming emails, including those for password resets from any accounts using that domain for email.

Disposing of a domain, even passively by letting it go, can have serious security implications. Think of it a bit like disposing of a used hard drive - you would think carefully about that.
 
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There will be some trouble and it's a pity losing it but there's too much uncertainty if the documents would be accepted even after notarized...
Have you asked them explicitly what their procedure is for restoring access?

Might even be in their ToS or on their website. Once when I tried to establish procedures for a deceased domain owner, I found a fully explicit set of procedures for that eventuality at Godaddy displayed on Godaddy's website.

If they will profit from re-sale of the name, they will have a vested interest in you losing it and that could motivate some unhelpfulness on their part.
 
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They have to have some procedure in place for this type of situation.
Having you tried escalating it to a supervisor?

If not, you can file a complaint with ICANN.

If that doesn't work, you likely will have to hire a lawyer to deal with them.

Brad
 
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https://www.icann.org/compliance/complaint

If you file a complaint, I would file it under the following section -

"The Registration Data associated with a domain name"

and choose

"Registration Data is inaccurate or missing"

Then this section -

(3) the suspension of a domain name due to inaccurate Registration Data

That seems like the most appropriate option.

Brad
 
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As it's not one of the primary domains, we had considered the risk to let go, thanks for the advice.

Even though, I could answer the security question, they verified my identity but can only use this to resend the reset password link earlier(which resend was limited on the website like 48hrs )

The CS said they passed my case to the account recovery dept which seems very nice. but then that department kept requesting me for the documents, no other options.

Indeed, I think ours' not really a very special case, this is just how they perform normally.

Will try ICANN and see if I got some response later, thanks again.
 
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