Moniker Basic Renewal Delays?

[Charac]

Most recently I noticed Whois data failing to update after paying for a Moniker domain renewal.

Specifically this follows making payment a week ago. Upon contacting them, they tell me "they've always" done it this way.

When I have presented multiple Whois examples with my Moniker names recently that without question have updated the exact date I have made payment - their response has been , they will renew the domain in question 5 weeks post expiration at the last possible date. Saying they will make "immediate renewals" an option in the future?

What gives?

 

[Daniel Owens]

I am sure that many of us would have had a domain autorenew that we didn't actually want to keep and didn't notice until a day or two later. At most Registrars you would expect the response to be "tough luck", with us we can still process a refund and allow the domain to expire. Our customers are still getting what they paid for and the expiry day/month is not affected by this so we see it as a bonus for customers.

As I have said, we are changing this in the very near future so that those customers who like this feature can turn it on, and it will be off as default.

What if you are selling a domain to buyer with terms that 1 free year of renewal is included, yet the domain expires soon and you can't renew for push, what tell buyer to wait for a couple weeks then you'll renewal will be processed?

 

[Charac]

@Charac ....

Once we have developed the option to renew straight away at the registry by default, then both the renew now and autorenew will renew at the registry within 24 hours of payment being successful taken. If you renew now we take payment then, autorenew we take payment just prior to the expiry, according to your settings.

Here is where you loose me.

Moniker has had this process to "renew straight away" in place for years. That has continued uninterrupted on the new platform until only most recent. You dropped it what, a couple weeks ago?

Now you say you have to develop the option?

 

[Charac]

What if you are selling a domain to buyer with terms that 1 free year of renewal is included, yet the domain expires soon and you can't renew for push, what tell buyer to wait for a couple weeks then you'll renewal will be processed?

Agreed.

And this does bring in a host of questions for domains being sold.

What if, for instance you need to transfer the name on approach of its normal expiration -- who wants to wait beyond the expiration when things don't go smooth?

What if does not execute at the last possible day, is always the big question (systems glitch, whatever). This is no minor point. Initiating this "new" auto renew process has attempted to commit domain owners to a 5 week open window period where domains don't get registered post payment.

Sounds like asking for trouble. I see the potential of a last ditch critical situation when there should be no reason to have to deal with this in the first place.

 

[Sutruk]

Our customers are still getting what they paid for and the expiry day/month is not affected by this so we see it as a bonus for customers.

No, your customers are not getting what they paid for, that's the problem.
They paid for a domain renewal, and you are not renewing their domains after the renewal payment. As plain as that.
A domain is renewed at a Registry level, not at an "in-house" database level.

When I renew a domain, I wanna see it renewed till 2028 if I want, in the public WHOIS database, not in your in-house database.

 

[Charac]

No, your customers are not getting what they paid for, that's the problem.
They paid for a domain renewal, and you are not renewing their domains. As plain as that.
A domain is renewed at a Registry level, not at an "in-house" database level.

When I renew a domain, I wanna see it renewed till 2028 if I want, in the public WHOIS database, not in your in-house database.

Ditto. Waiting till the last possible day should have been the added option. Not the other way around at the expense what is plain and customary for a reason.

 

[Daniel Owens]

Ditto. Waiting till the last possible day should have been the added option. Not the other way around.

I don't think monkier has that many customers these days and we know it's not a big animal like godaddy. They might lose some customers transferring-out via code however, on mine in past they put a security lock on transfer-out that could only be removed by calling.

 

[bmugford]

Hi Everyone,

The reason that this is happening is because in the past we had received requests from customers to delay applying renewals in order to allow reverting the renewal and refunding the order. If we have already sent a command to the registry to renew a domain, in most cases we aren't able to revert this. This means we needed to delay the renewals at the Registry. So as of right now if you renew and the registry allows it, we update our database with the expiry and apply the renewal at the Registry as late as possible without risking the renewal of the domain.

Can you name any other major registrar that does this?

Brad

 

[Daniel Owens]

Can you name any other major registrar that does this?

Brad

I agree. It would be interesting to note of any other register that does that. @MonikerMarc

 

[MonikerMarc]

Here is where you loose me.

Moniker has had this process to "renew straight away" in place for years. That has continued uninterrupted on the new platform until only most recent. You dropped it what, a couple weeks ago?

Now you say you have to develop the option?

@Charac I need to look into this one, I can appreciate that is confusing. Let me come back to you directly when I have an answer.

 

[MonikerMarc]

@Daniel Owens I am not familiar with all of the other registrar systems as I don't have domains with them, but I do know Reseller Registrars that provide this as an option, so there are others out there.

I can appreciate there are opposing views on here around the merits of the approach, I'll reiterate that this is in place for the best of intentions, to make it possible to refund renewal of a domain where it has been mistakenly renewed. I also appreciate the view that immediate renewal should have been the default and the option to defer added therein. @Charac, as a current customer I will come back to you with an explanation of timings on when/where the changes were made etc. If you have any live issues that you need help with DM me and I can look into.

 

[bmugford]

@Daniel Owens I am not familiar with all of the other registrar systems as I don't have domains with them, but I do know Reseller Registrars that provide this as an option, so there are others out there.

I can appreciate there are opposing views on here around the merits of the approach, I'll reiterate that this is in place for the best of intentions, to make it possible to refund renewal of a domain where it has been mistakenly renewed. I also appreciate the view that immediate renewal should have been the default and the option to defer added therein. @Charac, as a current customer I will come back to you with an explanation of timings on when/where the changes were made etc. If you have any live issues that you need help with DM me and I can look into.

I am not sure there are really opposing views, at least not from many customers.

When people pay for renewals they expect them to be processed.

Assuming they are processed on the last day does not give much peace of mind.

This process is well outside the industry standard and again reminds me, and probably others, of what Epik pulled.

Even if there is not some financial issue, the process looks questionable.

Brad

 

[Future Sensors]

With respect, I don't think this is a sign of us not having it together. This is a sign of us trying to take care of our customers by giving them additional options to hold onto their money. We had enough customers that we had to apologise to for not being able to refund them when they had changed their mind about the renewal that we decided to fix that by delaying our commands at the registry. We have since had customers tell us they preferred the renewal to be processed at the registry straight away, so we are developing a solution where customers can choose their preferred way.

It's all fine, but you shouldn't have made such a delayed registry renewal the default. It is good to know that you are working on a better solution, where immediate renewal becomes the default and delayed an opt-in. Best of luck with your relaunch!

 

[Charac]

I am not sure there are really opposing views, at least not from many customers.

When people pay for renewals they expect them to be processed.

Assuming they are processed on the last day does not give much peace of mind.

This process is well outside the industry standard and again reminds me, and probably others, of what Epik pulled.

Even if there is not some financial issue, the process looks questionable.

Brad

...I see where Epik later claimed data breach whose legitimacy many questioned.

Meanwhile as Moniker support continues to relay -- there is nothing to worry about -- I am considering what type of registrar would actually do this. To, what I believe are thousands of trusting paying customers. Without notice? This is unheard of. And, uncalled for. How could this not cause an amount of damage to the Moniker name?

Looking at the situation objectively. We must all ask the question: Has Moniker placed customer trust beneath their own needs? Could Moniker be merely trying to exploit a certain profile of vast quantity investor who tends to give far less thought to the names they choose and thus are far most apt to backpedal saying "I want a refund?" Which of course requires no renewal. Honestly, this sounds like a blind grab geared toward short term gains much at the expense of longer-term relations.

Considering this lack of regard, what assurance do I have @MonikerMarc that this or something similar won't happen in the future again? More to the point, how do you intend to restore this trust? Will I need to be looking over my shoulder from here on out? Certainly @MonikerMarc you must realize the importance of what I am asking.

Yet waiting on the date for Moniker restoring renewal registrations "straight away".

 

[DrJacoby]

Using the money as "float" is another possible reason to delay renewals. That means you invest and/or speculate with the money up until you actually need to use them. Warren Buffet popularized this using money from his insurance businesses.

 

[MonikerMarc]

I can confirm now that we have reverted to having all renewals processed within 24 hours as the default setting on the account, with the option for customers to delay their renewals until the last "safe" day as a configuration setting in the account.

I'll restate, this was done purely with the intent to provide customers the opportunity to revert their renewal if it was done in error. As I mentioned previously, Moniker is part of a publicly traded company and its revenue is a small portion of the business's overall revenue, there is no real attraction in attempting to "float" and invest customers money for the short period of time that renewals were delayed. Our mission with the new platform and the business going forward is to elevate the domain management experience for domain investors, as we believe there is a lot of room for improvement. We will continue to try new things to improve, as well as listen and act on customer feedback.

I appreciate that everyone is entitled to their view but in this thread it does feel that some have been quick to conclude that we have less than good intentions. As I have already stated several times our original reasons for implementing renewals this way, and the actions that we were taking (and have now taken) to remedy concerns, I won't continue to contribute to the discussion on this thread.

@Charac I have an answer to your question and I'll DM it to you now. Thanks.

 

[Future Sensors]

I can confirm now that we have reverted to having all renewals processed within 24 hours as the default setting on the account

That is already an improvement, but it still does not happen immediately. Actually, why not?

 

[MonikerMarc]

@Future Sensors I believe it is just a matter of managing system resources. If the domain is pre-expiry a script runs at a certain time each day when we have lower traffic/resource requirements and executes the renewals in bulk. If a domain is past expiry the command is sent instantly to the Registry.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Future Sensors]

@Future Sensors I believe it is just a matter of managing system resources. If the domain is pre-expiry a script runs at a certain time each day when we have lower traffic/resource requirements and executes the renewals in bulk. If a domain is past expiry the command is sent instantly to the Registry.

Are you talking about domains that the customer has put on Auto Renewal, or about domains that are manually renewed by them?

In the first case, I can imagine that you're working with a script that's running at regular intervals.

In the second case, I would expect, or even require, a renewal at the registry as soon as possible (instantly).

 

[Charac]

@MonikerMarc I have addressed your DM which I would appreciate further clarification on.