Namecheap locked my account

[Erdy]

I had 19 domains and over 100 usd available funds in my namecheap account. The funds were from older small sales that I made at namecheap marketplace. I have sold at least 10 domains at NC marketplace over the last few months.

Two days ago somebody bought a .net domain from me that I listed at NC marketplace. The same day buyer emailed me and asked why whois info is not showing him and why it is showing namecheap.com as owner. First I thought he must have enabled whoisguard but after I checked I realized he was correct.

I knew a newly bought domain should show buyers contacts instantly. I thought maybe namecheap has changed their policies. Maybe they have added an on hold period until the funds were cleared.

Then I made a stupid thing. I listed a domain of mine for 5 usd and then logged in to my second namecheap account and bought my own domain. My aim was to check whether the whois was resolving to buyer immediately after the transaction. Indeed it was. So there was no policy change.

The domain I sold still shows namecheap.com as owner. There must be something wrong with that sale.

Today I tried to login to my namecheap account I received this error:

Unable to login
For security reasons, this account has been locked due to too many failed login tries. The user name will be enabled after 12/12/2099 EST. If you think this is an error please email us using the same email address currently on your account to have your account enabled.

I emailed namecheap support asking them what was going on and they emailed me back with this message:

Hello,
The account was locked by our Fraud Prevention team, they would like to confirm recent transactions with you. Please provide us with a valid phone number where we may reach you at to confirm. Please specify a time you will be available.

I gave them a phone number but I'm on holiday now in the middle east for a week. I suspect they will not call me.

 

[Ronald Regging]

Just talk to them and try to work it out, thats about all you can do.

 

[Erdy]

I wish I could talk to them. I have no phone number for namecheap and they haven't called me yet although I replied their email minutes after it arrived.

 

[doggyowner]

Unable to login
For security reasons, this account has been locked due to too many failed login tries. The user name will be enabled after XX/XX/XXXX EST. If you think this is an error please email us using the same email address currently on your account to have your account enabled.

This happened to me too a couple of months ago. For some reason I could not login to my account and I got the above message too.

I contacted NameCheap via email and they fixed the problem in no time.

Once I could log back in again the first thing I did was to change my password.

Good luck!

 

[Dave_Z]

I gave them a phone number but I'm on holiday now in the middle east for a week.

Did you tell them that? Give them a number to reach you on your holiday?

While I'm fully aware the purpose of a holiday, unfortunate incidents like these
sometimes require utmost and urgent attention.

Good luck trying to resolving your issue.

 

[Kate]

You can also try PMing member enetwork, he is a from Namecheap

 

[novelty]

You can also try PMing member enetwork, he is a from Namecheap

That's agreat idea. I also think Namecheap is interested in helping the clients, there's nothing urgent about the situation, just explain you are away from home.

 

[mknapper1]

yea i namecheap has always been really friendly with helping me solve my problems just give it some time and talk to them and you should be able to get it back pretty soon... if you are on vacation y are u on namepros in the first place i just went on vacation last week and i didn't even take my laptop with me i just relaxed the entire time... it was actaully quite enjoyable

 

[kanoodledood]

Namecheap is the best registrar in the world

 

[AdoptableDomains]

The user name will be enabled after 12/12/2099 EST.

Wow, I think a 92 year hold is a little severe. :lol:

 

[sf2010]

On a side note re: namecheap, do they offer namepros discount (i.e. moniker)?

also, is namecheap an enom reseller?

 

[alanchau]

On a side note re: namecheap, do they offer namepros discount (i.e. moniker)?

also, is namecheap an enom reseller?

No and yes.

 

[Erdy]

I too think namecheap is the best registrar and I have most of my domains with them. I only use namecheap when I register new domains even though monikers' dot net prices are cheaper.

They have unlocked my account now but there was no phone call or an explanation by email.

The lesson learned from this incident is that, if you need to buy your own domain to test something at NC marketplace don't use the same IP. You are going to get your account locked like me.

It looks like NC doesn't consider it possible that a seller might need to buy his own domain for genuine reasons. It is a bit off topic but besides namecheap once I bought my own domain at moniker marketplace as well just to test their speed and their system was terribly slow. It took one month.

Namecheap should at least exclude 5 USD sales from their auto IP detection-fraud prevention system. If you are buying your own domain for testing purposes you definetely want to buy it for 5 USD since you will pay only 0.5 USD on fees.

A few months ago, on February, I bought again one of my domains (again a 5 usd test run) because I was making a tutorial movie on how NC marketplace works. At the time I had no problems. They must have introduced auto IP detection after that date.

 

[TT]

Sounds like Namecheap is doing a great job with thier security features.

Imagine if someone was in your account and stealing your domains. The title might have been.

Namecheap Security Features Prevent Domain Fraud / Theft

I have had to also deal with Richard and Mike @ NC at some very late hours in the night and everytime I have received a response from someone within an hour. You may want to check any and all spam blockers.

IMHO Namecheap is far and away the best in the business, Otherwise I would'nt have all my names with that company.

 

[kanoodledood]

Namecheap should at least exclude 5 USD sales from their auto IP detection-fraud prevention system. If you are buying your own domain for testing purposes you definetely want to buy it for 5 USD since you will pay only 0.5 USD on fees.

Dude, why would people buy their own domains for 'testing purposes'?

Don't bash NC, it's your fault not theirs.

 

[Dave_Z]

Dude, why would people buy their own domains for 'testing purposes'?

Testing, what else? What they're testing for is only for them to know.

 

[Erdy]

kanoodledood, Dave Zan,

What I was testing is not a secret. I mentioned it on opening message. As mentioned there, I recently sold a domain at NC marketplace. After the sale buyer was complaining that whois info was showing NC as registrant, admin, technical contact (in all contacts).

You can see it yourself. The domain I sold was goztepe.net. If you check whois you will see that all contacts still show NC and this is not a whois guard.

I thought maybe this is a new policy. With a test transaction I was testing if whois info would should buyer or NC. If it would show owner as NC then I would knew that it was a new policy to hold ownership until funds are cleared.

After the 5 USD test transaction whois info instantly showed buyer. Therefore I knew that NC didn't introduce a new policy. I told buyer to complete his profile and to change domain contacts. I also told NC to update their system to disallow buyers to buy with incomplete profile. This would eliminate further problems.

So far I have bought my own domain two times at NC marketplace. The second time was this one. The first time was when I made a screen capture tutorial movie.

That tutorial movie is online on my domain selling website since february. You can watch it here.

Lastly, I'm not busing NC. They are my favorite registrar. 90% of my domains are with them. It appears that I paniced and rushed to open this thread. It would be great if they had a phone number for urgency.