Network Solutions a Hijacker?

[MapleDots]

Network Solutions.... The absolute worst experience I have ever had, I am trying to move a domain out and I feel like I almost being hijacked by them.

My Story....

First of all Network Solutions is a Web.com company so both of them get triple thumbs down from me.

Bought a domain at NameJet (shame on you for even dealing with Network Solutions) and the domain went to Network Solutions for me to pick up. Immediately when I got there I was asked to make an account and the upsells were insane. You think Godaddy has a convoluted outdated control panel? Try Network Solutions, everything there is made so you need as many key clicks as possible so they can up sell you. The emails are crazy, I had to mark them as spam. You need this, you need that, you need to do this to get your account. While you are at it can we sell you that. My god it never ends, I have NEVER been so spammed in all my life.

Now the fun part....

I try to transfer out and I get all emails except the one needed to transfer, I tear my hair out. Eventually I get it and the receiving registrar says wrong transfer code (I cut and pasted it). That was the third transfer attempt. Back to the hated control panel I go and I say that lightly because you cannot call it a control panel, you can only call it the up sell from hell, they make you click everywhere. I tried to add another email address and more key clicks. Have you tried to add and admin or tech contact to your domain? Well you need to create more accounts and give them permission so Network Solutions can spam the hell out of those contacts. I am the same person, no other accounts.... oh what the hell, I give up. Give me my damn domain, no more emails, no more upsells, no more questions!!! Just PLEASE give me my domain!!!!

Now the not so fun..... I dig and I dig and I dig and finally I get to the transfer code part. Now guess what!! They won't give it to me, I have to fill out a form and they ask me why oh why do I want to transfer. Please answer all our questions before we can give you the code. After I do all that crap theysay if I am approved they MAY email me the code within 3 days. What!!!! Seriously? 3 days!!!! Your're shitting me right? Holy crap, I feel like I have to ask permission from my teacher and he tells me I can only get what I need if I have been a good boy.

Are they a hijacker? - Well probably not.
Do I feel like they are hijacking me? - Hell yes...

The saga continues, the transfer out from hell needs to be initiated a fourth time and I have to wait 3 days for my transfer code. (If they approve me that is)

The receiving registrar is shaking their head, I have NEVER had so many emails back and fourth to try and transfer a domain. If anyone ever says I have to put a domain at Network Solutions or a web.com company I will pass on the sale and run like hell.

So.... How was your day?

[PS. This is a story of my personal experience at Network Solutions and is not intended to solicit other domainers away from them, it is based on my personal poor poor experience with this company]

 

[Steven McEvoy]

Read my post again please....

I said it feels like they are hijacking me and to this point they have NOT released my domain.
Been weeks in process now.

Still you could of just called and this whole thing would of been avoided.

Netsol are horrible and yes they want you to plead.

Call them and they will send you transfer codes immediately. They will ask for a reason, just tell, u have sold the name. Thats the fastest way out.

Exactly!

 

[MapleDots]

Still you could of just called and this whole thing would of been avoided.

Very true but with over 500 domains imagine if I had to call every registrar. Another thing is hold times when you are dealing with international calling.

In this particular case I think giving NetSol some proper crap is well deserved. In this day and age the process should be automated and they seem to want to make it as difficult as possible to move out. With my registrars, I click a link and I have my code. Two days later I am home where I want to be. This has been going on since mid november and has still not concluded. I'm still waiting for the transfer and keeping my fingers crossed it will go through on this attempt.

 

[Kate]

Very true but with over 500 domains imagine if I had to call every registrar. Another thing is hold times when you are dealing with international calling.

Exactly, when you are big portfolio holder you can't afford to waste time on the phone with trained monkeys. And you could be put on hold for 15 minutes, during which you cannot do much productive stuff. Even if you were a small customer they could have the courtesy of assuming that your time is at least as worthwhile as theirs.
At least Netsol normally complies with your requests, but register.com is more obstructionist, I once filed a complaint at Icann against them.
I have factored the time spent on transfer out into the price of the domain.

 

[VaibhavA]

Very true but with over 500 domains imagine if I had to call every registrar. Another thing is hold times when you are dealing with international calling.

I dont think you will have to call any other registrar for codes except Netsol.

Yes, it took me 15-20 mins when I called from India to USA to get authorization code for 1 domain. I used skype, its free. And yes, time is the price one has to pay while dealing with Netsol.

 

[MapleDots]

yes, time is the price one has to pay while dealing with Netsol.

Yup, you got it exactly right, because time is the most valuable thing we have in life and I don't think I want to deal with a company that makes me waste what finite time I have.

 

[MapleDots]

Well... got another email today asking me to confirm my email address per icann rules.
By now they have had numerous attempts and notifications I am porting out. They are saying they will deactivate the domain if I do not confirm my email address. I'm afraid to do that for fear they will think I want to remain there. I'm hoping this is just a standardized email and I am going to ignore it while this looooong awaited port is still happening.

Ohhh man.... just port out my domain PLEASE!!!!!

 

[MapleDots]

Feb 15 - 2018

I am pleased to announce I have finally received my domain, it was released by Netsol.

All in all it was the most convoluted transaction I have ever done in all my years of domaining. I litterly had to ask permission numerous times to get a domain that I owned. They made me wait for days for simple details that other registrars do in seconds. They sent me more emails than trying to get me to stay and also made me fill out a form asking me why I wanted to leave.

If I EVER hear the name NetSol again it will be too soon. In fact I will NEVER do business with a web.com company ever again.

It is such a shame that a good company like netsol was bought out by such a shady operation as web.com.

I always thought godaddy was bad but I will gladly deal with them and their upsells over that at NetSol.

 

[Furquan]

NetSol is trash domain company, I advise no one should use them, let's check here how a 3L.com was got stolen.

Stay Away from NetSol

 

[Kate]

It is such a shame that a good company like netsol was bought out by such a shady operation as web.com.

Wait, you mean they used to be good ?

 

[MapleDots]

Wait, you mean they used to be good ?

HeHe

I cannot speak from experience but I have heard that in the early days of the internet (before they were bought out) they actually provided decent service.

You can correct me if I am wrong on that.

 

[NameVisual]

Feb 15 - 2018

I am pleased to announce I have finally received my domain, it was released by Netsol.

All in all it was the most convoluted transaction I have ever done in all my years of domaining. I litterly had to ask permission numerous times to get a domain that I owned. They made me wait for days for simple details that other registrars do in seconds. They sent me more emails than trying to get me to stay and also made me fill out a form asking me why I wanted to leave.

If I EVER hear the name NetSol again it will be too soon. In fact I will NEVER do business with a web.com company ever again.

It is such a shame that a good company like netsol was bought out by such a shady operation as web.com.

I always thought godaddy was bad but I will gladly deal with them and their upsells over that at NetSol.

Glad to hear this and I'm glad everything worked out in your favor.

 

[zeff]

I have the same story as @MapleDots with network solutions.
I have never seen a registrar holding an auth code, usually it is delivered immediately. That's a standard client quality service.
The worst in this is that ICANN approves that as a registrar has up to 5 days to provide an auth code. Found that in icann rules

 

[MapleDots]

Yup and the worst part is they make it sound like they have to approve giving you the code.

 

[Arca]

I suspect that I just averted an attempted hijack at network solutions. Domain was in my WHOIS at network solutions but was hidden in my domain list. Because I transfer out domains from netsol before expiry I thought I had transferred it out already, as it no longer showed up in my netsol account.

But when I went back and did a bulk WHOIS on previously won domains, I noticed that it was still at network solutions. I went to my netsol account to transfer it out, but it was nowhere to be seen in my account even though it's not expired yet. Reached out to netsol and the auction house (both web.com of course...), and they "un-hid" the domain as if this was a normal thing that they are doing. It's like they just clicked a "show" button on the backedn and the name showed up in my account again.

The domain immediately became visible in my account again, close to expiry but still a few weeks to go. Had I not done an "audit" of past wins a few more weeks would have passed and the domain expired without me realizing (and netsol could have taken it for new venture services corp or auctioned it off again). Really unbelievable that they have a feature to hide/un-hide their users domains in their account.

Considering how netsol have a history of taking domains out of accounts before they expire, changing nameservers to ztomy.com (new venture services corp) before they expire, and otherwise doing anything they can to get the owner to let a domain expire so that they can take it, I don't think this was a coincidence. Still surprised that they have an option to simply hide/un-hide a domain in a user's account. They didn't make any fuss about it when I reached out. They just revealed my domain in the account again like this is something completely normal for them to do.

 

[1Darko]

I suspect that I just averted an attempted hijack at network solutions. Domain was in my WHOIS at network solutions but was hidden in my domain list. Because I transfer out domains from netsol before expiry I thought I had transferred it out already, as it no longer showed up in my netsol account.

But when I went back and did a bulk WHOIS on previously won domains, I noticed that it was still at network solutions. I went to my netsol account to transfer it out, but it was nowhere to be seen in my account even though it's not expired yet. Reached out to netsol and the auction house (both web.com of course...), and they "un-hid" the domain as if this was a normal thing that they are doing. It's like they just clicked a "show" button on the backedn and the name showed up in my account again.

The domain immediately became visible in my account again, close to expiry but still a few weeks to go. Had I not done an "audit" of past wins a few more weeks would have passed and the domain expired without me realizing (and netsol could have taken it for new venture services corp or auctioned it off again). Really unbelievable that they have a feature to hide/un-hide their users domains in their account.

Considering how netsol have a history of taking domains out of accounts before they expire, changing nameservers to ztomy.com (new venture services corp) before they expire, and otherwise doing anything they can to get the owner to let a domain expire so that they can take it, I don't think this was a coincidence. Still surprised that they have an option to simply hide/un-hide a domain in a user's account. They didn't make any fuss about it when I reached out. They just revealed my domain in the account again like this is something completely normal for them to do.

Never heard about such thing - I'm shocked! Thanks for reveiling this!

 

[MapleDots]

Nothing about this company surprises me. Remember they used to have a monopoly back in the day. They figured they were untouchable and that is why they think they can get away with things like this.

This is also why the whole godaddy machine worries me....

Absolute power corrupts absolutely!!

Think about it before we hand too much power to godaddy too!!

 

[DNWon]

I went to my netsol account to transfer it out, but it was nowhere to be seen in my account even though it's not expired yet. Reached out to netsol and the auction house (both web.com of course...), and they "un-hid" the domain as if this was a normal thing that they are doing. It's like they just clicked a "show" button on the backedn and the name showed up in my account again.

The domain immediately became visible in my account again, close to expiry but still a few weeks to go. Had I not done an "audit" of past wins a few more weeks would have passed and the domain expired without me realizing (and netsol could have taken it for new venture services corp or auctioned it off again). Really unbelievable that they have a feature to hide/un-hide their users domains in their account.

I'd really like this to be investigated and discussed more here. Can anyone shed some more light on how this happened, why it happened and how often it happens?

If you can't rely on the registrar to show you "all" of your active assets, when you log in, something is seriously wrong with that!

 

[Kate]

If you can't rely on the registrar to show you "all" of your active assets, when you log in, something is seriously wrong with that!

It's the IRS mentality, they decide what you get to keep from your earnings

@Arca: what was their justification for the domain being hidden in the first place ?

 

[Arca]

It's the IRS mentality, they decide what you get to keep from your earnings

@Arca: what was their justification for the domain being hidden in the first place ?

They didn't justify/explain why it was hidden. I was just told that it was available in my account, and when I logged in, they had indeed made it visible in my account again.

 

[zeff]

update from my previous post:
got the auth code 3 days after my request.
BUT the new registrar says the transfer cannot be intiated as the domain is locked. That is totally impossible as I did unlock it on netsol when it did request the auth code. Did check on netsol, it appears unlocked !!!
Networksolutions is a nightmare