Never use InternetBS - If you're with them now... transfer out in a hurry. (Here is my story...)

[YourBestTrader]

SHOCKINGLY BAD REGISTRAR, LET THIS SERVE AS A WARNING

As many of you know... I've been a domainer for around 12 years now. I've used pretty much every registrar at some point, and have done over 5,000 domain transfers in that time.

And I've NEVER had such a bad experience as I have now had with InternetBS.

InternetBS many years ago was an excellent registrar, offering low pricing and a decent domain management console.

HORRIBLE NEW EXPERIENCES:
1. I discovered that they are no longer the low cost provider... a TLD priced at $45 renewal elsewhere, which used to be around the same with InternetBS, was silently increased to over $100 this year.

2. I tried to transfer out 4 of my domains to 3 different registrars... InternetBS said for days that they saw no attempts to transfer. Very unlikely given that I've done thousands of transfers and this was three well known registrars who know what they are doing.

3. After significantly complaining on live chat several days in a row, they finally released 3 of my 4 domains.

4. Now comes the crazy part

• The fourth domain was bouncing at the new registrar due to an incorrect auth code. Even though I got the auth code directly from their back end.
• I tried changing the auth code on the back end.... and trying again. And again... and again. I even used simple text for the auth code to make sure there were no issues. It still didn't work.
• I started to get nervous because the domain was starting to get close to expiry and the "support" wasn't being at all helpful in fixing their technical glitch.
• Eventually the domain expired and support told me that I had to pay $26.33 if I wanted to transfer the domain out.

They are currently holding my domain hostage, even though I started the transfer prior to the domain expiring and it was THEIR faulty system and bad technical support that caused the domain to expire.

They have refused to allow the domain to transfer, or to cover the cost of reinstatement.

Additionally their chat support is non-helpful, and they have frequently "escalated" to their mysterious "Level2" support team. - The biggest problem with that... is that you never hear back from them unless you kick up a fuss... and even then it takes several days to get an unhelpful uncaring response.

TRUST ME FOLKS, IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR DOMAINS.... GET AWAY FROM INTERNETBS AS QUICK AS YOU CAN

ps: Did I mention that I've spent over $10,000 with them over the years and they still didn't care enough to help sort out this situation. Unacceptable.

 

[YourBestTrader]

Update Time

I never did hear back from "Level2", and it's been over 14 days now.

The first 4 days of which I contacted their chat support every day to find out what was going on and they promised "Level2" would respond within 24 hours... they never did.

I didn't want to lose my domain so I gave in to their Extortion and paid the reinstatement fee.

I've now successfully transferred the domain away from them.

Buyer beware... they are not a safe registrar to do business with.

 

[buydomainnames]

Its a bad very experience , so your domains still in their registrar today?

 

[YourBestTrader]

Its a bad very experience , so your domains still in their registrar today?

1. I gave in to their extortion so that I wouldn't lose the domain.

2. Then I transferred out as soon I humanely possible.

3. I wrote up my horrible experience on Namepros, Trustpilot, Web Hosting Talk, a few other places including 50+ domaining Facebook groups, and a complaint to ICANN.

4. At this point they refunded the extortion amount. Like that somehow will undo the TERRIBLE customer service and stressful experience.

I STILL STRONGLY RECOMMEND AVOIDING THIS COMPANY AT ALL COST!

 

[Sam1234]

I remember going through something similar with them years ago. I think that was right before I said **** domaining (was a newbie) and quit completely for a few years.

 

[Pairadice]

I had a similar issue with them but I was able to fix it by changing the auth code. You have to have one capital letter and one special character and probably some numbers.

for some reason the auth codes they give you stopped working a couple of months ago so you have to change the auth code each time.

 

[YourBestTrader]

Sorry to hear you went through that.

Most registrar's are decent, and some are in my opinion excellent.

Horrible ones are super rare.

Average: GoDaddy

Decent ones: Namecheap, Dynadot, and Namesilo

Excellent ones: Epik

 

[msdv]

Update Time

I never did hear back from "Level2", and it's been over 14 days now.

The first 4 days of which I contacted their chat support every day to find out what was going on and they promised "Level2" would respond within 24 hours... they never did.

I didn't want to lose my domain so I gave in to their Extortion and paid the reinstatement fee.

I've now successfully transferred the domain away from them.

Buyer beware... they are not a safe registrar to do business with.

I had a similar experience with IONOS. I didn't want to renew my domains but they kept trying to bill me and then sent it to collections which pinged my credit score. I will never do business with them again. I reported to BBB.

 

[YourBestTrader]

I will avoid ionus in future when possible.

Also thanks for the reminder .. I'm not sure if I complained on BBB... I'm have to double check.

When a company treats the customer like they don't matter .. it's your responsibility to show them that every customer matters.

 

[Namingfy]

I had a similar issue with them but I was able to fix it by changing the auth code. You have to have one capital letter and one special character and probably some numbers.

I don't think it's mandatory for an auth code to have one capital letter and one special character and probably some numbers

I've successfully transferred domains with auth codes which are completely numeric as well.