Please help - One.com is holding me hostage!

[Allysin]

I have transferred a few dozen domains to One.com over the course of last year (biggest mistake of my life). I will leave some with them and renew those (pay them). I may let some go (cancel) and I need to transfer 6 out. I've contacted them and asked for the auth codes for those 6 domains but what appears to be happening is - when I transferred all of my domains to One.com - they transferred them under the anonymized PRIVACY WHOIS = they have that name, address and Email of the Whois Privacy user as the owner of my domains. Now, when I ask One.com to unlock the 6 domains and send me the auth codes, they claim they are unable to do this as it goes to something like [email protected] (different Email addresses based on which registrar the domains were transferred from).

I've opened a ticket with them but they simply answered the following:

Greetings!

We need proof of your domain from your former provider so we can update whois as per our hostmasters. This will fix your email address in whois.

Please don’t hesitate to reach us again by replying to this email or by opening a chat message here at https://help.one.com/hc/en-us
Best regards

Has anyone have to deal with this? I mean that's total nonsense to tell me to 'give them proof of my domain from my former provider'!

I plan to file a complaint with ICANN but these domains expire on Monday (February 27th) and there is no telling what One.com is going to do if I don't pay them the predatory renewal prices they are asking for. I mean - they can't possibly think that the loosing registrars will provide me with any kind of 'proof'. What kind of crazy is this?

 

[HotKey]

According to a support person on the ePik chat - I was meant to remove the Whois Privacy prior to my transfers to One.com. Is this true? And if so, why aren't customers advised of this in the transfer process? Not everybody lives and breathes domains...

Yes, never transfer to domains to another registrar without removing privacy first. Your contact details for the domains are what ties your ownership to them.

If you transferred domains under privacy (which, I'm even surprised the registrar allowed to begin with), how do you expect the winning registrar to know the true contact info for them?

Three golden rules for domain transfers to avoid complications:

1) unlock
2) public whois
3) more than 60 days registered

It's too late now so this won't help but use it for the future.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I may not understand, and I have never used this registrar, but with some registrars I use that have domain privacy enabled the auth codes go to the privacy service, but they relay them on to me, and there is no issue.

The new registrar uses my contact information for the new data, and then move it to their own privacy service. I have transferred many hundreds of names from one registrar with privacy to another registrar with privacy, without issue.

Are you saying they have a privacy as contact (which is normal), but that email to that privacy address does not get sent to you as the 'real' owner?

Anyway, I hope that it gets resolved. It must be stressful.

-Bob

 

[Allysin]

I may not understand, and I have never used this registrar, but with some registrars I use that have domain privacy enabled the auth codes go to the privacy service, but they relay them on to me, and there is no issue.

The new registrar uses my contact information for the new data, and then move it to their own privacy service. I have transferred many hundreds of names from one registrar with privacy to another registrar with privacy, without issue.

Are you saying they have a privacy as contact (which is normal), but that email to that privacy address does not get sent to you as the 'real' owner?

Anyway, I hope that it gets resolved. It must be stressful.

-Bob

@Bob Hawkes - Yes - that's exactly what is happening = they keep sending the auth codes to whatever the Email address of the Privacy Service is... for example [email protected] and they will NOT send it to my contact details I have on my account with them!

 

[Seventy]

I feel sorry for you, from what I understand is that you are not talking with the correct people that are going to solve this issue.

It's such a basic thing, they took over your information with whois privacy from pork bun and or other registers, and that's actually their fault as Bob said, I also transferred hundreds of domains with privacy on as well and the new register would use the information you added when creating your account.

The people you are talking with most likely follow the rules given and are unable to think outside of the given script, and or plain as simply have no understanding. Imagine signing up for this job having little to no knowledge and just some basic training that has the rule to never send the AUTH codes or anything that can compromise the domains to another email than listed under the domain.

I'm pretty sure if you get someone with a bit more knowledge this is just a huge misunderstanding, but with your renewals coming up, extra costs, etc it's just super stressful.

I came across this topic on Linkedin and would recommend you to TAG@ # the company and employees etc and try and bring this to light with at min "management".

One.com sounds like it should be avoided.

 

[HotKey]

@Bob Hawkes - Yes - that's exactly what is happening = they keep sending the auth codes to whatever the Email address of the Privacy Service is... for example [email protected] and they will NOT send it to my contact details I have on my account with them!

Your contact details on your account are for your account, not necessarily for your domains.

When it comes to domain transfers, the winning/losing registrars use the email that you have put into your domain contacts for approvals. So when the domains are set to privacy during transfers, any emails sent are in danger of being in limbo because they're basically showing "hey, the true ownership is private" and sent to that generic privacy contact.

A good registrar should be able to forward them to you but it's the one-offs that will cause headaches like what you're experiencing.

 

[Simbabve]

Absolutely the same happened to me; I could not believe the stupidity.
I transferred only 2 domains which I only moved because the price was reasonable, otherwise I would have let them expire. So I insulted them and got a refund and let the domains go. But under no circumstances would I do any business with them again. And I so should be anyone else.

I hope you were able to finally salvage some of your domains.

 

[PhongSGC]

same here -

One.com - Super terrific experiments to manage the domains​

 

[DomainNature]

I will tell you why this is happened with many people.
This is intentional done, because they offer low transfer fees, you had probably to renew your domains at least once with them, but they see that you try to transfer out and they begin to complicate things, cause most domainers use registrars for cheap transfers, and such registrar as (one.com) decided to protect itself from such transfers.
But I think it's illegal and against ICANN rules to create such intentional blocks, they have to say directly what I mentioned.
As i have read in other topic you even can't manage for free simple things as NS change or redirect, this again is done so that you buy their services, and that is what you get for cheap transfers with them.
That is why stay away from such Registrars, other registrars to stay away are Doteasy and Zcom GMO, although Zcom might improved already a bit.

 

[Allysin]

same here -

One.com - Super terrific experiments to manage the domains​

I have the same (very) bad experience as you:

They asked me for $20 to correct my domain Owner information if I remember correctly. I asked them to waive the fee and this is their answer:

Sadly, I would like to inform you that as per our admin, they cannot waive the owner change fee, since the payment for the owner change of the domain will go to the Domain Registry.

Does anyone know WHAT they are talking about? Surely, the registry does NOT charge the registrar $20 for correcting the Domain Registrant/Owner information! Especially if it's One.com's fault for not transferring the real Registrant information instead of the Whois Privacy information? The loosing registrar told me they sent my real info along to One.com during the transfer!

This does appear to be a well-thought out scam I believe!

 

[redacted]

What a horror story to read.

Almost transfer my domain to them, since currently they have $1.99 reg and transfer promo for .com .net .org and maybe few others. Lucky tldes linked to this thread regarding whois privacy before transferring.

When other registrar automated these kind of stuff, changing owners is few button click away and for free, one.com with its manual signed pdf form, valid id and shits. Should've request blood of our firstborn too. And the audacity to charge for it? I'm avoiding one.com and putting them on my blacklist to never use.

 

[william]

Horrible. Make sure to leave a trustpilot rating for these guys.