Scammed by Registerfly! Please don't use Registerfly

[DeluxeNames.com]

Please don't use registerfly: Incompetent

I am in utter disbeliefe about this injustice: PLEASE DO NOT USE REGISTERFLY AS THEY ARE AN INCOMPETENT COMPANY. It's a shame because I had just become their reseller and was setting up their API to make them money

Their faulty registration software should not allow you to be able to "register" domains that are impossible to register. They need to fix this.

They have sold me 6 imaginary "domains" for a total of $99.94 and refused to give me a refund even though in reality they have sold me nothing. I have pmd Paul (regfly) as he is a nice guy and probably the only one that can help me at this point but no response as yet.

Not knowing that you could not register 2 charecter domains with the ".at" and ".it" (Austria and Italy) cctld's, on June 21st I used the registerfly interface to register these domains:
Us.at
at.at
us.it
uk.at
cn.at
eu.at

Registerfly has charged my credit card for these domains and they show up in my account, although they don't exist in reality because no one can ever register them. For example, if you go to the regisgerfly registration page, it still shows that all 6 of these domains are available to register. However if you go to a http://www.EuroDNS.com and type any of these in, it will tell you correctly that these two charecter domains are of the wrong syntax since they are two charecters.

On June 22rd I realized that these domains were impossible to reigister and I talked to a male in the Registerfly billing departement who said that would be no problem, I would receive a refund.

I didn't think anything more of it unitl today and I called the registerfly billing department to see if they had issued a refund. They said they were sorry, they had no record, of the promised refund, and since it was passed the 4 day cancelation period, there was nothing they could do. I asked to speak to the supervisor, and he asked me the name of the billing rep I spoke to on the 22nd. I could not remember so he didn't believe me and refuses a refund!!!! I thnk the original rep, the one that assured me of a refund, was named Frank, but apparently he no longer works at Registerfly so that didn't get me anywhere.

Is there anything you can do or know anyone I can contact (emails or phone numbers) that can help me?

Bryant Jones

 

[Zeeble]

I must say that I am somewhat unimpressed by the lack of maturity of some of the responses in thread.

1) Yes, Registerfly's support that you originally talked to butchered things horribly, if what is being relayed to us is a fair and accurate representation of what truely occured. BUT, all 1st level support sucks. I know there are exceptions, and I know that dozens of other "me too's" can provide examples pro and con, but on a whole, every service organization's first level support is paid minimum wage to help when possible, but usually just take up time and effort on the part of the customer, unfortuantely. Should this be the case? Certainly not. But is it almost universal, and by no means unique to RegFly? Absolutely. When you know things aren't handled correctly at level 1, move on up the chain until you can find someone who can help; call back and get a different support rep; or just take to writing old fashioned snail-mail letters (Some of my best results have been from this method). But 1 incompetent rep does not a scammer make.
2) About the 2 character ccTLD registrations. Right now at Dotster, DD24, and other registrars, you can type in 2 letter domains and have them show as available in many extensions that have been gone for years (Wow... sex.cn is available right now at Dotster!). You can even go through and checkout completely, and only wait to be told it was impossible a few days later. In fact, networksolutions (By no means a late-comer to the game) let me register int.de (Of course reserved) a few months ago, and it took them 3 days to realize that it was a reserved name. As well, unless the OP has some connection to Italy that isn't apparent from his profile, he wouldn't be eligible to register the domain name anyway. True, this could be better explained at almost ALL registrars, but the OP did not do his due-diligence in that regard, :imho: . I can claim ignorance in many of my day-to-day actions, but they are my actions, and without doing the proper research first, I suppose that I always have thought that the buck stops at my plate, not those that facilitated my own negligence.
3) Time to talk about maturity for a moment. I am by no means the least adolescent acting member here (Ask -db-), so I am hoping not to come off as too pot-calling-the-kettle-black. BUT - when things go wrong, you deal with them. You learn from them, and you feel free to warn others about them. But posting rant-like threads before giving even a 1/2-assed attempt at solving the problem yourself comes across as spoiled, :imho: . I am not just picking on the OP in this thread, but in the hundreds of other threads we have a month about "________ totally screwed me!" or "________ is a L00z3r Sc4mm3R!". Folks, take a little responsibility when things go wrong, and do some legwork to post complete stories and information before "blowing your load" all over some public forum. Yet again, :imho:
4) Before it is brought up by anyone else, I am no RegFly apologist, but I do feel like they (As well as sedo, GD, enom, NC, etc.) get too harshly criticized from those that are simply making newbie mistakes, or don't understand an industry that they are seeking to sink large amounts of money into. I have had horrible experiences at many a registrar, and I decide to not take my business to them anymore, but continuing to post random complaints comes accross as juvenille, rather than informative. I do have domains at RegFly; I am not (Nor have I ever been) paid by RegFly in any capacity, directly nor indirectly. I think that they provide competition in an industry that has been very complacent in the past (Many years of register.com and netsol makes me happy to have a myriad of options).
That being said, I am, and remain,
-Allan :gl:
(<flame me>)
(And I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors; I will fix them as others point out my North Carolina roots )

You are right, we should always try to learn from Newbie mistakes. However, it is wrong for a company to encourage and worsen these mistakes which is often what RegFly has done.
One example of this was my new.net fiasco. I should have known what they were, however, RegFly misguided me.........

 

[HBK216]

^ The registrar should have the common sense to program their systems not to accept registrations that don't fit the rules of the underlying registry. Saying someone should go research a ccTLD's rules beforehand is unfairly passing the buck, IMHO.

There are many ccTLD's that do accept one and two character registrations, so it's not as far fetched an assumption as you make it out.

I don't think you fully understand where I'm coming from. I don't think RegFly is a scam company. However I do feel they need to make some necessary changes as they reflect bad on them.

In terms of uncommon extensions, why should the consumer not do even the most basic research? I don't think it is far fetched for 2 char's to be registered. However the consumer should bare responsibility to know what he/she is purchasing. Why must everything be spoon fed to the consumer.

Yes, Reg Fly needs to work on their system. So they are wrong for that. The consumer is wrong as well for acting before thinking. You are a business man, I know you understand how alot of things are unfortunately passed on to the business even when it isn't their fault.

 

[dewpoint]

The whole argument can be simplified as thus:

1) Registerfly sold a product that could not be sold.
2) The consumer did not receive anything for their funds.
3) Registerfly then failed to refund the funds collected.

Yep, that's it. It really is that simple.

http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/213738-have-you-been-ripped-off-registerfly.html

 

[vokkerzen]

The whole argument can be simplified as thus:

1) Registerfly sold a product that could not be sold.
2) The consumer did not receive anything for their funds.
3) Registerfly then failed to refund the funds collected.

You wrong, person said registerfly already refunded him

and yes allan you are right, that name on dotster is available

 

[Ronald Regging]

Yes, Reg Fly needs to work on their system. So they are wrong for that. The consumer is wrong as well for acting before thinking. You are a business man, I know you understand how alot of things are unfortunately passed on to the business even when it isn't their fault.

What exactly isn't their fault? Providing a faulty registration system? Providing poor customer service? Providing a buggy management system? Telling people they're not entitled to a refund of a service they never provided?

You're acting like the OP was demanding ownership of the domain or something. All he wanted was a refund for services not provided. It's a clear cut issue. Sure the OP could have researched it more, maybe saved himself a lot of trouble, but regardless of whether he did or not, he's still entitled to a refund.

The point is that these companies provide poor service and then try to deny you your refund. How many people would have just accepted that they couldn't get their money back and just leave it at that? Probably a lot. Not everyone puts up a fight, some people just drop the issue and accept it, which is what companies that pull this type of crap are counting on. They get paid for a service they never performed, thats fraud, plain and simple.

Consumers don't need to be spoonfed everything, but they do expect that there are policies in place to either provide them the service as advertised or to refund them their money. We as consumers are getting screwed by having to jump through hoops to deal with these issues when they come up when we shouldn't have to.

 

[DeluxeNames.com]

You wrong, person said registerfly already refunded him
and yes allan you are right, that name on dotster is available

He's not wrong, Dewpoint and I were PMing so he knows that I called my credit card company today and that I have not yet received a refund from Regsiterfly.
I have been promised a refund by Paul V. who is very trustworthy and has helped a lot of people from this board, so I do believe him. It takes a few days so I'll keep you updated when the refund comes through.

And whoever said Paul V. deserves a raise is very correct, if it wasn't for him, the Registerfly ship would have sunk by now. He seems to be the only Registerfly Associate/Manager/whatever that realizes that making the customers happy is good for business. Now if he could only teach his employess to have this same attitude...

As to the fact that Dotster's software is faulty too? Great point, so Regsiterfly AND Dotster should learn from EuroDNS and fix their software so that it doesn't have this problem.

 

[dewpoint]

Again, more simplification:

The customer "eventually" received a refund. But only after resorting to considerable effort on their part. (edit: I see from reading the post that appeared at the same time as mine that a refund has still not been processed)

The onus was put on the consumer to correct a significant problem with the Registerfly system.

And do I believe Registerfly is being unfairly bashed. Not at all. You can simply look at my thread at:
http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/213738-have-you-been-ripped-off-registerfly.html

or read the literally 100's if not thousands of similar complaints available by doing a simple search on Google.

The irony is that, I can guarantee that those of you who are surprisingly defending Registerfly, would be the very same people who would be registering their disgust on this or a similar forum, if it were they that had been wronged.

 

[vokkerzen]

The irony is that, I can guarantee that those of you who are surprisingly defending Registerfly, would be the very same people who would be registering their disgust on this or a similar forum, if it were they that had been wronged.

No you are wrong, I am a business man. I take power over my actions, I do not make excuses, blame other people or act like a child. If a similar situation happened the other day with other company for a .se name how come not a similiar thread pop up? there are other reason.

if the problem is solve for person, hopefully he is wiser for next time. if the problem is fixed end of discussion

 

[-db-]

Everyone...

Deep breath... in and out...

Deep breath... in and out...

Let's not get too personal, or damage any friendships over this.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Registerfly may be either a clever con artist or just a poorly run enterprise. Either way, a look at the many threads would indicate that continuing patterns of "fraudalent" behavior. And in no way can this be attributed to the "customer's fault".

I'm not sure they seek to be a "con artist" or I would call their behavior "fraudulent" That would indicate they set a purpose to deceive. I have never seen them set out to purposely deceive myself or heard of them doing that, or think that they do it on purpose.

That said...There are some definite incompetence, buggy scripts, bad information, and unethical decisions made there based on those things. In my company, if we screw up, we 'fess up and either eat our mistake or at least try to come to a compromise satisfactory between us and the customer. If the customer is at fault or our vendor, we try to help them understand the problem and if the vendor has messed up, we help them on their behalf. History shows me that registerly does not take this attitude. If they screw up, they rarely step forward themselves to pay or make things right unless persuaded in a business-like manner (this works best for me) up the chain of command, threatened, or the issue becomes so involved that they give in because its costing them more to handle the complaint than fix the problem. From what I've read, they actually sometimes seem to seek retribution when someone threatens them with some action such as a chargeback or losing their temper. If you look at the Better Business Bureau filings, you'll see they are not in good standing, and don't even reply to many complaints.

Registerfly's complainers are not an anomaly. Every registrar has problems and every one of them handles some issues wrong. By comparison, RF is fairly small, but they seem to get are a larger share of complaints than any other registrar or reseller. Probably more than the largest 3 or 4 combined. Some are probably not deserved, but I'll bet most are. I speculate most problems were not intentional, but the response of not taking responsibility for the problems is just bad business and often unethical.

 

[Grrilla]

Did you call them? I don't recall your story at this very second. Either way I look at it that most don't seem to know how to handle companies. If I have problems, I get them straightened out quick & go about my business.

What I do isn't hard so don't feel much pity when I see people whine all day. The whole refund thing is crap too as instead of whining, go about your business & get your money back. I know for a fact it shouldn't be hard as I've dealt with them about it.

A. Although I think it is a bit condescending and incidiary to tell people that they are "whining" and to"go about their business" in the same way that you, presumably, do, my own skin is thick and I can, easily, brush aside these sort of comments. What I do have a problem with and take exception to, is the inaccuracy of your comments.
There are several people here who share similar issues and are having, essentially, the same problems with one company. Despite your interpretation that most of the dialog in this thread amounts to "whining" and the turn key solution that you have offered to all of us solve the problems we are all whining about, I find the words that are coming out between the alleged whines to be informative and and useful. If your problems had not been cleaned up after your turnkey solution had been exhausted of all of it's possibilities, I imagine, there would be a, somewhat, differnt flavor to your posts. Why don't you listen a little more carefully and show some empathy towards those who are less fortunate than you rather, than, standing on a tower and casting judgement upon those of us down here that hust can't seem to get it right?
B. I didn't expand on my issues w/ registerfly in this thread because I, already, had discussed my problem in detail at this thread: http://www.namepros.com/200878-regfly-again-2.html
You might want to read through some of the posts because there some very good points being made by some experienced domainers that might enhance your understanding of what is going on in this thread. If you want to relegate the opinions of people who have been at this for several years to whining, than so be it. At least, I tried. BTW, (and forgive me for whining.) I was dilligent in my effort to resolve my issue- I talked to reps via the phone more than once opened up more than one support ticket, sent out over a dozen emails, was assured by a rep on the phone that the problem was resolved and still got screwed.

Nothing that has happened here would be acceptable in the "real" world. And it certainly isn't acceptable online either.

Registerfly may be either a clever con artist or just a poorly run enterprise. Either way, a look at the many threads would indicate that continuing patterns of "fraudalent" behavior. And in no way can this be attributed to the "customer's fault".

I agree that what isn't acceptable in the real world, *shouldn't* be acceptable online but there are some significant differences between internet and realworld policy, (as oulined in the small font legaleze found in, both, the CC cos, and Merchant's TOS agreements), regarding online payments, specifially, recurring billing, collection policies, and how overlimit accounts are treated.
Did you know that...:
1) You can deselect the creditcard associated w/ an account and if the new one you replace it with is at or overlimit, the companies can and do go to the card that you, (thought), the company no longer had the right to access? This happened to me w/ an AMEX card.
2) The creditcard co, (AMEX in my case) will pay the online company and that they will not accept a payback for the charge because of the TOS that you signed with the vendor prevents them from allowing the charge back? This applies specifically to online accts that involve revolving, recurring charges, (ie all registrar accounts.) In other words, if you leave auto-renew on, the registrar has several oppurtunities to jam you up, legally.

There are additional differences between the rules/agreementsthe agreements for online and realworld commerce, but these are the most pertinent and common problems that a domainer might face.

The incidents that are being described in this thread have made me realize that my situation was not unique. This is leading me to believe that there is conscious, fraudulent activity going on at this registrar and not a series of incompetency-based coincidences. :td: :td:

 

[DeluxeNames.com]

Wow what a classless response. The better question is how anyone could feel sorry for your stupidity in terms of this transaction. The analogy you used is pathetic at best. Stop trying to pass the buck for not doing due dillegence on your purchase.
What I feel is my intelligence has nothing to do with it. For your information, I've only been doing it as a business for a few months. However I use common sense when I'm making any sort of financial transaction. I research atleast the most basic requirements before I make a purchase.
I don't feel sorry for people who want to be idiots with their money. It takes only a few minutes to look up basic requirements on TLD's, ccTLD's etc... I would think one would want to know all the facts prior to purchasing an uncommon extension.
Sorry if such common sense goes over most.

Ouch! LOL, all I can say to that HBK is, I love you too :hearts: Can we all get a group hug here?

 

[Grrilla]

Everyone...

Deep breath... in and out...

Deep breath... in and out...

Let's not get too personal, or damage any friendships over this.

Gee! You would wait to post that when I was right in the middle of typing up my last post. :hehe:

 

[HBK216]

A. Although I think it is a bit condescending and incidiary to tell people that they are "whining" and to"go about their business" in the same way that you, presumably, do, my own skin is thick and I can, easily, brush aside these sort of comments. What I do have a problem with and take exception to, is the inaccuracy of your comments.
There are several people here who share similar issues and are having, essentially, the same problems with one company. Despite your interpretation that most of the dialog in this thread amounts to "whining" and the turn key solution that you have offered to all of us solve the problems we are all whining about, I find the words that are coming out between the alleged whines to be informative and and useful. If your problems had not been cleaned up after your turnkey solution had been exhausted of all of it's possibilities, I imagine, there would be a, somewhat, differnt flavor to your posts. Why don't you listen a little more carefully and show some empathy towards those who are less fortunate than you rather, than, standing on a tower and casting judgement upon those of us down here that hust can't seem to get it right?
B. I didn't expand on my issues w/ registerfly in this thread because I, already, had discussed my problem in detail at this thread: http://www.namepros.com/200878-regfly-again-2.html
You might want to read through some of the posts because there some very good points being made by some experienced domainers that might enhance your understanding of what is going on in this thread. If you want to relegate the opinions of people who have been at this for several years to whining, than so be it. At least, I tried. BTW, (and forgive me for whining.) I was dilligent in my effort to resolve my issue- I talked to reps via the phone more than once opened up more than one support ticket, sent out over a dozen emails, was assured by a rep on the phone that the problem was resolved and still got screwed.

I agree that what isn't acceptable in the real world, *shouldn't* be acceptable online but there are some significant differences between internet and realworld policy, (as oulined in the small font legaleze found in, both, the CC cos, and Merchant's TOS agreements), regarding online payments, specifially, recurring billing, collection policies, and how overlimit accounts are treated.
Did you know that...:
1) You can deselect the creditcard associated w/ an account and if the new one you replace it with is at or overlimit, the companies can and do go to the card that you, (thought), the company no longer had the right to access? This happened to me w/ an AMEX card.
2) The creditcard co, (AMEX in my case) will pay the online company and that they will not accept a payback for the charge because of the TOS that you signed with the vendor prevents them from allowing the charge back? This applies specifically to online accts that involve revolving, recurring charges, (ie all registrar accounts.) In other words, if you leave auto-renew on, the registrar has several oppurtunities to jam you up, legally.

There are additional differences between the rules/agreementsthe agreements for online and realworld commerce, but these are the most pertinent and common problems that a domainer might face.

The incidents that are being described in this thread have made me realize that my situation was not unique. This is leading me to believe that there is conscious, fraudulent activity going on at this registrar and not a series of incompetency-based coincidences. :td: :td:

I call it whining as instead of handling their business, they whine & whine. The time could be better spent getting their situation fixed. Why can a group of people call & get it taken care quickly & the next batch can't? We all probably got the same group 1 tech support which is usually the worst level in all companies. So this tells me they aren't properly going about taking care of things. Would you agree that in general online, consumers tend to act out of line when first addressing a problem? If they handled things more professionally, less problems would arise.

As I've said this isn't to say that RF can wash their hands clean. They have a # of necessary changes that need to be addressed. This is something I will not defend them or any company for. They need to get their hands dirty if necessary & run their business the proper way.

However even with saying that, I find it disgusting how it seems regardless of company, service, in this world, it somehow is always the fault of the business. This is bs & most people should be able to understand this.

The guy got his money back which he deserved to get. However the major point is alot of this could have been avoided had they did their due dilligence. Who in their right mind would buy an uncommon extension without knowing its requirements? I would think someone who would doesn't like their money much.

In the end RegFly, take care of certain aspects on your end especially in terms of registration. On the other side consumers atleast read the requirements before making a purchase. It will save you the hassle in the long run.

 

[DeluxeNames.com]

^ The registrar should have the common sense to program their systems not to accept registrations that don't fit the rules of the underlying registry. Saying someone should go research a ccTLD's rules beforehand is unfairly passing the buck, IMHO.

There are many ccTLD's that do accept one and two character registrations, so it's not as far fetched an assumption as you make it out.

RJ, thank you for weighing in on this, your response is much appreciated and right on :imho:

 

[HBK216]

Ouch! LOL, all I can say to that HBK is, I love you too :hearts: Can we all get a group hug here?

:hehe: sure why not

 

[Grrilla]

Ouch! LOL, all I can say to that HBK is, I love you too :hearts: Can we all get a group hug here?

OK w/ me. As long as, eveyone makes sure they know what piece of my hardware they are hugging and there is, at least, a little air left between the front sides of the group members and my backside I'm alright with it.. If those cnditions can be agreed upon let's hug on brothers!
Hey! You two over there! I'm cool with what you're into but could you please save it until after the group grope? Thank you.

Uh... No thankyou. I do not want to join w/ you two later. Nice of you to ask but my wife already owns my a~~ and she doesn't lease it out.

 

[-db-]

Hey, I felt something weird during that group hug.

Who's hand was that?

Well, it better have been Kerrijo, and not one of you... Dudes.

 

[Grrilla]

Hey! How come I'm the one that got stuck next to HBK216! You guys are the one's that started this whole thing and I get HBK216 as a hug-buddy. I'm always gettin screwed over. If it ain't register fly - it's godaddy-if it ain't godaddy it's gettin into a group hug and realizing that HBK216 is the guy that is next to me. sheeesh! These days, there always seems to be somethin that you gotta moan and whine about,!

:lol:​

 

[vokkerzen]

Hey! How come I'm the one that got stuck next to HBK216! You guys are the one's that started this whole thing and I get HBK216 as a hug-buddy. I'm always gettin screwed over. If it ain't register fly - it's godaddy-if it ain't godaddy it's gettin into a group hug and realizing that HBK216 is the guy that is next to me. sheeesh! These days, there always seems to be somethin that you gotta moan and whine about,!

:lol:​

Take a valium pill to relax you