Web4Africa Business Practices

[DNWon]

Good morning,
A few days ago I registered a ccTld with Web4Africa(dot)com for $15. The next day they refunded my credit card with no explanation or communication. I opened a support ticket a day later to ask why my order was refunded and supports reply was that the domain was considered premium. There was no offer for me to purchase it at the new premium price. They supposedly are ICANN accredited and the biggest registrar in Africa. My question's are: Is this commonplace in this industry? Has this ever happened to anyone else there or at another registrar? Would ICANN be ok with this? I feel burned because they now have all of my registry info and CC info and I'm left with nothing for my registration time, research, personal info and efforts!
The particular domain in question I'm not at liberty to divulge! Thanks for your input.

 

[HotKey]

^ Have had it happen to me as well with them. They don't block their restricted/premium names, rather they allow the registration and then refund you. At least they refund to your original payment method. Other registrars just top up your account balance, making you go through support tickets to have it actually refunded, which in my opinion is terrible business practice.

 

[HotKey]

On to other Web4Africa business practices, went through a month of support tickets back and forth looking for an answer to this simple question:

What is the procedure to transfer .ng domains from Web4Africa to another registrar or to another Web4Africa account?

There is no documentation anywhere on the site. Conveniently, they do have info on how to transfer to them. Which is very sweet of them, isn't it? Something to look when using a registrar, how easy is it to get a name out of there when the time comes.

***

~ answer from the registrar ~

Transferring from Web4Africa to another registrar:

1. You would need to first provide reasons for transferring away.
2. We will then provide you with an EPP code which will be needed by the registrar you are transferring to and unlock your domain name on our end.

Transferring from one Web4Africa account to another:

1. We need to ensure that, the person has an account with us or the account will be created for them.
2. We then require an email from the current account holder of the domain confirming the transfer of the domain to another web4africa account.
3. We will then need another email from the person whom the domain is being transferred to, confirming that the domain should be transferred to their account.
4. Once all that is done, we will then initiate the transfer on our end which will be done in less than 5 minutes.

***