Yet another Registerfly CAUTION

[AdoptableDomains]

In the last few months, I've transferred well over 700 domains away from registerfly.com, including a few that were not due for renewal for a couple years. Today, I had a situation that I still can't believe. I received notice that three names I had transferred away from them, including one that doesn't expire until 2008 had transfers TO registerfly initiated. Here's the message I got:

Dear Customer,

RegisterFly.com received notification on Thursday, Oct 5, 2006 that you have requested a transfer to 1000004500 for XXXXXXXXX.biz. If you want to proceed with this transfer, you do not need to respond to this message. If you wish to cancel the transfer, please click on the below link before Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006:

Cancel Transfer Link:

Click Here to cancel the transfer of XXXXXXXXX.biz

If we do not hear from you by Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006, the transfer will proceed.

Clearly, something is wrong here! First, I did not initiate any transfers, therefore the Auth codes on these .biz domains should not work to get to the point of a confirmation letter and default approval. The domains are still listed in my registerfly account contol panel with wrong expiration dates. However, auto renewal is TURNED OFF on eveything listed. Registerfly did use the autorenew in their panel to transfer names under their reseller account to their own registry on renewal, but these were NOT set to autorenew, and are truly not due for renewal for 2 years. The domains are at enom now, so I'm wondering if they somehow have access to my auth codes there.

I have clicked to cancel the transfer I did not initiate or approve, but what if I'd been on vacation for a week? They only allowed 5 days for a cancellation.

One of the main reasons I've moved away from registerfly is their screwy database, and automatically transferring domains from their enom reseller account to their own registry and changing the whois out of my name to do so. When they did that they would not change it back even after the transfer, and caused me to lose two pretty good names. I had a support ticket on those two names unresolved for almost 3 months, which they actually DELETED from their support ticket program instead of taking care of it.

Yet another reason to stay away from the screwy and shady business practices of registerfly. Be on the lookout for RF trying to transfer domains back to them that you've already transferred away.

 

[fonzie_007]

Mark, sorry to hear of your troubles with them. This certainly reinforces that you need to carefully monitor what is happening with your domains, especially when they are being transferred.

 

[chupacabra]

I just discovered another nice 'feature' of RegisterFly. I am trying to transfer out my domains, and they cleared out my name servers for those domains, and when I try to add them back, it says "operation prohibited in current status". So basically my sites are dead until the transfer is complete and I can update my domains with nameservers. It is AMAZING how bad Register Fly actually is.

 

[fonzie_007]

I believe nameservers are locked while a domain is being transferred at all registrars, not just RF.

 

[Dave_Z]

I believe nameservers are locked while a domain is being transferred at all registrars, not just RF.

Actually, nothing can be done to the domain name while there's an outstanding
transfer request. No registrant name changes, no DNS changes, not even plain
simple renewals.

The renewal might push through at first. But it'll eventually fail.

I learned that the hard way. Took me a while to eventually find that out.

I'm squinting my eyes here, Mark. You got 3 transfer requests to registerfly
even though you didn't obviously start them at all?

Better check your accounts with whoever's managing those 3 just to be sure.
I can guess one other possible explanation how that occured, although it's so
scary I'm sorry I'd rather not post it here lest someone might exploit it.

Here's a hint, though: it's happened to a very big ISP more than a year ago.
And what a way for them to start the new year.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

I'm squinting my eyes here, Mark. You got 3 transfer requests to registerfly
even though you didn't obviously start them at all?

Yes. The way registerfly processes renewals through their enom reseller account is to process them as a transfer (first, that should not even be allowed). I believe since they show them as expiring in their outdated and wrong account list, they probably processed these the same way. Whether they would go through, I don't know. However, it does make one think!

Better check your accounts with whoever's managing those 3 just to be sure.
I can guess one other possible explanation how that occured, although it's so
scary I'm sorry I'd rather not post it here lest someone might exploit it.

The domains were transferred to Enom. I'm wondering if since registerly used to operate as an enom reseller (and still does on some domains) if they have access to the algorithm enom uses to generate auth codes and can duplicate it. Hopefully not, and the transfers would have failed and their email was worded incorrectly that it would default process.

I do think it is worth keeping an eye on though. If it happened to me, it could happen to others.