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I have a .com domain that I registered for a family member which expires in 3 hours. I have tried twice to renew it (and was charged) but the renewals failed due to technical problems at D4L. For 5 days I've been trying to get assistance from D4L. Finally I tried to transfer the domain elsewhere but they are the admin contact, effectively holding the domain hostage. It all seems like it could easily be solved if only I could get in touch with an employee, assuming the company hasn't folded.
Anyone know a contact there?
Otherwise I'm keen for advice on letting a .com expire with one registrar and picking it up at another.
Here is the background / timeline
Wednesday last week:
- Tried twice to renew the .com online, with around 5 days to expiry (I usually renew far in advance but have been overseas)
- Both renewals failed and 2 holds appeared on my debit card.
- Looked at D4L status page and saw an issue regarding their upstream provider, with a message saying to log a support ticket if one has domains expiring soon.
- I logged a ticket.
- No response to ticket. Updates to status page saying issue still under investigation.
- I updated the ticket with info that the holds on my card had gone through as charges.
- Got home from work, found no responses. Domain expires Monday so I start to worry.
- Status page was updated saying to email Webdrive for urgent renewals.
- Emailed web drive, it bounced immediately
- Called Web Drive twice - no answer. Checked their website stated business hours are 8:30-19:30. It was 18:00.
- Live chatted with someone, yes a human! He looked at the ticket and said he had passed it on to the right person. Assured me they would look at it soon but wouldn't say when. With impending weekend, I pressed him on which day and whether prior to expiry and was told "very soon". Seemed like he couldn't/wouldn't do anything for me.
- Checked whois for exact expiry and found it to be late Monday night (tonight), so figured worst case it will get sorted on Monday while I'm at work.
- Got home, still nothing from D4L.
- Phoned 3 times, no answer.
- Left voicemail.
- Unlocked domain in control panel, sent auth code, and initiated a transfer to Name Cheap (who I already use for my SSL certs). After paying renewal fee and providing auth code, I discover that the admin contact is a D4L email, not mine and an additional verification code was sent to it. Live chatting with Name Cheap they stated it is ICANN policy not theirs to use the admin contact and that I should ask my old registrar to update the admin email! She [Namecheap chat] also cancelled the transfer for me and credited the renewal fee to my Namecheap account.
I still have other .com domains which I am now worried are also effectively held hostage by these guys since they too have D4L as the admin. My many .nz domains with D4L have my own details as the admin contact so I am not concerned there. I thought D4L were a large outfit with a good reputation? Is this not the case?
