Dreamscape Reseller Nightmare

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Drelly

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#300533 16-Sep-2022 10:13

Has anyone else been caught up in this?

We had several hundred domain names with WebDrive (then OpenHost, then Dreamscape) that we moved to another provider 2 years ago due to declining levels of service. We had intended to move all the email accounts but after trying a few, it turned out to be too big a job and it was going to cost too much time and money.

We've been waiting for them to start charging us for email services ever since the takeover and had been assured that there would be plenty of warning. Nothing seemed to be happening, then on Tuesday, we got an email saying that the remaining (nearly 300) mailboxes we have with them will be migrated to a new reseller system in 7 days and we were going to start getting charged for them as well as any email redirects.

We've had...

No information on pricing.
No IP address for the new mail server.
No access to the new reseller system until after migration.

They're forcing us to change SMTP settings for every individual mailbox rather than continuing to use webhost.co.nz "because the server is shutting down".

The frontline staff have little idea what is going on and can't answer basic questions. We're absolutely over a barrel.

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#2970022 19-Sep-2022 10:47

You are definitely not alone. The delay and brevity of my reply stems from being kept busy day and night fighting the fires lit by the incomprehensible incompetence and lack of professionalism demonstrated by Dreamscape during their migration of our OpenHost reseller account.

Drelly

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#2970054 19-Sep-2022 11:37

eltrab:

You are definitely not alone. The delay and brevity of my reply stems from being kept busy day and night fighting the fires lit by the incomprehensible incompetence and lack of professionalism demonstrated by Dreamscape during their migration of our OpenHost reseller account.

That isn't the reassuring response I was hoping for!! LOL It looks like we may be one of the last to migrate as I've seen bad reviews from resellers who migrated 6 months ago.

FishyfingersNZ

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Wannabe Geek

#2977369 4-Oct-2022 15:57

It's been absolute carnage for me. Advised of my compulsory migration on the Friday before the following Thursday migration. Still trying to deal with it. I'm so pissed of with them. All they do is apologise. The communication is terrible. Just left to figure it out myself. Multiple domains didn't migrate properly and now it looks like I have to pay for all my domains increased mail hosting costs by 6th October. Someone needs to sue the bastards.

I still have email accounts that are not receiving mail. try calling their reseller number and just get Crazy Domains staff who can't do anything -and just keep escalating. Finally got to speak to someone from the resellers team today. Despite multiple promises over the last two weeks no one has called me back. I've spent so much time on this.

Mail accounts that were moved to Office 365 years ago have mysteriously been reactivated as std or business mail accounts and my clients have been emailed urgent renewal notices for services they're not even using. Some have paid because they thought the requests were sent directly by me. NO REFUNDS given.

Does anyone know their NZ address for service? I'm quantifying my losses. If only webdrive would come back.......

Drelly

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#2977377 4-Oct-2022 16:39

> Advised of my compulsory migration on the Friday before the following Thursday migration.

We were the same. I wasted 4 days trying to explain that it wasn't enough notice before giving up and informing my clients.

> All they do is apologise. The communication is terrible. Just left to figure it out myself.

I get the impression they have zero influence on the process and can do no more than apologise.

> Multiple domains didn't migrate properly...

We didn't have too many problems but we did find that clients using folders lost all their folders. Simple fix... they needed to be turned on!

> ...and now it looks like I have to pay for all my domains increased mail hosting costs by 6th October.

WARNING - if you haven't changed them all over to monthly renewal, you'll be hit with an ANNUAL bill for all your clients. We warned all our clients that they would start to incur email costs at some point back in DEC 2020, so there hasn't been too much backlash.

> I still have email accounts that are not receiving mail.

We've had some issues with failed deliveries that aren't getting bouncebacks. We have our domains with Sitehost but the SPF records should allow for that. If you go to cpanel > Email Deliverability it will show what the issue is. It looks like a DKIM problem on one of ours.

> Mail accounts that were moved to Office 365 years ago have mysteriously been reactivated as std or business mail accounts and my clients have been emailed urgent renewal notices for services they're not even using.

Yes, we had the same problem. A lot of old services re-enabled.

>Some have paid because they thought the requests were sent directly by me. NO REFUNDS given.

We use Xero for invoicing, so requested that all the invoicing be turned off before we migrated. I have no intention of using it.

Drelly

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#2978132 6-Oct-2022 10:10

Another issue discovered. Emails from website forms hosted elsewhere are not being received. They disappear without going into spam. We've set up SPF and DKIM records. No difference and no response from Dreamscape.

Drelly

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#2978229 6-Oct-2022 11:48

Chat support for the reseller platform is mostly hopeless. I called Crazy Domains (0800 128 128) and went through to the OpenHost migration support team who are much more helpful but they confirmed the problem and referred me back to the reseller team... so we'll see.

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chris021

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#2993651 8-Nov-2022 20:32

Speaking of Dreamscape being a trainwreck... anyone else having issues transferring domains into dreamscape since the DNC change on the 1st of Nov?

mattwnz

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#2993674 8-Nov-2022 23:29

chris021:

anyone else having issues transferring domains into dreamscape since the DNC change on the 1st of Nov?

What issue are you having? Are you transferring them yourself using the UDAI? I have read about the DNC change and one domain providers blog I read said they expected there to be problems, and to make sure people renew their domains well before this date.

chris021

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#2993695 9-Nov-2022 07:40

mattwnz:

What issue are you having? Are you transferring them yourself using the UDAI? I have read about the DNC change and one domain providers blog I read said they expected there to be problems, and to make sure people renew their domains well before this date.

The dreamscape portal won't take the new domain key for transfer. The loosing provider has generated new 16 character domain keys but DS won't accept... I logged a ticket days ago and all they say is all connections to .nz is broken and their developers are working on it... No timeframe given...

Drelly

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#2993785 9-Nov-2022 09:46

This seems like a perfect opportunity to build a relationship with a new provider.

tdgeek

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#2993839 9-Nov-2022 10:49

chris021:

mattwnz:

What issue are you having? Are you transferring them yourself using the UDAI? I have read about the DNC change and one domain providers blog I read said they expected there to be problems, and to make sure people renew their domains well before this date.

The dreamscape portal won't take the new domain key for transfer. The loosing provider has generated new 16 character domain keys but DS won't accept... I logged a ticket days ago and all they say is all connections to .nz is broken and their developers are working on it... No timeframe given...

I think many had/have that issue, as it appears the changes were major enough to break the portal systems used by domain providers. We had that, resolved now, so we can generate 16 character Auth Codes (not called UDAI's now) and they are synced to the .NZ Registry. Transfers Out are fine at our end having had one transferred out to another provider, it went BAU.

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eltrab

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#2993840 9-Nov-2022 10:56

chris021:

Speaking of Dreamscape being a trainwreck... anyone else having issues transferring domains into dreamscape since the DNC change on the 1st of Nov?

The usual story with offshore registrars who see the New Zealand market as an afterthought. Instead of being proactive about well-publicised registry changes they choose to ignore their obligations and wait to see what breaks, leaving us to deal with the fallout. I'm trialing a move to NZ-owned SiteHost and their transfers are working fine.

mattwnz

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#2994029 9-Nov-2022 17:22

chris021:

mattwnz:

What issue are you having? Are you transferring them yourself using the UDAI? I have read about the DNC change and one domain providers blog I read said they expected there to be problems, and to make sure people renew their domains well before this date.

The dreamscape portal won't take the new domain key for transfer. The loosing provider has generated new 16 character domain keys but DS won't accept... I logged a ticket days ago and all they say is all connections to .nz is broken and their developers are working on it... No timeframe given...

I understand they are one of, if not the largest NZ registrars in NZ now.

I have found they are auto renewing NZ domain names that have expired in the last few days. So peoples domains lapse, but they are continuing to work, which has never happened before in the 20 + years I have been registering NZ domains. So not sure if that is related to these changes.

The domain status is set to the following when doing a Whois lookup on the DNC website

Query Status

Active, auto renew period

I have had a look at the DNC website and surprised that they only released public info on the 1st Nov at https://dnc.org.nz/about/our-engagement/blog/changes-to-our-website/ They do say that the term UDAI will continue to be used for a while. But AUTH codes are a term that have always been used for international domains. But there doesn't appear to be a lot of consumer info about these changes.

eltrab

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#2994036 9-Nov-2022 18:06

mattwnz:

I have had a look at the DNC website and surprised that they only released public info on the 1st Nov at https://dnc.org.nz/about/our-engagement/blog/changes-to-our-website/ They do say that the term UDAI will continue to be used for a while. But AUTH codes are a term that have always been used for international domains. But there doesn't appear to be a lot of consumer info about these changes.

I recommend signing up for the DNC monthly newsletter, which is how I stayed abreast of the upcoming changes. I agree though. They have been surprisingly quiet about the consumer impact of these changes, even if the primary issue has been ill-prepared registrars & resellers. Likewise the whole Dreamscape debacle in general.

The signup form is in the footer of the DNC website.

mattwnz

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#2994037 9-Nov-2022 18:10

eltrab:

mattwnz:

I have had a look at the DNC website and surprised that they only released public info on the 1st Nov at https://dnc.org.nz/about/our-engagement/blog/changes-to-our-website/ They do say that the term UDAI will continue to be used for a while. But AUTH codes are a term that have always been used for international domains. But there doesn't appear to be a lot of consumer info about these changes.

I recommend signing up for the DNC monthly newsletter, which is how I stayed abreast of the upcoming changes. I agree though. They have been surprisingly quiet about the consumer impact of these changes, even if the primary issue has been ill-prepared registrars & resellers. Likewise the whole Dreamscape debacle in general.

Surely they should have required and made sure that all their Authorised Registrars, in particular their biggest ones, had all their systems ready for this change.

I was told by the registrar that they now have to auto renew the expired domain as soon as it expired, for the customer to keep ownership of it. But my understanding is that the domain should go into a 90 day pending release period, where they can renew it anytime during that period, and that is what it says on the DNC website at https://dnc.org.nz/tools-and-services/how-do-i-2/register-a-domain-name-in-pending-release/ . Was this a change that was made on the 1st Nov, because if so , the DNCs website is out of date.

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