I couldn't find a section in the forum to dicuss web hosting / domain names etc, so I will post this here. If a moderator knows of a more appropriate place, please move it.


I run a popular blog and podcast. On the 16th of June 2010 I attempted to transfer my domain name to a New Zealand company, Discount Domains. Aplus.net (the domain name registrar for Discount Domains) appeared to screw up their email that they were meant to send me so that the domain name transfer could go ahead. Instead of the authorisation link that Discount Domains expected Aplus to send me, the email contained references to an unknown account at some website affiliated with them that I needed to log into in order to approve the transfer (but they didn’t tell me which website this was, or how to log in). Discount Domains here in New Zealand then advised that they actually didn’t know how the transfer process works (they said it had been changed) and that they didn’t know what the email meant, and then Aplus ignored my emails to their support team for about a week, followed by an activation link that had already expired when they sent it to me and at least two failed attempts to send it again, all the while knowing that my site was down. They advised discount domains that they had sent a new link through to me (on two separate occasions), and after eight days of waiting, I eventually gave up on them both and approach Freeparking. I requested the transfer to them, and within an hour or so I got an activation link to authorise the domain name transfer. That’s how it’s done. Oh, and then a few days later, Aplus got in touch with me asking me to authorise the domain name transfer to them. Just wow. Aplus (and Discount Domains), by their own admission made a bunch of mistakes and got their service wrong, and as a result my site and blog was down about twelve days longer than it needed to be. Lost traffic, broken links removed, people stopped visiting, the podcast disappeared from the iTunes store, prospective employers couldn’t view the site/blog (and may even have fairly wondered whether I was telling the truth about even having it). It was bad.

 

I kept emailing Discount Domains, they kept giving me the message that they would sort out the problem within the next day or so, but that they still didn’t really know how the transfer process was supposed to work. On a couple of occasions they assured me that it was sorted and the transfer was about to happen, but it never did. This ate up close to six weeks, Yes, six weeks. It hammered my traffic and my web ranking at the time, and it ate up a huge amount of my own time and effort. After nearly six weeks I went to a new domain name provider (Freeparking NZ) and it was sorted in a couple of days. The difference was like night and day. None of the facts are in dispute, Discount Domains admits everything I say, and they have told me, “we certainly do not feel that the level of service you have received from Discount Domains or our dotcom partner is acceptable.” However, since August they have refused to refund me or provide one cent of compensation. They will not even return my emails. Since none of the facts are in dispute, I run no risk telling people this.