Domain Transfers between Melbourne IT resellers
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Domain transfers are supposed to be easy. There are a few speed bumps, courtesy of "the bad old days" when pirates would decide to take over a domain and ransom it (did that ever really happen?): you need to get an authorization code from your current registrar, give it to your new registrar, and they will send a confirmation email to the official contact address of your domain. Unless, of course, your old hosting company and new hosting company both happen to be resellers of Melbourne IT. In that case, you have to get a separate "registry" key. Why? I guess it's because they're all about security.
Since you're using a reseller, Melbourne IT's support staff doesn't want to talk to you. They tell you to contact your current provider, and immediately close the ticket.
My then-current (now previous) provider was Yahoo Small Business (perhaps that's TRWTF, but it didn't seem so six years ago). The helpful (really! it was a shock!) Yahoo tech support person sent me an explanation of Melbourne IT's policy, and the steps that I'd have to take to transfer my domain (this is copied from their email, I'm not making it up):
- Back up any custom DNS records
- Cancel your account
Once you have done this, please reply to this email and request that we "release" your domain. This is offered to you as an exception to our standard policy [...]
Their standard policy, apparently, is "hah, hah, you're screwed!"
The solution, in case anyone is wondering, is to use a registrar that's not associated with Melbourne IT. Because, you know, that doesn't have to be as secure.
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Huh?
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Which words did you not understand?
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@kdgregory said:
There are a few speed bumps, courtesy of "the bad old days" when pirates would decide to take over a domain and ransom it (did that ever really happen?):
I don't know about the ransom part, but yes... there is definitely domain theft.@kdgregory said:Once you have done this, please reply to this email and request that we "release" your domain. This is offered to you as an exception to our standard policy [...]
I don't understand this... are they cancelling your domain? Because that requires quite the fee to get back.
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Back on topic: why is it so hard to find alligator meat in Toronto?
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@Lorne Kates said:
Back on topic: why is it so hard to find alligator meat in Toronto?
Are there many alligators in Toronto?
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@Sutherlands said:
@kdgregory said:
Once you have done this, please reply to this email and request that we "release" your domain. This is offered to you as an exception to our standard policy [...]
I don't understand this... are they cancelling your domain? Because that requires quite the fee to get back.no they are saying you need to first cancel your account and then they keep ownership of the domain; after which you need to go and beg for it to be transfered
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Domain piracy has been replaced with a new scam where they scan all the public WHOIS records and send fake bills to the published email address. I've gotten quite a few in the past, telling me "such and such domain you own is about to expire, click here to renew your subscription." The prices are always insane like $200 for a one-year renewal. Now if I purchase domains I ALWAYS get the privacy package.
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@mott555 said:
Domain piracy has been replaced with a new scam where they scan all the public WHOIS records and send fake bills to the published email address. I've gotten quite a few in the past, telling me "such and such domain you own is about to expire, click here to renew your subscription." The prices are always insane like $200 for a one-year renewal. Now if I purchase domains I ALWAYS get the privacy package.
That's not even a new scam. That was common enough back in the 1990's, via snail-mail and even fax as well as email.
I seem to recall two versions. The flat scam variant that wanted a check and the unsolicited services one that was actually selling 'domain name expiration notification' that wanted a credit card so they could autobill every 30 days.
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@NoOneImportant said:
That's not even a new scam. That was common enough back in the 1990's, via snail-mail and even fax as well as email.
Oh, aye - back in the day, we had a few of those emailed/faxed to our office, warning that our domain was about to expire and we needed to renew our subscription to a search service.
It sent the MD into a minor panic (since it was phrased as a warning/final demand and not like an info-sheet), but a quick "whois" later showed when our domain required renewing. A good outcome was that the accounts dept set up recurring payments, so we knew any further communication was bound to be a scam.
Bizarely, I've just received another scam of this nature, quite recently. I thought they'd died out years ago, but look like they're making a revival again.
Anyone received the "business directory registration invitation" scam recently?
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Melbourne IT is TRWTF. You're better off transferring to a completely different registrar. Not Crazy Domains.
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@Cassidy said:
I used to subscribe to enough magazines in the mail that I'd sometimes renew one without checking. After finding myself with some that I had already paid for ten years out, I started checking the mailing labels and made a little list in my Palm Pilot so it wouldn't happen again. I think the last of those finally ran out last year.Oh, aye - back in the day, we had a few of those emailed/faxed to our office, warning that our domain was about to expire and we needed to renew our subscription to a search service.
It sent the MD into a minor panic (since it was phrased as a warning/final demand and not like an info-sheet), but a quick "whois" later showed when our domain required renewing. A good outcome was that the accounts dept set up recurring payments, so we knew any further communication was bound to be a scam.
(Wasn't always due to the same reason, though. Sometimes a mag I'd signed up for three years of would cease publication, but the publisher would "as a courtesy" apply my prepaid subscription to another mag they published, one that I'd also paid for three years of. Magic result: a six-year subscription.)
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@Cassidy said:
Anyone received the "business directory registration invitation" scam recently?
How recently is “recently”? (The past few years I've been receiving a lot more fake conference spam.)
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@da Doctah said:
Sometimes a mag I'd signed up for three years of would cease publication, but the publisher would "as a courtesy" apply my prepaid subscription to another mag they published, one that I'd also paid for three years of
Sounds like someone who is into hyper-specialized hard core porn, but not in any specific area.
Publisher: Sorry sir, but the "Alluring Quadriplegic Albino Midgets Monthly" magazine has gone out of business. Maybe we could subscribe you to "Cuntsensual Incest Magazine" instead? We could throw in a free sample of our Genuine Harlem Laundromat Lint, freshly sealed for your convenience? Or maybe a bottle of our new fragrance, "NYC Transit Public Bathroom"?
da Doctah: I don't know, do you have something that involves car batteries, bear traps and kittens instead?
Publisher: Sure, we have "The Milwaukee Cat Mangler" but I have to tell you that it is in a bit of a legal situation as Al Yankovic is suing them for copyright infringement...
da Doctah: Ok sign me up but forget about the lint, send me instead another one of those Rogers Park condom wrappers.
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@Ronald said:
@da Doctah said:
Nothing so interesting as all that, but I did once fall for the suggestion that if I liked Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, I might also be interested in Fate because "it's got spaceships and stuff in it too".Sometimes a mag I'd signed up for three years of would cease publication, but the publisher would "as a courtesy" apply my prepaid subscription to another mag they published, one that I'd also paid for three years of
Sounds like someone who is into hyper-specialized hard core porn, but not in any specific area.
Publisher: Sorry sir, but the "Alluring Quadriplegic Albino Midgets Monthly" magazine has gone out of business. Maybe we could subscribe you to "Cuntsensual Incest Magazine" instead? We could throw in a free sample of our Genuine Harlem Laundromat Lint, freshly sealed for your convenience? Or maybe a bottle of our new fragrance, "NYC Transit Public Bathroom"?
da Doctah: I don't know, do you have something that involves car batteries, bear traps and kittens instead?
Publisher: Sure, we have "The Milwaukee Cat Mangler" but I have to tell you that it is in a bit of a legal situation as Al Yankovic is suing them for copyright infringement...
da Doctah: Ok sign me up but forget about the lint, send me instead another one of those Rogers Park condom wrappers.
Bunch of New Age crap, it was. Tom Cruise and Shirley Maclaine probably eat it up.
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@da Doctah said:
I did once fall for the suggestion that if I liked Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, I might also be interested in Fate because "it's got spaceships and stuff in it too".
You did not "fall" for it, you simply choose a way to let your existing subscription manifest itself.
@Fate magazine said:
we live in a universe where at least in some cases the effect precedes the cause and it appears that since effects are fixed, there may be multiple chains of causality, which will lead to the same end result.
You already read this, and some more, but this link is what will enable you to perceive it.
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@dkf said:
@Cassidy said:
Anyone received the "business directory registration invitation" scam recently?
How recently is “recently”? (The past few years I've been receiving a lot more fake conference spam.)I got one last month (search engine submission scam) for a domain I own, and it was a nostalgic moment. I honestly thought those scams had died out.
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@dkf said:
receiving a lot more fake conference spam
That's called LinkedIn.
(which is spam. So my comment is entirely pointless)
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@Lorne Kates said:
@dkf said:
I meant apart from them. I get a lot, usually claiming to be for a conference I've never heard of and with a permitted set of topics longer than the Mississippi and wider than the Pacific. As if that's ever going to be anything other than useless even if it does happen.receiving a lot more fake conference spam
That's called LinkedIn.LinkedIn are less of a problem; the spam filter traps them very nicely.@Lorne Kates said:
(which is spam. So my comment is entirely pointless)
You make entirely pointless comments? Who'd have ever thought that…
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The fact that I have a university email address is apparently grounds for several random companies to sign me up for their daily advertising mailing lists.
(I forward my university email to gmail because my university email's UI is the shittiest thing ever.)
It's fantastic how all of them send their spam via services that let me submit complaints while unsubscribing.
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@Zemm said:
Melbourne IT is TRWTF. You're better off transferring to a completely different registrar. Not Crazy Domains.
The problem is resellers. That's TRWTF. How would you even know that you are dealing with Melbourne IT until you encountered a problem? If Yahoo Small Business advertises itself as a domain registrar you would probably assume that Yahoo, being a big well known Interwebs company, actually . . . you know . . . registers domains. Resellers don't advertise "We don't actually do anything except take your money. Anything else, not our problem".
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@El_Heffe said:
@Zemm said:
Melbourne IT is TRWTF. You're better off transferring to a completely different registrar. Not Crazy Domains.
The problem is resellers. That's TRWTF. How would you even know that you are dealing with Melbourne IT until you encountered a problem? If Yahoo Small Business advertises itself as a domain registrar you
would probably assume that Yahoo, being a big well known Interwebs
company, actually . . . you know . . . registers domains. Resellers don't advertise "We don't actually do anything except take your money. Anything else,
not our problem".
If they did that, people wouldn't give them their... Oh, who am I kidding? Of course they would.
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@El_Heffe said:
@Zemm said:
Melbourne IT is TRWTF. You're better off transferring to a completely different registrar. Not Crazy Domains.
The problem is resellers. That's TRWTF. How would you even know that you are dealing with Melbourne IT until you encountered a problem? If Yahoo Small Business advertises itself as a domain registrar you would probably assume that Yahoo, being a big well known Interwebs company, actually . . . you know . . . registers domains. Resellers don't advertise "We don't actually do anything except take your money. Anything else, not our problem".Technically, by doing a WHOIS query on your domain. To be fair, nobody does that either before something hits the fan. And it only works after you've already made the mistake (or, to be more precise, taken the bait, hook line and sinker). Didn't stop Icann from putting that instruction to their FAQ.
Icann recommends dealing with accredited registrars directly. As do I.
http://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accredited-list.html
I wonder if anyone ever got justice in court for something like this. It is technically false advertising if the reseller doesn't clearlly state themselves to be just that.
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@OldCrow said:
TIL there is a .jobs TLD.@El_Heffe said:
@Zemm said:
Melbourne IT is TRWTF. You're better off transferring to a completely different registrar. Not Crazy Domains.
The problem is resellers. That's TRWTF. How would you even know that you are dealing with Melbourne IT until you encountered a problem? If Yahoo Small Business advertises itself as a domain registrar you
would probably assume that Yahoo, being a big well known Interwebs
company, actually . . . you know . . . registers domains. Resellers don't advertise "We don't actually do anything except take your money. Anything else,
not our problem".Technically, by doing a WHOIS query on your domain. To be fair, nobody does that either before something hits the fan. And it only works after you've already made the mistake (or, to be more precise, taken the bait, hook line and sinker). Didn't stop Icann from putting that instruction to their FAQ.
Icann recommends dealing with accredited registrars directly. As do I.
I wonder if anyone ever got justice in court for something like this. It is technically false advertising if the reseller doesn't clearlly state themselves to be just that.
