Domain Nonsense
Recently, I received a reminder from easily.co.uk, my registrar, that my domains were about to expire. I’ve been with easily.co.uk for five years or so, and I’ve never had an issue with them, but then I’ve never really asked them to do anything either. Considering that complete lack of expectation on my part, I thought that the twenty five pound charge for renewing each domain for a year was a bit steep more so when compared to the five pounds that godaddy.com wanted and so I have been trying to get the domains transferred.
‘Trying’ being the operative word.
Firstly, easily make it as non-easy as possible to even let them know that you want to transfer out. Transferring in is all done with a web-form, but transferring out requires secret handshakes, a hidden PDF file and faxing them notification. At no point do they explain the process to you, and so I’ve had to piece together some understanding of what is going on from various websites.
What I believe is meant to be happening is that in order to confirm the transfer to godaddy, godaddy want to be able to send an email to the administrative contact as per a whois with a code that is then entered into godaddy’s website, therefore closing the circle and giving godaddy authority to complete. The form that easily want faxing to them contains the instruction to change the administrative contact for the domain as well as the new name servers. This means that I would become the administrator of the domain, and I would then be able to get the code from godaddy and finalise the transfer. Easy.
Except… I faxed the form to easily. A couple of days later, I got an email confirming that the instructions in the form were being carried out. Great, I thought and did a whois. The name servers had indeed been updated, but had the admin contact? No, of course not, because that would actually allow me to do the transfer, wouldn’t it? Easily have decided to ignore the request to change the admin address and just kick my domain to the new nameservers, therefore making the domains unreachable as well as blocking my transfer.
I’ve emailed them, but got no response about this mess. Not that they’re completely silent — I have had a reply to an email I sent shortly after faxing the form asking for verification of receipt and some idea of how long it would take, and I’ve also had an email telling me that they’ve received a transfer request from godaddy, and pointing me at the fax form that I had already completed, sent and had them handle by screwing up my domains. I do love it when support processes contain no ability to maintain a conversation in context.
Most people seem to connect directly via the dyndns address, so this isn’t a complete disaster, but it is very frustrating. Are easily blocking the transfer on purpose? It’s possible, especially when you consider the history of domain registrar behaviour in these matters. At the very least they’re being totally inept, and anyone intending to try what I’m trying should be aware of the likelihood that they’ll happily dump your domains into an unreachable wilderness even after you’ve jumped through their procedural hoops.
