[conspire] New registrar, my third, after a mere 15 years at one

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:
 
> In this case, the incumbent (old) registrar DirectNIC sent me mail about 
> an hour later (just received) acknowledging the pending transfer request
> to iwantmyname, saying they're sorry to see me go, and explaining that 
> they're holding the transfer to Sat. March 5th:  If I don't say 'Eek,
> no, block that' by then, it'll then go through.  (This is perfectly
> reasonable, and a safeguard against mishap or domainjacking.)

That's two domains transferred.  The second one involves a six-day delay
period at the end -- fully documented and explained -- but otherwise
this was a process that took about an hour in each case (including some
sitting around and waiting).

_One_ hour elapsed time per domain, and it's pretty obvious how to do
it.  One.  If in doubt, just Web-seach on 

  transfer domain [$YOUR_REGISTRAR]

...and find write-ups various people have written.


Lately on a nearby LUG mailing list, we heard a whole bunch about this
process being difficult and failure-prone (such that a pair of LUG
domains failed to be transferred repeatedly and then allowed to expire
at the undeired incumbent registrar).   Of course, every registrar's a
little different; my experience with Tucows and DirectNIC won't exactly
match yours.  But it'll be pretty close.

And it really ain't difficult.  Not even a bit.

Two errors seem common.  The most common, and the worst, is waiting
until just before domain expiration, and starting the process then.
Below the 30-day mark, never ever do anything but renew (or let it
expire).  It's just too close, too late, and bad things tend to happen.  
So, Don't Do That, Then.

The other thing is, seems like many people somehow fail to get the EPP
code from the incumbent registrar.[1]  This puzzles me, because the new
registrar prompts for it, so it's a mystery how anyone could miss it
being needed -- but there you have it.

[1] Again,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Provisioning_Protocol .
Note that the EPP code is required for .com and .net and some other
TLDs, but not all of them.