[conspire] Gandi.net is my Jedi, now (was: Customer wants to give your firm money; support won't allow me)

[Rick Moen]

Also posted to Mastodon at
https://infosec.exchange/@unixmercenary/112550224804042309 :


Update & conclusion:  I knew Sales Dept. at UK-based multinational
CentralNic (who  in 2019 bought out formerly meritorious registrar
IWantMyName) wouldn't get back to me until Monday, on my "Hey, don't you
want my money?" escalation, following Support refusing to extend my
domain and giving repeated nonsense answers.

But then, a new thing: 

A "reminder" mail, saying my domain linuxmafia.com would soon autorenew,
charging US $21.49 to my credit card of record.  

Quoi?  I never enable autorenew, anywhere, at any time.  I checked:
Autorenew was (in a covert manner; see below) indeed set for both my
domains.

I'd been a customer of (the former, competent) NZ-based IWantMyName
firm, since about 2010.  I'm certain I've never enabled autorenew.  Why?
Because I insist payments be at my initiative, and reminders be sent by
my own scripts.

These new clowns (it seems) had enabled autorenew without notice or
consult (isn't this actual business fraud?), probably around the time
renewals beyond one year became unavailable even through Support, and
available for 1 year only when the domain was soon to expire.  

Let's count the red flags:

1. Support cites irrelevant canned text that doesn't answer customer's
   question.  Support's capabilities seems limited to "push this button"
   rote tasks.  Might be one of those shops where level-1 techs will be
   fired for saying anything outside dictated scripts.
2. Support then ghosts unsatisfied customer; there's no escalation path.
3. Extending domain registration is unsupported.  Renewal (just before
   expiration) limited to one year.
4. No response from sales@ to a "Really, you don't want my money?"
   escalation. (Admittedly, this spilled over to the weekend.)
5. Autorenew added without customer permission. 
6. Control to disable autorenew made difficult to spot, and non-obvious,
   within the customer webUI.  (You must toggle a per-domain setting from
   "renew" to "expire".)

The last two red flags, the new ones, were the final straw, so I
immediately took my business to Gandi.net.  Took an hour or two (might
have been faster if I'd looked at my e-mail at one point).

Gandi.net's Web site is sensibly designed, modern, no annoyances.
Transfer process involved only a couple of polite upsell attempts
(e-mail services, etc.).  Enabling public WHOIS was uncomplicated.
Domains can be extended for up to 8 years at any time (or 9 depending on
expiry date).  Pricing is not rock-bottom, yet reasonable, and also is
public:   https://www.gandi.net/en-US/domain/tld?prefix=c#tld-table

(There are also bulk discount categories, for which, as a small
customer, I'm not qualified.)

Customer WebUI puts no impediment at all in the way of leaving any time
you wish, and not even the 60-day freeze on transferred-in domains many
registrars impose. Customer is not pushed towards autorenew, let alone
defaulted to it without permission.

Customer contracts and disclosures seem reasonable.

Minor nit:  Customer WebUI doesn't have a link to find past billings and
payment records.  However, upon payment you get e-mailed a PDF and a
direct link to re-download it.

For the record, my "intro" pricing to transfer in:

US $14.34 linuxmafia.com
US $15.74 unixmercenary.net

My per-year price to extend the domains:
US $23.99 linuxmafia.com
US $24.99 unixmercenary.net

Don't settle for cruddy registrars.  The market beckons.

And, remember, domain owners:  You also needn't rely on vendors'
"reminder" e-mails to track impending renewals.  Perl script "d-check"
and /usr/sbin/cron are your friends.

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/preventing-expiration.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/

#DomainRegistrar 
#DomainRieistrars
#domain
#Registrar
#CentralNIC