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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">It's a sad fact of life that too many companies are taken over by bean counters that think they can "improve" things by cutting costs and ignoring customers. They don't seem to realize that they will drive customers away and have less business in the long run.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div><br></div>
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On Sunday, June 2, 2024 at 08:14:40 PM PDT, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
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<div>Also posted to Mastodon at<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://infosec.exchange/@unixmercenary/112550224804042309" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://infosec.exchange/@unixmercenary/112550224804042309</a> :<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Update & conclusion: I knew Sales Dept. at UK-based multinational<br clear="none">CentralNic (who in 2019 bought out formerly meritorious registrar<br clear="none">IWantMyName) wouldn't get back to me until Monday, on my "Hey, don't you<br clear="none">want my money?" escalation, following Support refusing to extend my<br clear="none">domain and giving repeated nonsense answers.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">But then, a new thing: <br clear="none"><br clear="none">A "reminder" mail, saying my domain linuxmafia.com would soon autorenew,<br clear="none">charging US $21.49 to my credit card of record. <br clear="none"><br clear="none">Quoi? I never enable autorenew, anywhere, at any time. I checked:<br clear="none">Autorenew was (in a covert manner; see below) indeed set for both my<br clear="none">domains.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I'd been a customer of (the former, competent) NZ-based IWantMyName<br clear="none">firm, since about 2010. I'm certain I've never enabled autorenew. Why?<br clear="none">Because I insist payments be at my initiative, and reminders be sent by<br clear="none">my own scripts.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">These new clowns (it seems) had enabled autorenew without notice or<br clear="none">consult (isn't this actual business fraud?), probably around the time<br clear="none">renewals beyond one year became unavailable even through Support, and<br clear="none">available for 1 year only when the domain was soon to expire. <br clear="none"><br clear="none">Let's count the red flags:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">1. Support cites irrelevant canned text that doesn't answer customer's<br clear="none"> question. Support's capabilities seems limited to "push this button"<br clear="none"> rote tasks. Might be one of those shops where level-1 techs will be<br clear="none"> fired for saying anything outside dictated scripts.<br clear="none">2. Support then ghosts unsatisfied customer; there's no escalation path.<br clear="none">3. Extending domain registration is unsupported. Renewal (just before<br clear="none"> expiration) limited to one year.<br clear="none">4. No response from sales@ to a "Really, you don't want my money?"<br clear="none"> escalation. (Admittedly, this spilled over to the weekend.)<br clear="none">5. Autorenew added without customer permission. <br clear="none">6. Control to disable autorenew made difficult to spot, and non-obvious,<br clear="none"> within the customer webUI. (You must toggle a per-domain setting from<br clear="none"> "renew" to "expire".)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The last two red flags, the new ones, were the final straw, so I<br clear="none">immediately took my business to Gandi.net. Took an hour or two (might<br clear="none">have been faster if I'd looked at my e-mail at one point).<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Gandi.net's Web site is sensibly designed, modern, no annoyances.<br clear="none">Transfer process involved only a couple of polite upsell attempts<br clear="none">(e-mail services, etc.). Enabling public WHOIS was uncomplicated.<br clear="none">Domains can be extended for up to 8 years at any time (or 9 depending on<br clear="none">expiry date). Pricing is not rock-bottom, yet reasonable, and also is<br clear="none">public: <a shape="rect" href="https://www.gandi.net/en-US/domain/tld?prefix=c#tld-table" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.gandi.net/en-US/domain/tld?prefix=c#tld-table</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">(There are also bulk discount categories, for which, as a small<br clear="none">customer, I'm not qualified.)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Customer WebUI puts no impediment at all in the way of leaving any time<br clear="none">you wish, and not even the 60-day freeze on transferred-in domains many<br clear="none">registrars impose. Customer is not pushed towards autorenew, let alone<br clear="none">defaulted to it without permission.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Customer contracts and disclosures seem reasonable.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Minor nit: Customer WebUI doesn't have a link to find past billings and<br clear="none">payment records. However, upon payment you get e-mailed a PDF and a<br clear="none">direct link to re-download it.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">For the record, my "intro" pricing to transfer in:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">US $14.34 linuxmafia.com<br clear="none">US $15.74 unixmercenary.net<br clear="none"><br clear="none">My per-year price to extend the domains:<br clear="none">US $23.99 linuxmafia.com<br clear="none">US $24.99 unixmercenary.net<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Don't settle for cruddy registrars. The market beckons.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">And, remember, domain owners: You also needn't rely on vendors'<br clear="none">"reminder" e-mails to track impending renewals. Perl script "d-check"<br clear="none">and /usr/sbin/cron are your friends.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/preventing-expiration.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/preventing-expiration.html</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/pub/linux/network/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">#DomainRegistrar <br clear="none">#DomainRieistrars<br clear="none">#domain<br clear="none">#Registrar<br clear="none">#CentralNIC<div class="ydp1b75c2d1yqt2307371636" id="ydp1b75c2d1yqtfd76373"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">conspire mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br clear="none"></div></div>
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