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[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jim Stockford (jim at well.com):

> * get away from netsol asap
>     The problem I had was that I tried: called netsol and
> explained I wanted to move the names to consolidate all
> my domain names under joker.com and could they please
> unlock the names for transfer, I notified joker to get
> the names. Joker (much) later replied that they could not.
> Netsol very soon after sent me notice that the domains
> were to expire. Somewhere in that history I paid another
> bunch of money to netsol, which then informed me that my
> domains were due to expire....
>     I got discouraged (again).

First of all, my sympathies repeatedly having to go through that.

Second, it's not _just_ you reporting difficulties transferring domains
away from NetSol.  As the rump registry half of the old InterNIC (which
was ordered in 1998 by ICANN and the US Dept. of Commerce to split
itself into a retail operation = registrar and a backend shared database
= registry), NetSol has a lot of unenthusiastic legacy customers
speculatively eyeing newer competing registrars.  Therefore, it has an
incentive to make departure tricky, and is widely suspected of doing so.

At the same time, there are procedural steps that are well documented
and must be followed or no transfer will occur no matter whom you
telephone and what you say.  On a quick glance, it looks like you missed
the most vital step, getting an Authorization code from NetSol and
conveying it to Joker.com.

http://www.networksolutions.com/support/preparing-a-domain-name-for-a-transfer-out-of-network-solutions/


Also, as I keep telling people, but the message never seems to sink in,
never, ever do anything with a wanted domain within the last 30 days
before expiration _other than_ renewing it.  Don't trying to transfer to
a new registrar at that time.  Don't try to change the domain's owner 
(registrant) at that time.  Heck, don't even attempt to adjust the
roster of authoritative nameservers or change the Administrative,
Technical, or Billing Contacts at that time.  Pay the renewal first, and
_then_, _after_ the renewal goes through, make your changes.

Why?  Because registrars seem to become accident-prone when you start
initiating changes just before scheduled expiration.  Also, why the hell
are you letting a wanted domain approach expiration in the first place?
What the hell do you think you're achieving?  More months and years away
from expiration are a protective buffer:  They are to domain ownership
what altitude and airspeed are to an airplane, i.e., averting crashes.

You should not get close to expiration before initiating transfer to
'get your money's worth out of the old registrar', a novice error common
among people failing to realise that _all_ registrars give arriving
transfers credit for all remaining months and years you had prepaid for
your domain at the old registrar.

By contrast, when a domain has a nice long (say, six months or more)
runtime, that is an _excellent_ time to go through the transfer process,
because any missteps or delays or need to try again become mere
annoyances rather than crises.