Confusion runs rampant!

I have a domain name registered with a certain hosting company (whose URL will remain nameless else I help with their SEO. Don’t want that to happen!). I had set up an account with them for testing purposes for a couple of clients of mine. They were interested in having extra domains and so forth and wanted to check this host out.

I set up a test account with this host and as soon as the proverbial ink dried, things went down hill fast! From email issues, slow support response, sporadic downtime and a tyranical forum mod who thought too highly of himself…..I found myself in web hosting Hell!

This Forum Mod was incredible! From outright censorship to actually telling users if we didn’t like the way he moderated the forum to just leave…it was unbelievable! Claims to be operating per the company’s instructions. That alone gave me pause.

Now, I’ve never been subjected to this kind of treatment from ANY company. Let alone a web hosting provider. To top it off, he (Mod) excuses himself by saying that he is a volunteer and isn’t a paid employee. He’s still representing the company…paid or not. To top it off, management seemed totally indifferent to all of this abusive treatment. What does that say about this company then?

I was gone in just one week. Packed up, closed the account and hauled tail outta there!

Now, back to the present (some 60 days to be accurate) and I’m trying to get my domain transfered away from them. No way am I going to leave it there and put up with who knows what next!
Well, the transfer process had gone on fairly smooth, unlocked domain, removed privacy, initiated the transfer request…after waiting a respectable amount of time and then checking on it’s progress… the brakes screeched to a halt! I was unable to transfer it (so far) because this host had decided to stop using GoDaddy/Wild West Domains for whatever reason and go with their own in house registrar system. WTH!?

My domain now shows as being registered at a different company at the top (where it usually shows this info) and still shows as “Transfer Prohibited”. My changes had not gone through as I assumed they would have.

I never recieved any emails from the company on this but if you call their toll-free number, the first thing you hear is that IF you recieved an email stating that your domain was unlocked, to disregard it. I would have liked to have known about this myself.

Two phone calls later, two different support techs and I’m told that whoever did the whois did it wrong?! That if they did it right they would have seen the domain was still registered at the company?! That I was to wait an additional 24 to 48 hours for any changes to propagate!

Sounds like fudge to me!

I did the intial whois on three different sites myself plus the host I have my other account with did their own. All pointed to this newly fabricated registrar as being the registrar of my domain. Not the company. So I’m now back to square one with this and it’s time to re-evaluate the situation.

Now, I wait. I wait on my changes to propagate through the system. I wait to see what kind of “fudge” the company comes up with next if this doesn’t go through.

I’m not normally a betting man but I’m putting my odds at 50/50 that this will actually go through as planned. I’ll post back on this later as more develops.

Update 2/1/2007:

Still no luck with the transfer. The company is telling me now that my ticket will be given a higher priority. Uh, ok but let’s just get this issue resolved, eh?

Update 2/5/2007:

You’re not gonna believe this…someone over at the company re-locked my domain on me twice now after I had un-locked it. Sounds a lot like fudge going on over there!

Now, I know full well how to go about transferring a domain name from one registrar to another. I’ve done it enough times in the last 5 years it’s imprinted in my brain. What this company is doing is rediculous at best. Being told that they’re “looking into it” doesn’t really cut it much anymore.

I commented the company CEO’s blog to see if going right to the horses mouth will have any effect. Guess I’m in for yet another wait. Nuts! Well, one things for sure….when this little drama finally comes to a close? It’s gonna get some noticeable PR.
Update 2/6/2007:

Got an email from the rep at the company last night. I copied it below:

This domain really is unlocked and the way to get this domain to be able to transfer away is you will have to contact your new registrar and have them contact the registry to see why they are displaying the transfer of the domain as prohibited even though we have it unlocked. This is an objective of the winning registrar of the domain.

If you have further questions on this matter feel free to reply.

Oh great! Now they want to toss the issue out the window for someone else to handle. Real nice! You own the new registrar you spoke of and now you’re saying my new one will have to contact your new one? What a load of fudge! The saga continues!

Update 2/7/2007:

Well, an email has been sent to support over at the company pertaining to this petty situation. Giving them an adequate amount of time to release my domain for transfer or be faced with a complaint filed at ICANN as well as going public with this. I’m sure there are plenty of forums out there that specialize in the web hosting / domain registrar industry. Might make for a good read or a warning to anyone that may be considering this company for anything.

Oh, almost forgot! Now I’ve been banned over at their forums! The claim is that an old user has begun to start trouble. Banned forever! Drats! Whatever will I do?
Too bad the forum mod didn’t think to ban my IP first and then my account. I had already copied and pasted all my posts/replies to my text editor. The entire time I was showing as online too! Bet that got his shorts in a bunch!

This gets better by the minute.

Update 2/8/2007:

Emailed the big boss himself over at the company and included all the details including my being banned from their forums. Not sure what response I’ll get, if any but if the mice can’t figure out how to do something so simple…maybe the cat can? We’ll see.

Also got another email from the company’s so called support saying that after checking my server (huh?) it seems my domain is unlocked. Duh! No kidding. No wonder the company’s customers have been complaining lately about support or rather, a lack of it.

At any rate seeing as this blog is so new and hasn’t fully propagated across the internet as yet not to mention being relatively link free at this point, I don’t think the company has too much to be concerned about. Once I start going public with this though, well, that’s another matter.
Update 2/14/2007:

Yeah, Happy Valentine’s Day! Still a wait in progress. The email I sent to the company’s CEO was merely forwarded on to the same domain tech that has been feeding me fudge the whole time. The CEO didn’t even have the decency to respond himself. That also says alot.

The email to pir.org (Public Interest Registry) that I sent came back with some new details. Seems that when this company created their new registrar at the beginning of this year (or the latter part of last year) , the expiration dates (read: creation dates) of any domains they had in their registry were modified to indicate a new date of 1/2/2007. Or, at least mine was.

The domain tech responded to this by saying:

 I am sorry but the creation date is a floating date it can float up

to 30 days and the domain registration may have taken a day or two to

process which means the creation date has the potential to float from

the date of purchase (11/28/2006) to the listed creation date which is

01/02/2007 this is the date recognized by the .org registry and this is

the date that determines whether the domain is old enough to be

transfered. (in other words you got a free 30 days of registration.) You will

need to transfer the domain once the domain is past 60 days old in

reference to the creation date and not the purchase date. I am sorry this

has been a frustration to you but this domain cannot be transferred away

according to ICANN policy.

So, I’m to assume I got 30 days of free domain registration? Yeah, right! This really sounds a lot like someone doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing. I ran the whois search on the 3rd day of my account’s existance and the results were identical to what they are now except for the expiration date and the Registrar’s name! Bet I’d still get a renewal notice around the date for 11/28 though!

If these people even think that what they’re shoveling is even remotely anything other than fudge…they are sadly mistaken. I’ve been keeping all emails from them as well as the posts/replies from the forum to offer as evidence that this company is a crock. I’ll also be more than glad to tell anyone who asks who this company is.

So for now…still waiting on this new date for transfer to pass so I can try this again. Wonder if it’ll go through this time? I’m most certainly NOT holding my breath.

More on this later as new developments occur.
Update 2/26/2007:

Any takers on whether this will actually go through?
Update 3/3/2007:

It’s been 59 days now since this senseless drivel began. One more day till Transfer Request #3! Anyone wanting to bet on this one?

As of this moment (and on at least three (3) different whois sites) my domain still shows as Transfer Prohibited. One more day to see if the issue will be finally resolved or still continue to be full of fudge! Hmm, what’s that I’m smelling?
Update 3/8/2007:

The domain is now pending transfer as of this update which leads me to be a bit optimistic of the outcome. But, there has been some more hanky panky going on at BH with my settings! It seems that they have yet again been changed to a LOCKED status and the nameservers show my domain as pointing at BH’s servers instead of at Lunarpages. A whois search shows otherwise but their domain control panel is very misleading.

Get a grip BH! Stay the hell out of my account’s settings! This is not the professional behavior one would expect from a so-called #1 rated web hosting provider. It’s the antics of a juvenile! Pathetic!

Update 3/12/2007:

I’m in a bit of shock here! The domain finally transfered over to my present host. This is awesome news and much anticipated. BH finally released it for transfer after all of the above fudge they put me through. Amazing! Now the site can be developed without concern of the domain name being monkeyed with which I’m sure there would have been more issues forthcoming
Now to bring all of this sordid bunch of fudge into perspective, let me ask you this: “Why have anyone go through all this crap over a simple domain name?” It’s what I’ve repeatedly asked others to which their answer has been pretty much the same: “They obviously don’t know what they’re doing!”

My last step in this saga of sorts will be to add the copies of the emails and PM’s that I’ve received since the beginning and you judge for yourself why I left BH. I’ll add them in asap as for the moment, I’m recuperating from a rough virus. Stay tuned!
Update (Final one hopefully) 7/13/07

Well, it’s been a while since all this mess occurred but as promised, here are some excerpts from my emails or PM’s from Bluehost:

From a Forum Mod there calling himself “areidmtm” pertaining to a question about catch-all email accounts:

If catch-all accounts are SO important, then you are welcome to get a refund and find a host that will suit your needs. And we all now know of this issue and if you continue to have issue then you can take it up with support or even matt himself.

Right after this I noticed the thread I posted asking about forum censorship was deleted and I was banned from this forum. Never to be allowed admittance again. Or so the screen told me when I attempted to access the forums again early last night.

The thread I was referring to being censored had to do with the catch-all email account issue that many of us had been (trying) to keep up with.

Feedback to a hosting company…this one or any other can be a very useful tool for making sound business decisions concerning the company’s users. Censoring it is counter productive as you have already seen by others protesting their threads being deleted and being told (by this same Moderator) to more or less: “Leave if you don’t like it!”

Here’s an exchange that occurred right after joining their forums:

To : areidmtm
Date : 2006-11-28 06:22
Title : New User Question
——————————————————————————–
Good morning!

I am new here at Bluehost and the Forums and replied to a topic already.

My question is this: Am I allowed a link to my website in my forum sig? It is a web design business but I will not be soliciting business nor spamming anyone because of it.

I read the forum rules and the read before posting thread and wanted to ask now in case I may have violated any policies. If so, I will remove it.

Let me know what you decide and I’ll go from there.

Thanks!

============================================

To : me
Date : 2006-11-28 10:29
Title : Re: New User Question
——————————————————————————–
[quote=areidmtm]No, that’s is fine. As long as you’re not spamming, then that’s fine.

The only think that I am concerned about is that the site is hosted elsewhere . Do you have sites here at bluehost? If not, then there is really no need for you to be here. If you need help with your web site, then you should go to your hosting provider’s forum site.

Thanks[/quote]

============================================

To : areidmtm
Date : 2006-11-28 10:40

Title : Re: New User Question
——————————————————————————–

That’s interesting.

Yes, I am in the process of building a site to host here. Where the other is hosted is not relevant.

I was replying to a topic concerning spam and servers being blocked due to it. Not asking for advice or help but, more to the point…offering some insight to a problem we all face with email.

I know my way around the web hosting industry and am fully aware of various aspects of it. I have been in business for 5 years now and am quite familiar with several different web hosts, domain name registrars, etc.

Tell me this isn’t a sign of things to come concerning hosting a site here or posting in the forums. I was of a mind to move some of my business here in stages but now…I’m beginning to wonder.

Tell you what. If it will put your mind at ease, I’ll remove the link to my business’s web site. No need in it causing you any concern.

This is the type of thing one can/could still expect from Bluehost and their employees. Sad but true. I sincerely hope that no one else gets this version of spectacular customer service treatment like I did.

BTW, none of the above excerpts have been tampered with, edited or anything. Shoot, why mess with them? Jerry Springer might want ‘em!