I have just had a very disturbing situation with Dotster, where I have been registering domains for years. Their whole attitude seems to have changed for worse since I started with them.
What happened was that a Chiropractor client wanted to discontinue the domain his site had originally been using and change it to another. This actually happened a couple of years ago, but it didn't cause any trouble until last week, because the original domain had been paid for two years.
About two months ago, when I got a notice that the original domain was about to expire, I tried to just delete it. There was no way to do it, and no way to take it off the client's list of domains. I should have persisted at the time, but frankly, I forgot about it until suddenly a big screen-filling notice started filling every page on the site stating that the domain had expired and to click here to find out how to renew it. Clicking the link took you to the Dotster domain renewal page, with no option other than to renew the domain. I almost fell for it, almost paid for it myself just to get past the block, but something just felt very wrong.
So I called up Dotster's tech support. The guy there, somebody who said his name was Ron, said it was my coding issue and he couldn't do anything about it. I said he could turn the thing off, or change the Name Servers to his own or something like that. He got rude after that, tried to make me feel stupid, his attitude became snide. That's when I decided Dotster was not getting any more of my business. I'm moving all my clients and my own accounts to another registrar.
Dotster has also raised its prices over the years. I forget what it was in the beginning... I recall registering a couple of domains for $8.95 or some such, some at $12.95 and now it is up to $16.95 per annum for .com and .net. It looks like GoDaddy is charging $10.69 a year for those, and has a deal on transfers. I haven't looked see what others are charging nowadays.
But first I wanted to solve the problem which I finally got done with the help of PowerDNN's excellent support staff, who were professional, polite and treated me like a customer should be treated. It wasn't as simple as one might think, because DotNetNuke is kind of complicated and that old domain name was hidden in several places, some of them kind of obscure. I found some of the code and they found the rest and got it resolved so the client's site is no longer infected by Dotster's little "virus".
So ... Who has a suggestion for a good replacement for Dotster. I've heard good things about GoDaddy, but I haven't ever used them, and really don't want any more gotchas ... (I've already had enough gotchas for this year).
What registrars do you use and have not had unpleasant experiences with? All I want is one that doesn't overcharge and can be depended on. I think there are still businesses that run that way.
Doug
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Jul 18
Rick Faaberg Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18, 2010; 00:46
Rick Faaberg
Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18
Antonella Severo Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18, 2010; 02:08
Antonella Severo
Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18
Martin Sammtleben Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18, 2010; 03:05
Martin Sammtleben
Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18
Rick Faaberg Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18, 2010; 03:11
Rick Faaberg
Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
Jul 18
Martin Sammtleben Re: Recommended Domain Registrar
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