Domain Registrar Blues
Its time to renew the domain names for this site and another one that I maintain. While researching alternatives to Network Solutions, I remembered seeing ads for
Go Daddy.com. This is one of those upstarts trying to dethrone Network Solutions. For those who don't know, Network Solutions by hook or crook, had the Domain Name registration business all to itself in the old days. I spent a couple of hours surfing the Go Daddy site and I was impressed by the company, so I decided to switch to them. I started the process at their site and for a little over $30 I was able to switch the domain names and get them renewed for 4 years. In contrast, to stay with Network Solutions it would have cost me $35 just to renew for 1 year. So, from a financial standpoint its a no-brainer.
Then the jumping through hoops began. I originally bought the sites through my hosting provider, which means I need to go through them whenever I need to make a change to the contact information for the sites. In this case, they had an old email address for me. My hosting providers technical support sent me an email saying they would send instructions in a separate email that would arrive in 15 minutes. A day later (Are they on dial-up or something?), I asked them to resend the information and then immediately got that straightened out. When it still wouldn't transfer, I called Networks Solutions to find out why and I found out that Network Solutions puts a "Domain Lock" on all of the sites under its jurisdiction. This is meant to stop hackers from "hijacking" sites without their owners permission, but it is much more effective at blocking people from switching away from them. That meant a call to my hosting provider, who gave me the instructions to make the change on Network Solutions site. (Why Network Solutions couldn't give me these instructions I don't know...) After another hour or so of work on Network Solutions site, I was able to disable the Registrar Lock. However, WHOIS still thinks that the registrar lock is active, so I called Network Solutions again and found out that "it can take 24 hours for the change to propagate throughout the whole Internet." According to the Customer Service Rep...WTF...Are they using dial-up too?
I'll have to wait another day to see if the changes are made. If they aren't, I'm going down the street to Network Solutions and I'm going to speak with them in person. Yes, they also live in Herndon. In talking with the Tech Rep, she asked why I was switching and on hearing that I was going to Go Daddy, she promptly offered 1000 airline miles if I would stay with them. No thanks. Then she offered to drop their rate to about a dollar over the Go Daddy Rate. Again I told her no thanks. She actually apologized that it wasn't lower, then she started ticking off all the ways they are better than Go Daddy. I hate that. Several years ago, I had an AOL account(it was $20 or $30 per month), originally for dialup access. Then my wife went to work at UUNET and we got DSL. I went a year or two signing into AOL through the DSL line. When I called to cancel the service they said they saw that I was signing in through a DSL line and I could keep my email address for just $3 per month. If they had told me early on that they had a plan like that, I probably would have stayed with them, but to wait until I was leaving to tell me I could have been paying just $3 per month was just horrible. That's like walking out of a dealership with a new car and having the salesman taunt you, "ha ha you spent $6000 more than you had to."
