ItsYourDomain Deleted My Domain
ItsYourDomain, one of my domain name registrars, deleted one of my domains without notification, blackmailed me into paying a fee to reinstate the domain, and then refused to allow me to transfer the domain to another registrar.
Naturally, I sent off a complaint letter to ICANN, the international authority that regulates domain name registration.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN),
I wish to file a complaint about the registrar ItsYourDomain.com and its predatory business practices. I believe they violated terms of their registry-registrar agreement by not allowing proper notice of imminent domain expiration and subsequently fraudulently overcharging me for a service that was contrived and unnecessary. Furthermore, they violated the rule that states that I can view and edit the contact information for the domain at any time. They also violated their own published terms of service agreement.
I have owned the domain zoho.org since it was first created on December 27, 1999. For the last two years I have used the domain for an alumni website for the employees of the defunct Zoho Corporation (I was a founding employee) that closed its doors in June of 2001.
On January 3, 2004, I attempted to make a periodic update to the website only to find that the domain was inactive. Not remembering who the original registrar was, I performed a whois and discovered that the sponsoring registrar was R85-LROR, or ItsYourDomain.com, a wholly owned division of InnerWise (1005 West Wise Road, Schaumburg, IL 60193) — even though I later discovered by searching old email records that I had originally registered with domainstuffetc.com. I logged in with the username and password used when I created the domain and checked ItsYourDomain’s on-line domain management system. According to their system, my zoho.org domain had been deleted.
My understanding is that the registrar agreement allows them to delete domains after the registrant has been notified of the pending deletion. I did not receive any emails from them indicating either that the domain was about to expire or that it would be deleted, even though the email address they had for me was still valid and accessible. The policies on ItsYourDomain.com state “You will be notified via email that renewal fees are due at least thirty (30) days prior to the expiration date of a domain name registration. You will receive additional notifications as the expiration date approaches. All emails will be sent to the email address of the domain name account holder and the billing contact. You are required to keep the email address of the domain name account holder and the billing contact current. We are not responsible for the loss or misdirection of the email expiration notices, including but not limited to, emails lost due to an invalid email address in our system, a spam filter on the mail server, or any other impediment to delivery. Emails are sent as a courtesy only.” I fulfilled my part of the agreement that stated I would keep the email addresses current, but they failed to notify me at all. I do not have a spam filter installed on the mail server. This is not a case of lost or misdirected emails. They simply did not email me of the impending expiration, a violation of both the terms of the registry-registrar agreement and their terms of service agreement.
Furthermore, once I discovered that they had in fact deleted the domain without my knowledge, they charged me an unreasonable $100 to recover the domain name while at the same time denying me the option to transfer the domain to a more reputable registrar. Those people who refuse to pay the extortion will lose their domain names because someone else will register the domain name instead.
That seems like extortion to me!
They also did not extend a grace period in which to renew the domain registration. While that is neither against the law nor contrary to their new policies, I believe that it is unethical and deceptive to disallow a grace period when combined with the charging of a $100 “recovery” fee.
I firmly believe that ItsYourDomain intentionally did not send me a notice of expiration, as it is in their financial interest to surprise registrants with expired domains in order to profit from the $100 “recovery” surcharge.
Just as bad is that — even after I paid the total of $114.95 — they kept my domain in redemption status, refusing me access to changing my DNS information, not letting me view, verify, or change my contact information, or to change anything about my domain. They locked the domain, preventing its deletion, renewal, transfer, and update, without a mechanism to remove the lock. ItsYourDomain is denying the transfer of the zoho.org domain to the preferred GoDaddy.com registrar because GoDaddy cannot complete the transfer until ItsYourDomain provides me with an authorization code to give to GoDaddy, which ItsYourDomain has not done. There are no phone numbers for customer service and they aren’t responding to emails. The inabilities to make necessary informational changes and registrar transfers are violations of the terms of the registry-registrar agreement, and are also a violation of their own posted “terms of service” policies which state that “you may change any of the domain name registration information at any time.”
The zoho.org domain is active once again, and I am continuing to try to transfer the domain to the GoDaddy registrar, but I am angry and frustrated at ItsYourDomain’s unethical business practices.
Please take whatever disciplinary action necessary against InnerWise and/or ItsYourDomain to prevent this from happening to other innocent domain registrants. Also, anything you can do to help me both transfer my domain to GoDaddy and receive a refund of the extorted $100 would be appreciated.
cc: ICANN, Chicago BBB, InterNIC, InnerWise, Godaddy, Illinois State Representative Paul Froehlich
Do yourself a favor: avoid InnerWise, its registrar business arm known as ItsYourDomain, and all of its more than 6500 affiliates.
I have also been ripped off by Domainaway.com. They did not let me do a registrar change for weeks. They declined all registrar changes for weeks which have been done several times by my provider. Nine days before the domain registration period ended they informed me that the change was declined cause it must be before “10 days before the registration period ends”. WHAT A SCAM! Read more information on my page which you can get when you click at the URL Link. I have also setup a link to this page. Crosslinking pages is the best way to make them all famous!
Wenn Sie auf die Verbindung von Michael klicken, bekommen Sie einen Fehler 404.
The word is getting around. ItsYourDomain and an affiliate DomainsNext are holding a half dozen of my domains hostage illegally and will not transfer them to another registrar despite multiple requests. It looks like my only option, apart from complaining to ICANN, is to complain to the California and Illinois attorneys general.
I’m trying to transfer three .com/.net domains away from domainsnext/INNERWISE/ItsYourDomain since January 8th, 2004. Either, the actions of domainsnext, who are, as far as I can tell, identical with ItsYourDomain, constitute serious neglect or fraud. Also, I agree with Richard that ItsYourDomain and its various affiliates seem to be running an extortion scheme. Initially, I tried to transfer the domains frizz.com, frizz.net, frizz.org and classfactory.com to a more reputable registrar. The first transfer of the .org domain failed without notice, for the .com/.net domains I received the notorious domainsnext E-Mail that I would have to send them a signed and notarized lettr of intent plus a cashiers check of US$15 per name to authorize the transfers. Of course, all transfers failed. No one in Europe is using cashiers checks, it cost me a fee of 15 Euro to get one. Another 11,60 Euro for the notarizing. 3,60 Euro for registered mail. 49 Euros for a check of $60. All documents should have reached domainsnext by January 20th by the very latest. On March 10th, I received a transfer key for the .org domain, and the transfer succeeded *juhu* They sent me another mail that my other .com/.net domains had ‘manually’ been added to their ack list and I should now go ahead with the transfer. However, two more attempts to transfer failed. For each transfer attempt, I received E-Mails from domainsnext that I should send them another signed and notarized letter and more US$ 15 transfer fees. As those E-Mails put it, this practice “will definitely stop fraudulent transfers from taking place.” Apparently, domainsnext sent notice to my new registrar that at least a remaining registration period of 60 days is needed to authorize a transfer. Which I had, in the beginning
I also like the term “malicious domain hijacking” mentioned in the mails of domainsnext *rofl* But wait, it STILL gets better. As domainsnext is not answering to ANY support requests, I made contact with ItsYourDomain. Here is what the write: >>> Letter from ItsYourDomain.com “We understand DomainsNext has certain provisions regarding transfers, but unfortunately, ICANN does not have a policy regarding registrar transfers and they do not govern Registrar Resellers. The fact is, you did not purchase through us, did not pay us, but by purchasing through DomainsNext you have agreed to abide by their Terms Of Service. We are hoping you can handle this issue directly through DomainsNext as we have not done any business with you directly. Thanks, Brian Toon” >>>>>>> End of Letter. Of course, there is an ICANN policy regarding registrar transfers. What ItsYourDomain is implying is that there is no such policy for registrar’s RESELLERS. So, there! There is no apparent difference between ItsYourDomain and domainsnext. I was even able to use my domainsnext account to log into ItsYourDomain directly - if THAT is not a joke then what??? For those customers wishing to remain with domainsnext, fine. For the others, two options: (1) Legal action against ItsYourDomain/domainsnext for fraud and breach of contracts. (2) Let your new registrar handle the situation. ICANN may be drafting policies, but its VERISIGN who are running the registry for .com/.net. In case of a problem, you new registrar is to complain to the registry and they subsequently have to sort it out. I asked ICANN on the phone and they said it is pretty much the same as when you are switching phone companies. The new company handles your connection and sorts out problems with the old. Also, I think someone needs to take ItsYourDomain out of business, for the sake of competition of registrars. Best luck to all of us 
Itsyourdomain.com charged my business partner’s corporate American Express card for two questionable transactions — $25.90 and $129.50; however,none of the charges appeared from “ItYourDomain” — the charges in questionappear on the American Express billing as “Computer Programming.” In other words, there is no way possible to have correlated these charges with “ItsYourDomain.” Furthermore, the telephone number that appears beside the charges is bogus. It is not a valid 10-digit telephone number and we could not reach ANYONE to confirm the charges in question. As a result, they appeared to be fraudulent and a charge back was issued. Itsyourdomain.com received a chargeback because the sale could not be verified. They did not attempt to contact me to discuss the matter. Rather they unilaterally removed my website, and all access to ALL of my domains (even those that are paid for) claiming the right to do so because of the chargeback. Further, they do not return any phone calls, and are not willing to correct the problem unless I pay them the amount charged back, plus $200 to reinstate the account. My business income is derived solely from leads generated through ads which are referred directly to our website. NO one has been able contact me now for 4 days! Thousands of dollars already spent on advertising, and because of a simple billing dispute/error, they have caused me irreparable harm and loss of income to my business. A simple phone call would have averted all of this by alerting me to the problem, and of course, they never even gave me a chance to pay by cash or check because they never notified me there was any problem. It wasn’t until they shut it down and AFTER I spent an entire day troubleshooting with my web host to try to find out what was happening that I finally heard back from Brian Toon explaining what they did claiming they are within their TOS! Of course they didn’t notifiy me, they made an extra $200 fee to reinstate, when they could have simply picked up the phone or sent an email to clear up the problem (no profit in that!) Brian Toon handled this, and it is our opinion that he took unilateral action in negligent and/or bad faith. Interestingly enough I have been a client of ItsYourDomain for since December 2000 and have 28 registered domains. One would think I would be entitled to a courtesy call asking me why there was a chargeback before they cut me off. What they did should be criminal, as even a landlord can not evict a tenant without notice of that action. We are planning a lawsuit, so please contact me to be a part of it. Thank you!
Wow. My story pales in comparison. Since my total losses were approximately $50 plus a few days of wasted time, after reparation, I’m not looking to sue anyone for that — more wasted time for me. In your place, though, I’d probably go after them. If it helps, I’m willing to provide copies of all correspondence with ItsYourDomain if it is needed as part of a class-action lawsuit (if it were to reach that point, then, yes, I’d like to also reap any compensation.) - RDL
does anyone have a phone number for itsyourdomain.com technical support ?
847-895-4301 Its useless, Its an answering machine. I haven’t had a return call yet. They are still holding my domain hostage.
How wonderful! After writing to my Congressman I have a response! None the less it is wholly inadequate! We have jumped through your hoops long enough- [as well as others caught in your trap!] now I’ll let Congress address the issue! Your response was stupid -albeit a great effort to ACT like you’re doing something. TRANSFER THE SITE NOW! People are sick of your manipulative measures! BTW Congress was Bcc’d this message! Should you care to discuss this email/problem with me, email your PHONE NUMBER- where I can talk to a person! - Ginger Berlin
Richard… I have read this and your follow-ups and I was wondering if this was ever resolved? My guess is no but I am still rooting for you anyway.
beckerbuns from geocaching…
I have found that Brian Toon (itsyourdomain.com) has been quite helpful and has responded quickly to my emails. I recently did not renew my domain name on time, and was quite panicky about losing it, however, Brian extended my renewal date (twice) and has been very prompt in replying to me. Just thought it would be fair to add this comment as I felt it was a job well done.
How nice we can add our ramblings to the official RIP OFF REPORT. Go ahead, add your comments! These people should be put out of business.
Network Solutions is right there with them. Same story same problem. Their charge is $35.
Since the story continues on other pages, I’m closing out this page for comments. If you have anything to add, finished reading the rest of the saga, and then add your comments at the end. Thanks!