Help! We're about to lose our domains!

May 12, 2008 9:48 AM

How do we get our domains back from a less-than-scrupulous host?

I work for a marketing firm that hosts about 25 sites. We decided to switch hosting providers, and our current provider is not cooperating (he claims we owe him money; my boss claims we paid him, etc).
We have until Wednesday, when he will be switching off all of our sites. It's especially complicated because he is also our registrar (a reseller through ENOM). We have hosting all set up on our new provider, but how do we get the domains transferred over?
Should we go through ENOM directly? Will they even listen to us? All of our domains have Plesk 8.2.0 installed... is there a way to hack our way into it? We have FTP access still; can we modify some file through FTP that will let the transfer go through?

What do we do? HELP!

posted by fvox13 to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I suggest an attorney.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:53 AM on May 12, 2008

You should do a whois lookup on your domains and see who the administrative contacts for your domain are. It should be someone at your company. If it is, that will make it easier. The most direct route at that point would be to contact ENom ASAP.

If the admin contact is your hosting provider, you are in a tough spot and will probably want to contact a lawyer.
posted by Good Brain at 9:54 AM on May 12, 2008

Even if you have access to Plesk, you're not going to be able to switch the registration over (I don't think).

The best thing to do would be to contact ENOM directly and get them to switch your name servers over to your new hosting provider. The name servers are the one that physically resolve DNS entries into IP addresses.

(and yeah, do a whois and see who the domain is actually registered too. That's the first step)
posted by delmoi at 10:00 AM on May 12, 2008

Contrary filter: while you're legally in the right here, if the names are that important, it might be best to swallow and pay whatever they want... and then work to get that back through legal action.

I mean, how much money can some domain registrations really be? How much trouble is that worth, exactly? And how will those clients of yours feel when they find out you allowed their sites to die because you refused (rightly or wrongly) to pay twenty bucks for something? You could be exposing yourself to many big legal problems of your own if that happens.

If you want to try to fight it out in 48hrs: uour Plesk/FTP ideas are dead ends. ENOM is your best bet. Look up (print out) the contact info for all the domains first, then call and try to find a real person there. Explain all of the above. They've likely heard it before.
posted by rokusan at 10:07 AM on May 12, 2008

I'm guessing that more than the domain name registration costs are at issue, since the same company provides web hosting.

You probably want to have compiled a complete list of all bills and payments with the company, that will prove that you're up to date on payment. Then send that, along with a request for control of the domain names (passwords, changing the registrant and admin contact info, or whatever you need to change registrars), to the company. Use e-mail _and_ certified paper mail. You can send the same information to your own company's lawyer if needed.

Call them to make sure they've received the information. Ask what else they need. Be persistent. Be polite, though.

The domain names are really their only immediate leverage against clients - probably not you - who don't pay, so be aware that just having Enom change the name servers isn't really enough; if your current domain name registrar is the administrative contact for the domain names, they can just switch the name servers back.

You need to settle the payment dispute, one way or the other. It's not unheard of for bosses to say "Oh yeah, we paid that" when it's not entirely true, and it's not unheard of for service providers to say "you still owe us money" when that's not entirely true; either party might just be sincerely mistaken, so a clear statement of where the money is and has gone will really help a lot. It should be a solid first step, anyway, to helping you communicate more clearly with the old hosting/registrar company.
posted by amtho at 10:25 AM on May 12, 2008

Are the domain names in your name? For .com or .net names, the new host should be able to take care of it for you.
posted by winston at 11:28 AM on May 12, 2008