In my post a couple days ago about why I hate Network Solutions, I held up directNic.com as a not-sleezy alternative to Network Solutions. A friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, commented and pointed out that DirectNic is also sleezy. Here is said friend’s experience with directNic:
The directNic guy is a major domain-stealer / squatter who abuses his position as registrar to that end. Sorta like a domain-squatter with superpowers.
I ran into trouble with them when my [first initial, last name]@rice.edu email address expired. I had some domains with DirectNic which were soon to expire, but I had lost my DirectNic password. I figured it would be no big deal to contact them and have my account changed to [first initial, last name]@alumni.rice.edu; the same person, obviously enough. This is what I got in response:
Greetings,
First of all, you are not the owner of the directNIC account whose username is ‘[character name used in paper-based role playing game in 8th grade]‘, and login information will ONLY be sent to the owner of a directNIC account. Thus, you must have the owner of the directNIC account to contact us. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Thank You
Khanh Ngo
DirectNIC
At the time, I didn’t understand why they were stonewalling me. I didn’t care to deal with the attitude so I figured I’d just let my domains lapse. I backordered with another service, and I waited.
As it turns out, that’s exactly how DirectNic’s scam works. When a customer’s domain lapses, they don’t release it like you’d expect. Instead, they transfer it to a shell company and hold it for ransom. I didn’t want to suffer the indignity of buying my own domains back, so I switched all my sites to new domains instead.
I searched google and found that the same thing had happened to other people, such as this guy.
Holding expired domains for ransom isn’t the only way DirectNic abuses its power as registrar. It appears that they also register domains based on search results.
Anyway, that’s my experience with DirectNic. It’s been years now, and a directNic shell company is STILL squatting on one of the domains I registered through them.
That sucks. I’ve been using them ever since Donato recommended them in 1999 or 2000, but I did transfer all my domains except one to godaddy purely for cost reasons. I haven’t had a bad experience with them, but haven’t wound up in the same situation, either.
The same thing happened to me. One of the sites I have picked up was originally created and bought by another web developer who slacked off and let it lapse. As a result, when I picked it up the site the domain name had been picked up by directNIC and held for a 250 USD ransom to repurchase.
Apparently, since the site was the home of an actual company site they probably figured they’d pump it for all it’s worth.
Since then, they are still repurchasing the name every year and the whole ended up moving to a different domain name. I would be happy to see DirectNIC go out of business due to lawsuits or changes to the laws and standards for domain name seller practices.
For being certified as an official domain name registrar they do some really shady s***. IMO they have earned a negative 5 stars rating in my book. I would’ve considered using them as a long term supplier for domain names for many websites to come but they obviously aren’t interested in anything more than making a few quick bucks by screwing people.
Nuff said.
Bastards all. What directNic does should be illegal.
yes it true, I seen it from the inside - those guys have been doing it for years, no wonder they have a whole legal staff on payroll.
This is a normal practice done by all registrars. Crappy as it seems welcome to Free Enterprise and technically you don’t own a domain the registry leases the use to you for a year.
As for the “Stonewalling” you are responsible for keeping your contact info current. If you can’t prove you own the account in question you cannot access it. This doesnt prevent you from reregistering the domain. Most registrars will allow you to reregister without the account info as long as you arent trying to change the Domain info. I have done this before with Gandi.net,Godaddy,and Directnic when I have lost an email address and was in the process of proving the account was mine
I just pulled my domains from them. They claimed I was offer the limit for the free hosting. (I was but, was not aware of it.) They claim to have sent out an email 3 days before deleting the site. Given how many spam filters block Directnic not a good idea to use email! Had been a fan of theirs but now spending my weekend transfering friends websites off of their site. Guess in the end you get what you pay for!
Direct NIC is the worst. They deleted my site and then sent an email saying it was over the limit. Horrible customer service. they never called me back. They are the worst. Do not sign p with them!!!
I have been using them for years with a single major issue. With all the domain hijacking that goes on, I find it amazing that you folks are complaining about them going the extra mile to ensure it doesn’t happen to you. I guess people just like to complain. Over the years I’ve registered and maintained more than 50 domains with them. No issues.
As for customer service, it’s email based, so it’s not the fastest thing on the planet, but they have always resolved my problems and complaints.
During Katrina, they managed to only go off-line for a day or so. That’s some pretty excellent service in my book.