Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer domains

["Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff,

That's correct, no one on this mailing list sees this as being a surprising
event.

Registerfly with an estimated 2 million domain names, is one of the top 10
domain registrars in the world, as measured by the total number of domains
under management. By their own admission in the court document mentioned
earlier, they recently failed to register or renew approximately 35-40 %
(75,000 / 200,000) of their customers' domains. Complaints are rampant, with
customers that paid for timely renewals later receiving notification that
their domains were expiring. To compound the problem, many people complain
that their domains are now locked at Registerfly, without the ability to
transfer out to another registrar. Customer accounts of customer support
being unresponsive or unreachable are also widespread. This is far from
being a small problem and certainly not representative of a secure and
stable DNS.

Given that Registerfly is ICANN accredited and ICANN's primary objective is
to maintain and ensure the security and stability of the DNS, what has ICANN
done and what should they do to protect domain registrants who are customers
of Registerfly? Note that Danny Younger's message was sent to Vint Cerf,
Chairman of ICANN's Board, nearly 3 months ago. What consumer benefits are
there to choosing an ICANN accredited registrar over one that is not? What
is ICANN doing to earn the $0.25 "tax" (without representation) for each
annual domain registration / renewal paid by domain registrants (who have no
influence on the shaping of ICANN policies)?

ICANN wants to eventually gain autonomy from the U.S. Department of
Commerce, but what have they demonstrated through past actions to prove that
they are capable of being autonomous? To the contrary, ICANN has repeatedly
shown that they do not act in the best interests of the public community of
domain registrants.

Sincerely,
Ted
Prophet Partners Inc.
http://www.ProphetPartners.com
http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com

CC: John M.R. Kneuer (Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and
Information, U.S. Department of Commerce - NTIA)
    Vint Cerf (Chairman of the Board, ICANN)
    Anick Jesdanun (Associated Press)
    Arik Hesseldahl (BusinessWeek)
    Paul Sloan (Business 2.0)
    Scott Ard (c|net)
    Rachel Rosmarin (Forbes)
    Adam Gaffin (NetworkWorld)
    Brian Krebs (The Washington Post)
    CNN News Tips
    The N.Y. Times News Tips


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer domains


> Ted and all,
>
>   Interesting, but not all that surprising.  On the surface it would seem
> that the allegations are more based on poor expense reporting mechanisms
> and even worse employee supervision or Registerfly is trying to cover
> up some mistakes in registrar management.
>
> Prophet Partners Inc. wrote:
>
> > A February 12, 2007 complaint was filed by UNIFIEDNAMES, INC. d/b/a
> > Registerfly and JOHN NARUSZEWICZ v. KEVIN MEDINA in the U.S. District
Court
> > of New Jersey. It states that as of December 2006, roughly 200,000
domains
> > were registered on behalf of customers and that approximately 75,000 of
> > these customer domains were lost since January 2007, due to the actions
of
> > the Defendant, which resulted in failure to pay the required registry
fees.
> >
> > The Plaintiff alleges that the Defendant wasted company money to pay for
a
> > personal escort, rent on a Miami penthouse, personal credit card bills
and
> > liposuction, in addition to withdrawing thousands of dollars from
company
> > accounts for personal spending.
> >
> > http://registerflies.com/docman/cat_view-2.html
> >
> > This would certainly explain the Registerfly problems addressed by Danny
> > Younger on November 30, 2006.
> > http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg05232.html
> >
> > However, ICANN's failure to act and protect Registerfly customers
remains
> > unexplained.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Ted
> > Prophet Partners Inc.
> > http://www.ProphetPartners.com
> > http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com
>
> Regards,
> --
> Jeffrey A. Williams