OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
I was avoiding Moniker for the most part of the past month. I had renewed all my June domains before their system change so I thought to remain calm by not logging into my account. I don’t have a lot of domains there anyway. But July renewals are coming up, so it was time to login and prepare to transfer all my domains out. Here are some of the problems I had and a few things I noticed:
- I had some trouble unlocking a few domains. I used the bulk unlock tool to unlock 13 domains. 7 unlocked immediately. 4 seemed to be unlocked in control panel but weren’t at the registry. 2 didn’t unlock in control panel for some strange reason (were not unlocked in registry too)
Then I tried to unlock the remaining 6. All 6 unlocked in control panel but was not unlocked at the registry.
The last 1 domain that remained unlocked, I locked it and then unlocked it again and it worked at the registry level.
Moniker had troubles before the system change with domains won at Snapnames that were caught with the registrar UDOMAINNAME.COM LLC. All 13 domains are registered there. - Auth codes have not changed after the system change. So the auth codes I had are still working now.
- Domains I unlocked before the change are still unlocked.
- Auth codes you request arrive immediately.
- One auth code I got today was incorrect but I requested it again and transfer
started fine with the new auth code. - There is no way to expedite the transfers. I will have to wait 5 days for transfers to complete. I hope all goes well.
- Support tickets are not being replied. I have submitted 3 since the system change. 2 are about a month old. No reply to any of the 3. I am in Greece so calling is not an option.
- The renewal for one of my domains that was left to expire and Moniker decided to renew it anyway has not been refunded as the support ticket has not been replied.
- Renewal grace period is set at about 30 days.
- Bulk search doesn’t work with upper case letters. It returns no domains.
- One domain I left expire seems to be renewed but there is no invoice.
- “Only” one domain has disappeared from my account. It was caught by Snapnames in March 2014. In whois I see this:
Registrar: OCTOPUSDOMAINS.NET LLC
Whois Server: whois.octopusdomains.net
Referral URL: http://www.web.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
So one can assume that the domain is with web.com. But octopusdomains.net redirects you to http://www.networksolutions.com/. So the domain must be there but I didn’t check. I didn’t get an email or anything. Will get to that later.
So the announcement that all Snapnames domains will be moved to Network Solutions only applies to domains caught after March or close to that?
Of course the maintenance notice is still there. For how long will it still be there?
Notice: Ongoing maintenance is currently being performed in an effort to restore full account functionality for users who have experienced any service interruptions. Our team is working diligently to correct outstanding issues experienced as a result of our new system launch. We appreciate your patience.
Here are the 6 Moniker posts I have made in the past month with all the problems after their system change so you can keep track on all of them:
Moniker’s CEO Bonnie Wittenburg Sends Message But No Timeline
Moniker is back up. Problems remain! (#3)
Moniker is closed for maintenance until 9:00 am (EDT)
Moniker Problems #2 (disappearing domains, wrong whois, invoices, new account ID)
Moniker: let the problems begin! (auto-renew, credit cards, control panel)
10 Steps To Help You Prepare For The New Moniker
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auth codes for some snapnames won domains don’t work.
I have 3 that i won on auction years ago, and were managed via Moniker. The auth codes are somehow wrong as they are not accepted by the transferring-in registrar.
raised a support ticket over 2 weeks ago, but of course, no one can be bothered to answer.
long long has it been now since the new site went live, a month yet? unbelievable that the basics still don’t work.
I’m in the UK, so have the same challenges as you re contacting their support by phone. On one of my other many problems, I added some skype credit then called. It cost nothing i think to call the U.S
I’ve so far moved out a third of my names to name.com, i’m done with Moniker.
Have you tried requesting them again?
Yes, got the same code
I wish I received my authcode immediately.
No response via https://twitter.com/DomainSherpa/status/482367155808108546 or support ticket either.
What is the domain’s registrar? Moniker or …?
Microbrew domains and another I forget
MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES LLC
When I requested the authcode from the main screen, I never received the promised email. Tried it multiple times.
BUT, when I clicked on the domain to look at the details (e.g., set the NS, etc.) it had another option to request the authcode so I tried it. Then I received the email.
Hopefully that will work for others as well.
I guess I forgot one of the most important points.
The auth code request from the main screen, the one that can also be used for bulk requests, doesn’t work.
It said that I will receive an email in a few minutes but it is hours now and nothing.
You have to go into each individual domain and click on advanced.
There you click on request auth code and the auth code arrives…
with domains that were showing as unlocked in moniker control panel but locked in whois, the only way i could get them to unlock was using the drop down menu on the main domains page. clicking the lock symbol didn’t seem to do anything.
It worked for me for that last one domain that wouldn’t unlock.
But I locked it first and then unlocked it.
they say all the domains that were caught via snapnames registrars will eventually be moved to networksolutions. i contacted snapnames about this and they said they didn’t have a time frame in which this will be complete. at least we can renew, transfer, and unlock the domains within moniker or many would be really screwed (about 90% of my domains are these snapnames caught domains). the domains caught after march should already be in your netsol account but any before that, while the whois says web.com, the only way to manage them is in moniker.
the biggest problem was with domains that were already expired when the change happened and were with the snapnames registrars. not renewing before the change was a big mistake. creating tickets is pretty useless unless you call in as well so they can escalate them. this seems to be only way to get anything done.
i have transfered a number of domains already and while the domains caught via snapnames authcodes were not working they mostly seem to be now with the exception of a few.
Really? They can have domains moved out of Moniker any time they want?
I thought we were done with that already.
And I won’t even get an email with a username/password?
If you see my list of posts, my last one is what I proposed everyone did before the change:
renew and transfer first, then do everything else.
Yeah, all the domains i didn’t renew before the change that were with snapnames registers all disappeared. i had to call a number of times to get them back in my account and then renew them. had i renewed them previously this wouldn’t of happened.
i really don’t know whats going on with the whole move to networksolutions thing. the people at networksolutions told me to contact snapnames. snapnames weren’t very helpful. they basically just said that they have no idea when this will happen. i told them they need to communicate with people when this is happened and they need to do but since i am just talking to support people i doubt they communicate much back. i would recommend transferring out all domains that were caught via snapnames before this happens. that’s the easiest thing to do i guess.
as for the domains caught from march and after, these are in a netsol account that i had no idea even existed. the only way i was able to get access to it was to do a lost user id then lost password at the netsol site. once i got access i could see all the domains caught since then but i have heard that you can’t transfer these domains out if you try and get auth codes they will come back blank.
As starting from today, I’m getting invoices that are not correct from them, I was somewhat ‘forced’ to use them, not saying GD is much better with there system but at least they communicate.. Will transfer tr last names away from them ASAP…
One point that they must absolutely improve is the following:
When you transfer out a domain, you receive an email saying that if you accept the transfer you do not have anything to do (OK), otherwise you must call … (strange, and what happen with people who do not speak english like me), I would have prefered you suggest a a web form to approve or dissaprove a transfer.
Worst, after they suggest in their email to click a link without explain the meaning of that link.
In fact when you click it you land in a page saying:
“Are you sure you want to activate the following transfer request?”
(like me you understand, do you want to transfer the domain out, exact??)
So one may think it’s a way to acknowledge transfer to accelerate the process.
So I clicked the only button of the page saying “Activate!”.
What a bad idea I had… in fact it appeared I was cancelling the transfer.
Worst, you do not receive any email notification saying the domain transfer has been canceled, so you are quiet waitting 7 days the transfer complete… It’s only after this delay you notice that you still own your domain, disapointed you post a support ticket and because they are so busy… it takes few days to respond you that you cancelled the transfer and you re good to start again from scratch and wait again 7 days the transfer!!!
Conclusion:
Make your transfer out confirmation email more clear, and most than all change all the text and the button label on this page you aparently use to can cancel transfers, and send a notification when a transfer is cancelled.
Moniker never allowed anyone to accept the transfer before the 5 day limit.
I contacted support a couple of times and they simply denied to help me.
Also these transfer emails where you can only cancel a transfer (and not accept it) are send by various registrars.
One time the email was in some other (not English) language and I thought that if I clicked on the link I would be able to accept or deny the transfer. But to my surprise after I clicked the link I immediately show this message: “transfer cancelled”!!!
I have no idea why activate means cancel. This is bad design.
Moniker definitely needs a way to expedite outgoing transfers.
In the old days – when Chris Leggatt was still a rep there – you could at least contact them and they’d manually approve the outgoing transfer… but now… 🙁