RE: [registrars] Need discussion of Transfers after expiration

[Paul Stahura <stahura@enom.com>]

Rick,

That might be in the losing registrar's registrant agreement,
but it seems to me if the registrant pays for
2 years (one at the gaining and one at the losing
registrar), shouldn't they get 2 years?

To make it clear to those who are not following
this one closely:

1) a name, at the "losing registrar", expires.  
2) the losing registrar gets automatically charged $6 by registry
and 1 year is added to the registration period.
3) registrant pays losing registrar for 1 year within 45 day grace period,
(lets say on day 5)
4) registrant transfers name to gaining registrar on day 6
5) transfer completes on day 12 and registry credits losing registrar $6
6) registrant pays gaining registrar for 1 year
7) registrant wonders why domain has only 1 more year when
the registrant pay for 2 years: one at losing and one at gaining
registrar
8) losing registrar does not return the fee paid to it 
by the registrant, plus the losing registrar gets a 
$6 credit at the registry to-boot!  In other words, the
losing registrar got paid for one year, but that one
year was not added to the name, and $6 was not paid to the registry.
Nice racket: charging for names and delivering nothing.

At a minimum, I suggest the $6 is not returned
to the losing registrar by the registry, and one year is not
removed from the name.

It is yet another black mark on our industry when a registrar
makes a registrant pay for a year, then turns around and
does not pay the registry and does not add one year to the name.  
The losing registrar is taking money to renew the name
then not performing the service.  Is that an
acceptable registration agreement provsion?


This is all complicted by the fact that if the registrant
waits to the last minute to renew (most do, becuase say
the losing registrar does not allow them to add years to the 
registration period at any time, but only allows them to "renew"), 
and the losing registrar makes them jump
through all these hoops to "verify" that they really
really really want to transfer, and for whatever reason
the losing registrar does not get the reply email
(or whatever wacky mechanism the losing registrar has setup) 
then the registrant is *forced* to "renew" at the losing registrar
(or risk losing the name and/or being without DNS service)
after the registration experation date but before 45 day period
is up, *then* do the transfer.  By this time the registrant 
hates the losing registrar so much that they transfer as soon as they
can, not waiting till the end of the 45 day period, therefore
they only get 1 year added not 2 years for all their trouble. 
 
The registrant may complain to the gaining 
registrar who's only choice is to bad-mouth the 
losing registrar for holding their customer
hostage and taking their money and not adding a year, 
when the registrant only wanted to transfer trouble-free so 
they could get different service or a different price.  
Which all adds to the loss of confidence in 
our industry (including ICANN) by registrants.


Paul




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick H Wesson [mailto:wessorh@ar.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 12:09 PM
> To: Larry Erlich
> Cc: Mike Lampson; registrars@dnso.org
> Subject: Re: [registrars] Need discussion of Transfers after 
> expiration
> 
> 
> 
> Larry,
> 
> some registrars have language in their registrant agreements 
> that contain
> such provsions.
> 
> -rick
> 
> On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Larry Erlich wrote:
> 
> >
> > What I would like to propose is that Verisign change our renewal
> > period to 60 days and also stick to the 60 day period 
> themselves with
> > respect to their Registrar.
> >
> > Larry Erlich
>