Registerfly Domain Name Registration and Credit Card Payments

Posted by SEO Dave on February 7th, 2008 at 01:58pm

Registerfly was the first domain names registration company I used beyond the sort of service where you pay a hosting company to host/register your domain (they do everything).

Registerfly domain registration was cheap, had a very good interface/set of domain registration tools and was reasonably easy to use and so before the problems that resulted in ICANN Termination of RegisterFly.com Registrar Accreditation Agreement in March 2007 I’d purchased over 70 domains with them and had used my credit card on many occasions to add funds to my Registerfly domain registration account so my domains would be renewed for a year or two without having to make manual credit card payments (figured I’d be with Registerfly for years).

I’d not kept track of Registerfly as a domain name registration company (I have no interest past owning domains when it comes to domain registration companies) and so had no idea they were having problems until they affected my domains.

First problems that hit me was with .co.uk domains (which happened to be my most important sites) wasn’t being renewed quickly by Registerfly and in one case one .co.uk domain was almost transferred to someone else by mistake!! Because of this some of my sites had several days downtime which cost me revenue and Google SERPs! I also had the wrong registration info on many of my sites whois info which caused problems with Nominet (had a domain suspended for a week or so for having the wrong info!).

Registerfly ICANN Termination of Registrar Accreditation Agreement

To cut a long story short after Registerfly lost registrar accreditation about half the domains got transferred to Godaddy and the rest to eNom. I’d been using Godaddy for a while as well since I buy domains from their domain auctions and so had no problem with the domains that went to Godaddy. The eNom ones however I wasn’t happy about, eNom registration company charges way too much for renewals and so I set out to transfer all domains to Godaddy and 123-reg.co.uk since Godaddy doesn’t deal with .co.uk domains!

You can read about my eNom problems at eNom Domain Thieves.

For some reason this left two domains (.co.uk ones) with Registerfly, one fortunately still worked, (could access the site via a browser and my site was visible) but one didn’t work (nothing online). I had to pay through Nominet to get them transferred from Registerfly since their support staff at the time either ignored tickets (closing them without responding) or didn’t answer the actual questions/problems. After weeks I eventually regained control of both domains.

You’d think that would be the end of the Registerfly saga, but no I’m never that lucky. Unfortunately this left over $300 in funds (paid in using my credit card) in my now empty Registerfly account!

I’ve asked on half a dozen tickets, sent emails requesting a refund to my credit card and the one response I’ve got is-

Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product or service that we offer. This policy is without exception. Thank you

Senior Client Care
Registerfly.com

This can’t be legal (can it?), they can’t withhold my money!

I’m trying one more ticket to try to get a refund on my credit card and then I’m going to my credit card company to start chargeback proceedings. I don’t want to do this, but I’m not going to leave over $300 with this domain name registration company when I have no intentions of ever using their domain name registration services again (they suck).

This will probably mean issuing credit card chargebacks for over the amount they owe since it’s highly unlikely I made a credit card payment that exactly matches the amount owed by Registerfly and I expect to get ALL my money back.

If anyone else has had this problem with credit card quick checkout balances with Registerfly I’d appreciate a comment if you managed to get your money back.

If your using Registerfly still (your a fool :-)) do not add funds to your account as they refuse to refund them.

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Under Non SEO :-)

6 Comments for Registerfly Domain Name Registration and Credit Card Payments

1. SEO Dave | February 8th, 2008 at 3:03 am

This is the ticket I started:

I have removed my business from Registerfly and have no plans ever to use you again. My account holds [ $319.11 ] which I want back.

Last ticket on this states-

Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product or service that we offer. This policy is without exception. Thank you

Senior Client Care
Registerfly.com

This is unacceptable, there is no service you provide that I wish to use.

How do I get a refund?

If you say I can not I will go to my CC company and issue a chargeback which is not in your best interests as it may be for more than you owe me since I doubt I made an exact payment for $319.11 and have no intentions of loosing money over this.

David Law

Their response:

David Law

Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product, service or special promotions that we offer. This policy is without exception.

Thank you

RegisterFly.com

Rapid
Thanks
Rapid

And the ticket was closed!

David
2. SEO Dave | February 8th, 2008 at 3:09 am

Found a page of Registerfly’s which states the following:

Refund of account balances
We do not refund account balances unless explicitly agreed to by a manager. Due to the cost of credit card, payment processing we cannot refund the balances. You may use the balance towards any product or service that we offer.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but that is not the same as what Registerfly support is saying regarding refunding my credit card payments. Lets see if I can get a manager to agree to the refund!

Have started a new ticket pointing to this information.

David
3. Gaston Flores | February 17th, 2008 at 1:51 am

I have the exact same problem as you, i have now over $119 in my account, i have removed all my domains to GoDaddy.com (and used enom and got out of those thiefs). And what i have been doing to recover my money (i used to have more than $200) is to buy domains via RegisterFly, securethem for as many years as i can and moved them away from them.
Is a shame that what used to be a good company, is now the worst in customer service.
They should close their doors forever (after returning the money they owe)
Try to sell domains, or use them as birthday gifts, christmas gifts, etc….that way you can use that money while saving in gifts. I am doing that now. Hoping to reduce my balance to $0 in a few months.
4. Robert | March 27th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Hi to all

I have the same problem with registerfly holding my money. I tried everything. My last refill was in January of 2007. Since that problems started. I tried to register several domain, but domains are nt registered and money was taken. Then they did not answered tickets for months. In the meantime I read all about it on ICANN. Later in 2007 they finaly answered one ticket and then they draged me for couple of months saying that they refund my money to the credt card I refilled my account. I had several ticket with the same question and everytime the answered that they refunded. Then on one ticket they told me this crap you are all saying here, that they are not refunding at all !?!? I asked what was that couple of months that they saying they are triying ti refund. No answer. Then I filled a complaint to ma credit card company/bank. My bank told me that complaint must be made within 3 months from purchase and in this case I made purchase before like 10 month (in time making of complaint). So they told me that there is nothing they can do anymore. now after some months again, i tried to register some domains with this balance I have but now they do not permitt to use balance to pay . I contacted them again, and there it is , again the same crap answers. I have 4 tickets asking for that and they keep saying that their risk management review my case and they opened possibility to use this balance I have. But actually nothing is opened. i am still not permitted to use this balance and I don’t see solution to this as they keep copying replies , the same ones, over and over again, and problem is not fixed.
Anyway, this is my story
5. Kayecee | May 7th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

Oh, geez….. what a nightmare! I watched the whole RegisterFly mess unfold when all heck broke loose. I’m sorry that you guys have been through the ringer with this. Did any of you ever get your situations straightened out? Good luck to all.
6. Joe Cole | May 8th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

The best thing one can do in such cases is to cut and run as quickly as possible. I’ve had similar problems witha couple of my domains and found that trying to get them resolved should not go beyond a couple of calls or emails. More than that it becomes a waste of time, which is costlier than the $100 at issue. If I can use the credit in any way, I would certainly do it. I make sure I leave posts about the issue to hopefully prevent others from having the same problems and move on.