Having used icann.totalnic.net for a few years as my .com registrar, I've come to the decision to transfer my soon-to-expire domains to godaddy.com who I find are better and cheaper ($7.75 as apposed to $20 a year).

I have not in fact been able to do that as TotalNIC automatically LOCK all the domain names registered through them (in the name of anti-fraud) and refuse to unlock them until you fill in a [paper] form and send it to AUSTRALIA!!!!

Of course, they blame ICANN for this. And I only found out after lodging 5 trouble tickets and Emailing 3 different addresses, and waiting half a day for a reply!

I thought the Nominet UK way of handling domain transfers was long-winded, but this is purely a registrar transfer, not a registrant transfer!

So I guess I'm stuck with renewing with TotalNIC for another year, and filling in the paperwork in the meantime ready to move next year.....

TotalNIC have always seemed a bit dodgey with their referral scheme to me, but this is the first time I've tried to move a domain from them (of course moving to them was easy!)

So my advice is stay away from them, use easily.co.uk for UK domains, and godaddy.com for international ones.

A lot of registrars implement the lock feature now. Are you sure you can't just fax your papers to them?

Dang..You paid $20.00? Major Rip off!

www.godaddy.com is really good..They are cheap too.

I wouldn't call if a major rip off, if you get awesome service, compatitability, etc.

Who said TotalNIC give awesome service etc?

The service has been awful, the seem to be running a scam with their referral program and now this crap about locking your domains to stop you from transferring away to cheaper/better registrars like godaddy.com!

TotalNIC, Total****

not really sure why you'd pay $20/name, $8.95 at godaddy/enom is a lot cheaper and more feature-rich

Originally posted by plugged
not really sure why you'd pay $20/name, $8.95 at godaddy/enom is a lot cheaper and more feature-rich

Does nobody read threads anymore?

I said I was trying to transfer from TotalNIC to the cheaper Godaddy, but couldn't due to their policies, so ended up HAVING TO pay $20 for a renewal.

I will say that TotalNIC.net are completely ripping people off.

Based on my past experience with them I would not recommend them to even my closest competitor :(

Same here. I'm not very happy with them. Too many restrictions. I only have two domains left with them and I'm transfering them to enom.

I had domains with them. I've posted my sad story warning everyone about these donkeys. They are, without a doubt, *the* worst registrar that ever was. Before you register a domain with them, be sure you never want to transfer it away and want to pay more elsewhere.

I registered domains with them many moons ago, when they were cheaper than most. Mistake. I got bad news for you...

Originally posted by sej7278
I have not in fact been able to do that as TotalNIC automatically LOCK all the domain names registered through them (in the name of anti-fraud) and refuse to unlock them until you fill in a [paper] form and send it to AUSTRALIA!!!!

So I guess I'm stuck with renewing with TotalNIC for another year, and filling in the paperwork in the meantime ready to move next year.....
Got some bad news for you Sparky. Don't waste your time filling out papers and mailing it to Australia. You aren't going to be moving from them this year, nor next year. Least that was my experience. I doubt anything has changed. I mailed crap to them, faxed them things, whatever they wanted. No deal.

Fill out the papers if it makes you feel better, but I doubt you will get that domain. Then if you decide to let the dman thing expire, they will renew it in their name for ohhh, a year, maybe less, maybe they'll drop it. By chance I saw a domain I had with them on a drop list, heh. Surprised me, but I didn't register it again (felt too dirty after being with TotalNic).

So your choices are:

1. Continue renewing your domain with TotalNic.
2. Let it expire and whenever it drops (could be a long time), try to register it again or snap it.

Sorry, I feel your pain, and luckily the domains they had they could keep for all I cared. Which they did. Flarking bastages.

How to **** totalnic? It seems filing with ICANN does nothing. Did anyone every got a domain transfered out of there?

Wait untell your domains Expires an Then you can Buy it with Namecheap.com :D

wolverine, not if it is good. speculators will snap it up. You have to use services like namewinner and snapnames to grab it. I recently went through this with dotregistrar. They wouldnt give up my domain that featureprice held hostage. I got every drop service on the domain, snapnames got it back for me. But I had to wait since april 28. I got it july 4 (what a great july 4th firework!).

sorry for your unfortunate experience, but I doubt ICANN will do anything about it. They dont seem to do much with individual cases or even entire registrars not behaving properly.

I've heard about the extremely horrific experiences of some with totalrip ....err, totalnic ;)

Since it's an Aussie company, any fellow WHT members down under could probably give us some feedback ?

Totalnic acts like an absolute ass when you want to transfer.

I happen to live is Aust and have sent numerous registered posts to their specified address to get domains transferred out, but all of them came back (after several redirects) saying "unclaimed"

It's like finding some fugitive person/company...

I would be very surprised if anyone could get their domain out