Subject Line edited to reflect the fact that it was DomainZero and NOT NameZero as I previously thought

I got a free bannerless domain name from DomainZero almost a year ago. I swear I remember them saying they'd give me another year for free (for accepting more spam) after the first year, but they haven't offered that to me and I can't find any real info about it. While I'm listed as the "Registrant", they are the "Administrative Contact" which means I can't just move that name to another registrar. Also, the name is actually not even registered to DomainZero but, rather, eHost

In any case, I could become the Administrative Contact if I ponied up ~$30 to them (eHost or DomainZero, I'm not ever sure which) for another year of "service", but I'd rather just go to Stargateinc.com and pay $8 for the name.

I'm just curious if anybody else has been in this boat and if (1)DomainZero will offer me a 2nd free year or (2) DomainZero/eHost will let the name expire at which point I can pick it up.

Thanks

Try contacting NameZero?

I'm also interested. What about transferring the domain while it's still valid ?

They are with enom, if stragatenic is enom that just ask them to push it to strategenic or whatever. I had a domain with domainzero. After I became a reseller of enom I just asked them to push it to my account, which they did, and bam the domain was under me with no extra charge. If they are still as gracious I don't know. Well hope it helps.

I think when they first started they would do free transfers, then they started charging like $15.

Now, you have to pay for their premium service, which nets you an extra year, and then they make you the Administrative contact.

If you read their terms and conditions, THEY OWN your name... unless you pay for the premium service. So even if you let your account expire, the name wont drop back into the pool, NameZero will take control of it and keep it.

You can try calling them and see if they will push it over, but I really doubt it. I think you are stuck. I have three domains with them and had to shell out $90 to get them put into my name. I mean $30 isn't horrible, but it is more than 3 times what I normally pay for a name.

I currently still have those names at namezero because I only use them for email and that is included... I need the catch all account. But before they expire, I will be moving them. I feel a little cheated by them, this isn't how things seemed like they were going to be when I first registed those names with them.

Good Luck

I'm almost certain this person is confused and this has nothing to do with Namezero, rather eHost (which is either associated or similar to DomainZero), which uses eNom (as DomainZero did).

Originally posted by Chicken
I'm almost certain this person is confused and this has nothing to do with Namezero, rather eHost (which is either associated or similar to DomainZero), which uses eNom (as DomainZero did).

Ai-Yi-Yi! Indeed I am confused, but I was more confused earlier. :) I did register the name with/through DomainZero (not NameZero) and www.DomainZero.com goes straight to eHost. At least that part makes sense to me now as to why eHost is the Administrative Contact for the domain.

But in any case, I was really just wondering if anybody else had successfully picked up their domain after it expired (or if DomainZero/eHost hangs onto them like NetSol)

AND/OR

If anybody was offered the "free second year" (that I have no proof of except my memory.)

My guess is that my only recourse (if I want to save the name) would be to pay the $30, but since it's a name that nobody else will probably want (it's not even a real word) I was hoping that eHost would just ditch it.

Maybe I should take all the content offline in case they do any checking to see if it's worth hanging on to...

Sorry about the Name/Domain-Zero confusion. My bad :)

hey,

real quick I been at WHT for about a month now, I just never felt the need to register, but I suppose I can add my 2 cents for this topic

I got my free domain from domainzero.com also. I def. remember them saying "and next year you can get another year free" but I seriously doubt they will continue that....

I went ahead and changed the nameservers, and moved my domain over to mydomain.com so that should keep it free, not to mention out of domainzero's hands. I really did enjoy the year with them, it was a great free service, was very impressed. Now Namezero on the other hand is a total scam, I have literally spent time on the phone yelling at their company for being retarded

Anway, another newbie gives his newbie reply :)

on a side note, all of you WHT addicts are extremely hard to please. After a month of reading tons of posts, you guys are really tough on people....I'd hate to post my awsome web host, because I'd feel like you all would trash it to bits!

i doubt they'd just let it drop.. that'd be too easy for you
they'll want to punish you for not paying to renew it :D

& also i seriously doubt they'll give you the second year whether they said they would or not. they stopped doing the free-domain-for-spam thing months&months ago. not much profit in it i guess..

Originally posted by FrankieG
Ai-Yi-Yi! Indeed I am confused, but I was more confused earlier. :) I did register the name with/through DomainZero (not NameZero) and www.DomainZero.com goes straight to eHost. At least that part makes sense to me now as to why eHost is the Administrative Contact for the domain.

But in any case, I was really just wondering if anybody else had successfully picked up their domain after it expired (or if DomainZero/eHost hangs onto them like NetSol)

AND/OR

If anybody was offered the "free second year" (that I have no proof of except my memory.)

Frankie, I've edited the original post and title. Now that we know what is what, let's try to solve your problem...

First, I have little doubts that the domain will indeed drop, but you probably know the risks of trying to aquire dropped names. Names can be 'taken' just before they are dropped and/or registered by the first person who sees it and likes it. The risk is one you'll have to consider.

No one was offered a free second year to my knowledge. The program was discontinued and if you want to be 100% sure, I'd renew the domain and *then* transfer it after a month or two. Even if it is $30, think of it as $30 for two years and then it doesn't seem so bad ($15/yr. means you haven't gained anything but at least you aren't too far behind typical domain prices either).

Sadly, you seem to have possibly missed a 'golden time' where eNom unlocked domains and was willing to push them into another eNom account (one that you would have set up). Current posts on the subject that I've read seem to indicate this isn't an option anymore. I had a few domains which were moved and all is well, but as I said, I believe this isn't an option now.

Originally posted by ningaming
I went ahead and changed the nameservers, and moved my domain over to mydomain.com so that should keep it free, not to mention out of domainzero's hands.

If all you did was change the nameservers to mydomain, then you may not be out of the clear just yet. Did you transfer the domain to mydomain? I mean, submit a request to transfer registrars? If not, you are most likely in the same boat as this person. Check when the domain expires, and expect a notice as this date approaches.

If you did actually switch registrars then nevermind, you are fine...

Chicken,
I think you can still push names in enom. I still have that option on my reseller account. I have never needed to push account but the option is there. My guess is some enom registers may be charging a transfer fee, but I don't think it is from enom, just a way to get a last few bucks.

Originally posted by TheRazor
They are with enom ... just ask them to push it ... I had a domain with domainzero. After I became a reseller of enom I just asked them to push it to my account, which they did, and bam the domain was under me with no extra charge. If they are still as gracious I don't know.

I've edited the bit about stargate as it didn't apply. Yes you can still push names with enom, and I did the exact same thing as you did (quoted above). Recent posts I've read and emails I've gotten seem to indicate they are no longer 'as gracious' as you put it :D

Remember, when your domain was with DomainZero, there was no 'push' or 'unlock' option. People have sent me emails to eNom and gotten replies recommending the person email eHost (the new name for DomainZero). Basically stuck. They've also said that names which were unlocked (they wrote, got them unlocked), became locked again (eek).

Someone at DomainZero probably figured this out and wasn't all that thrilled.

I am a little confused... My understanding is that an owner of a domain was never able to push a domain name. Only the reseller of that domain name could push it. (Very easily I could be mistaken). That is why I had to ask them to push it for me, even though I was a reseller myself. If this isn't what you meant I apologize for the misunderstanding...

Yes the owner wasn't able to, and now no one will push the name, at least that is what I think, but it never hurts to try (in hopes that I'm wrong, which in this case, would be a good thing).

Thanks for all the info.

I too am curious about what ningaming did. Did you just change the nameserver info or did you actually transfer the domain? I'd be surprised if you were allowed to transfer the domain without paying eHost (since eHost is actually the "owner" of that domain and is listed as the Admin contact) but if you found some sort of loophole, let me know :)

I'll probably just let the name drop. Like I said, it's a nonsense word anyway (a band name to be exact) that nobody (relatively) has ever heard of. I've never gotten any hits to the pages except for my own :)

Thanks again for all the info

I checked out ningaming's profile and found www.nin-gaming.com I did a whois lookup and indeed, he's now the administrative contact. It's strange because "DomainZero" is still listed as the "Billing Contact" while my "Billing Contact" is "Network Commerce Inc. eHost Administrator" Hmmm....

So ningaming, take me through this so I'm sure I understand. How did you transfer the domain name without paying DomainZero? Did you wait for it to drop? You said
I went ahead and changed the nameservers, and moved my domain over to mydomain.com so that should keep it free, not to mention out of domainzero's hands
Gimme' the scoop on how you did this.

Thanks

sorry I was away for the weekend

first off let's get this straight. www.nin-gaming.com is not the domain I got from domainzero. www.nrealm.net is the domain I got from domainzero...

I'll tell you the truth, it has been a heck of a while since I had checked about it, back in the day (been a while since I checked on nrealm) I actually thought I had switched registrars, but I just checked, and I def. did not. This was quite a while ago, I thought I had it cleared up, but obviously I didn't. It was a mistake on my part, apoliges for my newbie mistake :D

anway, also my name is not a big deal either, I was testing em out to see if their domain thing was a scam or something else..im guessing they will drop an email and make us pay the full price for the extension....and hopefully it teaches us all a lesson to go ahead and pay up for a real domain :-) not that I care about www.nrealm.net

heh, I can't believe I actually had it implanted in my mind I had switched registrars, ahhh so much happens in a few months.......

FrankieG, have I asked this before...

Have you tried contacting creating an account at eNom and then contacted eNom about pushing the domain into that account? If not, this is your best, and only hope, other than letting it drop and hoping to reregister it.

If they won't authorize the transfer, why would they drop it?

I've got 2 domains stuck there. I've never used them, they ready to expire and I want to use them now :(

Have you tried contacting creating an account at eNom and then contacted eNom about pushing the domain into that account? If not, this is your best, and only hope, other than letting it drop and hoping to reregister it.

Chicken Enom won't push a domain, the reseller has to. It wouldn't be any different than a hosting company taking a resold account from one reseller and giving it to another. I think that best thing to do is to ask domainzero.com if they would push it to another enom reseller. If they won't go to another reseller/registrar and request the domain to be transfered to them and pay their price. If they are willing to push make sure you check with that reseller first so they know what is going on. Like I said I pushed one to myself so it didn't obviously cost me a dime, but other resellers may charge you. What I did was called ehosts phone number, they told me there was no one there who could otherize such a thing, or it couldn't be done. I later spoke with Bill from enom, he gave me the number and name of a woman in charge. I spoke with here the next day, she was quite pleasant to speak and had no quams about pushing the domain at all, told me have a nice day and all (I must say I was impressed). Anyway it was either the next day or day after and the domain name was in my account list. Well times may have changed but it doesn't hurt to try...

Originally posted by ningaming
sorry I was away for the weekend

first off let's get this straight. www.nin-gaming.com is not the domain I got from domainzero. www.nrealm.net is the domain I got from domainzero...
Sorry for that confusion, the fact that the Billing contact for nin-gaming.com is listed as "DomainZero" cinched it in my mind.
I'll tell you the truth, it has been a heck of a while since I had checked about it, back in the day (been a while since I checked on nrealm) I actually thought I had switched registrars, but I just checked, and I def. did not.
Okey dokey.
anway, also my name is not a big deal either, I was testing em out to see if their domain thing was a scam or something else..
Me too. I created domain name and a site for a band I used to be in just for grins.
im guessing they will drop an email and make us pay the full price for the extension....
They already have sent me one. Some sort of ALL CAPS "YOU MUST RENEW NOW OR YOU MAY NEVER GET THIS NAME AGAIN!!!!" kind of thing.
Chicken wrote
FrankieG, have I asked this before...

Have you tried contacting creating an account at eNom and then contacted eNom about pushing the domain into that account?
I have not tried, although I'm not sure I understand completely what you're asking. Do you mean have I tied to create a reseller account at eNom? It looks like eNom charges $29.95/year to regsiter domains. I think what you're saying is that I could potetially set myself up as a re-seller for eNom and have them "push" (a term I'm not 100% clear on) the domain into my "account" which would mean that I could then basically sell it to myself (for less than the eNom $29.95)?

I don't know, it sounds like a bit of hassle to me. Like I said, the name really doesn't mean that much to me. I'd pay $8 to register it again, but not much more than that. I was really just curious if DomainZero was hoarding expired names (like NetSol) and/or if anybody else had gone through the process of picking up old DomainZero names.

Thanks

Well, honestly it wouldn't matter wht type of account you had, the point would be to push it from one account to another (basically from theirs to yours), so there really wouldn't be any transfer (per se). For example I have a couple of accounts at enom and have moved domains from one to another. There are no fees to do this, but as you said, you are mostlikely going to let it expire, etc., so I'll stop typing now :D

Originally posted by TheRazor
Chicken Enom won't push a domain, the reseller has to.

eNom pushed the domains for me (emailed and asked).


Like I said I pushed one to myself so it didn't obviously cost me a dime, but other resellers may charge you. What I did was called ehosts phone number, they told me there was no one there who could otherize such a thing, or it couldn't be done. I later spoke with Bill from enom, he gave me the number and name of a woman in charge. I spoke with here the next day, she was quite pleasant to speak and had no quams about pushing the domain at all, told me have a nice day and all (I must say I was impressed).

So you're saying the way you did it was call eHost, had no luck, called eNom and Bill gave you the number to the woman in charge *at eHost*, and she pushed it to another eNom reseller (which happened to be you, but she would have pushed it anywhere). Correct?

I'm just trying to figure out what to tell people as I get asked this a few times a week.

One of my uninteresting domain expired on Sep21 and next day after expiry date, this domain became available again. Anybody have experience about expired domain being hold or reregistered by eHost or third party ?

Originally posted by jakis
One of my uninteresting domain expired on Sep21 and next day after expiry date, this domain became available again. Anybody have experience about expired domain being hold or reregistered by eHost or third party ?
I should have an update on my situation in a day or so.

Originally posted by jakis
One of my uninteresting domain expired on Sep21 and next day after expiry date, this domain became available again. Anybody have experience about expired domain being hold or reregistered by eHost or third party ?

Just an update on my situation since I started this thread. I had 2 domains registered through DomainZero. They were registered 3 days apart.

The first one expired and was available the very next day. No hold time, no nuthin. It has always been a single-page "coming soon" site

The second domain name was actually the one I was worried about and wanted back. It actually consists of 7 or 8 pages. It had gotten some very minor traffic, only from friends/relatives of mine. Probably a total of 10 unique visitors in the last year. But I had used the domain's e-mail occasionally. Well, it expired and was put on hold. It stayed on hold for a week (seven days). I started getting worried that they knew I wanted it back and were going to hang onto it!!!!

But then the week passed and it became available. Perhaps they had some sort of monitoring of traffic or something so they held it for a week, or maybe it was just random and got "dumped" along with another bunch of their domains. Who knows.

In any case, that's my story. Thanks for reading :)

If you go to renew an expired domain at http://ehost.com/renew/payrenew.cgi , the result will become
"This domain name has expired. If your domain has just expired, it is usually available to the public within 5 days of expiration. "

Some of my domains was available around 5-6 days after expired. But I had a major-traffic domainname sixhead.com expired very soon around 1-2 days and it was now re-registered by someone else who posted it as "For sale".

For those wondering, straight from the horses mouth:

As outlined in our Terms of Service all domain names registered through DomainZero.com must remain registered with Network Commerce for one entire year. Upon reaching the expiration date, domain name owners have the choice of either allowing the domain to expire or renew the domain name with us for additional year at $24.95. Once you have renewed your domain name for at least one year, the Registrar-Lock will be removed from your account and you will be free to transfer the domain name to another registrar, and Registrar-Lock will be removed from your domain name.

---

Once your domain name has expired, it is released and available for registration elsewhere within 3 to 5 days (a day if you're lucky).

I renewed 2 domains with eHost last week but these domains yet appear to be Registrar-Locked so far. I emailed them many times asking them to *PUSH* these 2 domains to my reseller account at enom but no action was taken and no reply either.

When you say, "these domains yet appear to be Registrar-Locked so far" - do you mean they are NOT registrar-locked?

Who did you email to push the domains? DomainZero or Enom? Email Enom, they'll do it for you. I'm sure you can do it yourself through your Enom reseller acccount, not?

sorry , I mean eHost do not remove Registrar-lock from domains that I renewed with them. I tried to email eHost@NetworkCommerce.com but they did not reply nor take any action. Okey,I'd better tried to email enom.