Interland (the worlds worst hosting company) has stolen my domain.

I am not listed as any of the contacts, and therefore cannot change my dns information back to the way it was yesterday.

What do I do?!?!?

Network Solutions told me to fill out a modify domain form, and once I received the NIC #, to fax in approval on letterhead.

Well - I can't do that, because I have a network solutions domain manager account, so it rejects my modify request before giving me a number.

I sent an e-mail to resolutions@networksolutions.com - but who knows how long that will take!

I called interland to yell at them -

They told me:
1. I have an active account with them. (I don't)
2. They never do this (This is the second time they've done this to me, but the first time, I was still listed as the admin contact, so I could fix it)
3. They will fix it. (It's not fixed, nor do I trust that they will considering that it took me over an hour to get someone on the phone, and it took me 4 weeks to cancel my account with them).

HELPP!!!!!

If you're still listed as the owner of the domain, you should be able to get the problem resolved. If Interland is listed as the owner, there's not much you can do (other than sue Interland?). What you should do is call (don't e-mail) Network Solutions to get the matter handled as quickly as possible. http://www.netsol.com/en_US/contactus.jhtml

The same thing happened to two of my client domains - one yesterday and one today. They are both sites that I used to have at Interland, and have since moved to my own hosting services. It seems that both domains still had Interland as the tech contact, so they somehow went in and switched the nameserver and all contact info to them. It appears to be an automated mistake, as I doubt they would do this on purpose. I am LIVID!!! I have called and emailed and finally have one of their DNS guys that is going to fix it. I have cancelled my one remaining account with them and demanded a prorated refund, which they agreed to. Now I have to wait for the 48 hour propogation period to clear, and hopefully, this will be resolved. I have never dealt with a worse company in my life. And I let them know this, both on the phone and in my email cancellation. All I can tell you to do is email Ray in DNS at rsumo@interland.com. He is the guy that is going to log in to my NSI account and change everything back. I'm switching everything over to my registrar, BulkRegister. That way I have control over nameservers and contact info. Let me know if you want me to help you out and I'll do what I can.

I was able to <finally> get help from Verisign.

Apparently, even though I purchased the domain directly at Network Solutions (and not through Interland) -
Interland had made my domain part of their wholesale account - which allows them to make changes to the domain directly, without authorization from any of the associated contacts.

I had to fax in a letter to Verisign, asking them to dissolve any relationship between my domain record and Interland.

:angry:

They will update the DNS tonight, and will work on removing my domain from Interland's clutches over the next few days.

Boy will I be happy when I can say that I never have to deal with them again. Take a look at epinions.com. Apparently I'm not the only one who is exasperated with Interland. I couldn't begin to tell you the rest of my Interland horror story.

:pimp: <-- I just liked that smilie. cool feature.

Glad to hear that it's fixed. I have moved every domain off of Interland's servers to ours. I will never do business again with them. Good luck!:D

Same thing happened to me, but with a different company.

I got a dedicated server with Version12 (who were great) and at the time of ordering the server, I ordered a domain name to go with it (moose-shack.net).

I cancelled the server a month or two later but could not change ownership for 90 days.
I forgot about it until August, to which I found out Version12 sold themselves to 5Star Communications (www.5sc.net).

5Star Communications then changed the whois information to their own and not mine. I emailed them about it - they told me to email them proof I own it.
I didn't have any receipt with the domain name showing as mine - it was just put into the server cost.
I emailed them that info, as well as the original server order + a copy of the whois info for moose-shack.com/co.uk/org.uk - no word back.

Allen (the old owner of Version12) stepped in and emailed 5Star to say I DID indeed pay for the domain name, and I also re-emailed them - this time flagging a read receipt.
Got the read reciept back, but no reply.

So essentially they stole my money/domain.

--James

Originally posted by stevek
I was able to <finally> get help from Verisign.

Apparently, even though I purchased the domain directly at Network Solutions (and not through Interland) -
Interland had made my domain part of their wholesale account - which allows them to make changes to the domain directly, without authorization from any of the associated contacts.

I had to fax in a letter to Verisign, asking them to dissolve any relationship between my domain record and Interland.

:angry:

They will update the DNS tonight, and will work on removing my domain from Interland's clutches over the next few days.

Boy will I be happy when I can say that I never have to deal with them again. Take a look at epinions.com. Apparently I'm not the only one who is exasperated with Interland. I couldn't begin to tell you the rest of my Interland horror story.

:pimp: <-- I just liked that smilie. cool feature.

Stevek sounds as if he got one of those shady Interland Netsol renewals in the mail that was discussed recently in the Lounge. Am I right?

i had a similar situation ... i registered the domain name UNDERGROUNDINK.COM and hosted at some crappy company that will remain namesless ...

well, when i tried to transfer my domain through NETSOL, it *somehow* got transferred to someone else, The SanFransisco Boys Choir.

Needless to say I was extremely pissed. After about 20 phone calls, numerous fax requests, and getting ignored to the point where i realized further resistance was futile, i gave up ... to this day the domain is registered to the The San Francisco Boys Chorus and still utilizing the name servers of the crappy host (they were no help either)...

My former address is listed as the Registrant but ALL 3 contacts are for the San Francisco Boys Chorus ... I can't transfer the domain and NETSOL absolutely refused to help me ...


good luck not getting dizzy in the run around



Registrant:
underground ink (UNDERGROUNDINK-DOM)
100 upland ave b6
horsham, PA 19044
US

Domain Name: UNDERGROUNDINK.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact:
Couchman, John (JC2427) sing@SFBC.ORG
The San Francisco Boys Chorus
801 Portola Dr., Suite 104
San Francisco, CA 94127-1234
+1 415 854 5100

Record last updated on 11-Oct-2000.
Record expires on 11-Oct-2001.
Record created on 11-Oct-2000.
Database last updated on 21-Nov-2001 05:30:00 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS.SUPER-NOVA.NET 208.56.139.119
NS2.SUPER-NOVA.NET 208.56.138.105

I didn't renew through interland...

So it wasn't one of those shady renewal mailings... Although I get more junkmail from that company... :mad:

The way I got the domain back... more specifically was...

1. Call Verisign. That turned out to be a long time on hold, and not a lot of help being given. They did say they would look in to it further.

2. Call Interland. Didn't help, but it always feels good to yell at them. They gave me an e-mail address to send the details to.

3. E-mail Verisign (resolutions@networksolutions.com)

4. Go to the online verisign support area. They push me a page to do the updates, then ask me to fax in a letter on letterhead once I get the NIC number. I can't get a NIC number, because I'm supposed to modify the domain name via the "account manager". My login to the account manager no longer holds the domain. I fax in a letter anyways, the fax never gets through

4. E-mail Interland

5. Go to the online verisign support area. They created a ticket for me and sent it to engineering. I chatted with the guy for 40 minutes online to give him details... He gave me a ticket number to refer to, but would not promise a time frame to fix the problem.

6. E-mail Interland again (next day) It never works, but what the hay.

7. Go to the Verisign online support area to check on my ticket. They never heard of it. Now they're telling me the domain wasn't stolen, since my company name is still "Ingenuity Professional Services" (my company). I argue with the lady for 20 minutes. During the argument, I checked my voice mail. Someone from verisign called. I called back. Voice mail. Damn. Continue arguing with online lady. Call direct line again. Voice mail. Damn. Continue arguing. I'm dumbfounded that this lady is telling me that my domain is not stolen, and I can't make any changes to the domain at the same time. Jessica from Verisign calls me. I plead with her. She says she will update the Nameservers immediately (to be sent out for propogation yesterday evening), and will try to have my account removed from interland's clutches, but that's an "engineering" task, and will take time. To get the ball rolling, I must fax her a letter on letterhead with all of the correct domain information, as well as a request to get Interland off of my account... Whew! At this time, I tell the online lady that it was stolen, and someone else has helped me. I type the letter... (We don't have any letterhead onhand, so I created something in Word)... fax it off... Paper Jam. Re-print. Re-fax. Paper Jam. The gods are against me. Re-print. Re-fax. Success!!!

I woke up this morning, pinged my servers... everything is back! Now I have to figure out how to get my missing e-mail from Interland's servers...

My whois information is still wrong, which gives me the fear that this fix is only temporary... but it's progress, and I can get my e-mail, and my customers can view my web site...


==========

Now... since this is the second time Interland has done this to me, and obviously I'm not the only one...
what do you guys think about some sort of class action suit?

I wouldn't want to really get anything back, but I would like to see Interland pay for their shady business practices. Any Idea who to contact about something like this? Network solutions doesn't seem to have any sort of policy to stop these guys...

Just like anyone else - I'm willing to do something to get back at these guys, but it seems like it won't be worth the effort. Hopefully this discussion will be indexed by Yahoo! and others - so when people research Interland they can see what they get.

http://www.epinions.com/inet-Web_Hosting-All-Interland

This is a link to other interland haters on the web. I ran across someone wanting to file a class action against them, and I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else. I'll see if I can find it.