Hello,

What do you do when a registrar abuses their rights to your domain?
Is there some authority of domain registrars that I can contact to get them not to act immaturely and provide access to the account and domains? Since the transfer happened recently, I can't switch registrars for 25 days.

Here's the story for those interested:
My friend and business associate, who is this web designer in Nigeria signed up with namecheap.com

Now, they have locked him out of his own account until 2099, and his sites were not set up yet, so he now has downtime. This is costing the poor guy a fortune since in he is losing clients and as it is, when your in Nigeria things aren't easy.

Both he and I sent emails and phone calls, and they ignored it and when I told them I would need to pursue some sort of legal actions, they clearly showed they were jokers by saying "Wow we are so impressed" and did nothing.

So these namecheap people are just bastards, and are essentially destroying the life of this guy. I will not let this stand. If anyone knows where I can start, let me know.

Thanks.

I've been with Namecheap for over 2 years and have had no such problems. Emailed questions and even an error that resulted in a domain being registered but not placed under my account were resolved within a few hours at most.

I highly suspect that the issue may have something to do with the fact that your friend is in Nigeria. And while I'm not knocking on Nigerians or their country, the fact is that their country is classified as a high-risk country for ecommerce.

Did he try placing an order for more than just a few domains, and with a credit card as well? It may rouse suspicions on most online business' part, to be honest.

is a Enom reseller I guess
http://www.enom.com/resellers/
Contacting ENOM might help

This thread is terribly messed up. The domain would expire well before 2099 and I doubt namecheap would spend that much money just to screw over one guy.

Pixel_fenix: Yes, it expires before then but that's just the error message you get when you try to log in. Its not that they are spending money, its that they just don't care and are doing nothing and acting immature.

code_renegade: No, he only transfered 2 domains there.
I think he paid by credit card, so the charge would then be $17.76. Not a risky amount at all.
Regardless of that, there was NO response about what was going on, so far as my friend tells me. They took his money, took his domains, and therefore are putting him out of work. Not to mention for him $17.76 US = 2,308.98 Nigerian dollars (Naira).

I think I will take this to ICANN... Anyone know anything about that? I sent info to my lawyer. He's looking at it but he is pretty unfamiliar with the Internet.

How long are the exactly holding the domain because you just said they are releasing the domain before that.

Also, I haven't had much trouble with namecheap either. We use enom directly now but still, when we used namecheap, support at most took about 6-7 hours.

2099?

namecheap probably suspects fraud.

if his money was returned by the credit card company due of suspected fraud, then he has no rights over the domains.

he need to make sure that the money was not returned, and as suspected fraud country i advise to contact namecheap and tell them that your friend will fax them his back/front credit card hope and his passport copy to prove that his credit card is not stolen.

most companies will act the same in such cases.

Yet another case of FRAUD here. This guy opened about 20 seperate accounts under different usernames. This another guy whose activities we've been tracking for a while. He is notorious for putting up fake offshore banking websites to defraud investors of their money.

People commit fraud yet they still expect responses to their complaints. Always amazes us.


As mentioned to another such poster/fraudster here recently. Even if you decided to use your REAL credit card for this specific purchase. We do NOT want your business at our website. Please take your so called "business" elsewhere.

We have returned all payments to the credit card used.

Originally posted by enetwork
As mentioned to another such poster/fraudster here recently. Even if you decided to use your REAL credit card for this specific purchase. We do NOT want your business at our website. Please take your so called "business" elsewhere.
I doubt if a fraud would ever use his real credit card. Hmm ...

NameSlave,
You'd certainly be surprised. We experience this all the time. We've even called a few at their homes and admit to the fact.

When your dealing with some people from certain countries they pretty much think they are immune to the law and they are not afraid to be brash and open about their fraudulent activities.


Thanks for your usual support and insight. :rolleyes:

enetwork, I think you might be mistaken about the fraud. It is somewhat possible that this guy is pulling my leg. But I have known the guy for a year now and he has done web design for me. I also know of other sites he designed since his contact info is on them for the web master and these seem to be normal ecommerce sites. Doesn't seem like someone who would commit fraud, tho you never know for sure. Maybe its not the person you are thinking of.

Even so, I was upset when I didn't get a call back or proper e-mail... I am a Canadian citizen and I provided a phone number numerous times, left phone messages, and still no call back at all. I will pay the long distance fees if necessary. Also, the tech support who wrote back acted very immaturely, so it seemed to me that the company is just being irresponsible.

Can I see your evidence that he is committing fraud? Also note, credit card providers in Nigeria are often the source of fraud, not just the people who use them.

I believe you should go by "innocent until proven guilty" here.
The domains he registered are HairAndBeautyMag.com and virginbeauty.biz (a fashion site). I don't see how registering these would make someone suspect of fraud or cause further fraudulent activities. They are stuck at your registrar and can't be transfered for 15 days or so, so he has no choice.

Here's what I am thinking
If you need to get payment from a normal credit card, I will use my credit card on his behalf. I think its only fair to unlock the domains for one day so they can be set up properly. Then, if you can prove it is fraud and he has been pulling both our legs, then I will also cancel the web design work I will give him. And, I have his address in Nigeria that I used for payment so I can make sure an authority gets to the bottom of it.

Feel free to PM me with your thoughts. Again, I think you have the wrong guy here, and right now he is in a very difficult position.

First off, this person lied to you regarding the domains being transferred in to us. They were new registrations. We have been tracking this guys IPs, usernames, and passwords and he has opened over 20 different accounts with us and most used to purchase the bank fraud sites matched that same one. The funny thing is this guy is suppose to be in nigeria but he was using a proxy from Israel when he purchased those domains. We are not going to go any further into the methods we use to detect and combat fraud as that is private information.

This guy even has the nerve to open ANOTHER account on our website today. You can let him know that this has been locked as well.

It is not our responsibility to return your calls as you are not our client and especially since you are claiming to represent somebody that has been defrauding our company for several months now. We have an absolute zero tolerance when it comes to this.

enetwork say if cyman would pay all fraud transactions including any chargeback fees to recover the domains, would this be an option ?

fraud and chargebacks are a growing problem in this industry. It sucks since margins are already tight for registrars and to have to deal with this nonsense as well sucks.

Originally posted by Bashar
enetwork say if cyman would pay all fraud transactions including any chargeback fees to recover the domains, would this be an option ?


If I was the owner of namecheap I would surely say NO to that...

First off, this person lied to you regarding the domains being transferred in to us. They were new registrations.
Really? I saw the pages up myself with the domain before the transfer. So obviously that is incorrect.

We have been tracking this guys IPs, usernames, and passwords and he has opened over 20 different accounts with us and most used to purchase the bank fraud sites matched that same one.
If it is all coming from different IPs, usernames and passwords, how do you know it is the same guy?
Lagos, where he's coming from, is one of the most populated cities in Africa. Plus, because people are poor, they often use the Internet in communal areas. How exactly do you know this is the same guy who is doing this?

This guy even has the nerve to open ANOTHER account on our website today. You can let him know that this has been locked as well.
Yes, he mentioned that to me... It was one of your free accounts which he signed up for in hopes that it would let him somehow access his domains.

enetwork, I think the best thing for us both to do is to just unlock the vincent1 account for these 2 domains for just 1 day and let me pay for them. I can transfer $20 US into your account via PayPal. I really think you have the wrong person. And if he is committing fraud in the end, then I myself will pursue him, and we can then shut down his sites. I have his phone number in Nigeria for goodness sake, I have spoken to him on the phone. I could easily get him persecuted if he is the one. If you do this, I will even write to the moderator to remove this post so your reputation isn't damaged. That way, everyone is happy.

I think that is very fair. It is innocent until proven guilty. Right now, you are really damaging this guy's livelihood since his clients are threatening to leave him. I am even now willing to pay the cost of the domains myself, at $10 each. So please, I beg you to just give this poor guy a break.

Just to clarify, my associate (from Nigeria) said the domain virginbeauty.biz expired so he needed to re-register it, which is why it appeared as a registration and not a transfer.