I need to get an SSL certificate for my site and I was planning on using thawte. I e-mailed thawte to try and find out what kind of documentation I would need.

I was told that I would need a "business certificate" and I could obtain that from the city/country clerk. I contacted my city and county clerk and they have never heard of a "business certificate". It does not appear to be something that Wisconsin issues.

What documentation did you have to provide to thawte to get your cert? If anyone else in Wisconsin has purchased a cert from thawte, I'd be very interested in hearing from you. We're not big enough to have a DBS/DUNS number.

Frank

I always got my certs from thawte since I started in 1996 (we have a duns number, but our customer usually dont). That all changed last night, I went to http://www.geotrust.com and for the same price ($99) i got their quickssl cert within 10 minutes.

I would usually have had to wait 3-4 days for me or my clients to get their ssl cert completed because they/we always had to submit our bussiness license....whois of domain etc...

I also got a call from GeoTrust today asking me to join their partner program, which without question we will be applying for.

My customers are certainly very happy that we can personally tell them that once they submit a cert request to us, they can have their secure site online within 24 hours or sooner.

Yep, I am also considering geotrust. It looks a lot easier. Any issues with browser compatability?

Frank

none with the ones i use (ie 5+) and (ns 4+)

:)

Originally posted by ffeingol
I was told that I would need a "business certificate" and I could obtain that from the city/country clerk. I contacted my city and county clerk and they have never heard of a "business certificate". It does not appear to be something that Wisconsin issues.

More than likely you're not getting the certificate with your name (frank) on it. So they just want something tying the name of the organization with the information that you gave them.

They were probably looking for a Certificate of Assumed Name, also known as a DBA (Doing Business As certificate) if your a sole proprietorship or partnership, or your articles of incorporation as filed with the state, or whatever.

Yep, I understand what/why they want it. After a lenghty e-mail discussion, my articles of incorporation seem to be good enough.

I'm not really sure why they would accpet that, but I'm beyond caring ;). As far as I know, the articles of incorporation are a public document and I can go the the WI. secretary of state and get copies of any company I want.

We'll see how the saga goes, as I'm going to apply for my cert later on tonight.

Frank

OK, well the saga is over :D.

It took a week, a couple of e-mails and a phone call, but my cert is ready. I just ended up having to fax them the articles of incorporation for my company and donamin name info. Answered a couple of questions by e-mail and some on the phone, poof! I have my cert.

I'll be installing/testing tonight.

Frank

Great!

I always find it a pleasure dealing with Thawte.

Thanks bitserver... :D

jabba,

I assume you work for Thawte.

I also have to agree that it was quite an easy experience.

It took a couple of e-mails back/fort before I ordered the cert. but that was fine by me. I just wanted to insure that I had the proper documentation before I ordered the cert.

After I applied for the cert/faxed in the info. the process was pretty painless. My only complaint (and it was not a biggie) is that my request seem to sit for a week until I started to query about it. My guess is that the person assigned to it was out of the office (from the e-mail response that I received).

Overall I was very happy with my experience and if I need more certs, I'll be going with Thawte. Now if you just had a reseller program ;).

Frank

Heya ffeingol

Yup, I do work for Thawte (don't like to advertise too much on the boards though...) and I must say that the fact you had to query the length of time it was taking is a bit of a pain, as this shouldn't be happening...:mad:

Our process used to take 2-3 days, but somewhere along the line the verification process has been dragged out a bit. :confused:

ffeingol, we DO have a reseller program, if you want to find out more let me know. :)

Basically, free to join and $25 discount on certs.

Cheers, thanks for the post