I'm in the process of trying to transfer my domain registration from yahoo to registerfly. As there has been quite a lot of posts on the difficulty of this proceedure i thought I'd keep a running commentary by myself as to how this attempt proceeds. I'm nervous but I feel it's got to be done. I'll be keeping yahoo as my hosting provider for the time being, so I allocated the domain name servers as those given on whois, is that the right thing to do?

So far I've made the application to registerfly and paid the transfer fee, I'll keep you informed and any support from people who know about this proceedure would be very welcome!

Interesting...I've transferred a lot of domains and haven't had too many problems. I think many domain transfer woes stem from people not unlocking their domains first or getting the auth code from the owning registrar.

Yahoo is certainly no seedy backalley registrar so you should have no problems.

I have transferred a bunch to RegisterFly.com. As devildog has pointed out make sure the domain names are unlocked, make sure the admin email contact is a working email address and also make sure the name is not close to being expired. If you follow those tips you should be OK.

I've had my transfer approval email at my admin email address and I've responded to accept transfer so that part seems to be ok.

I can't find anything about lock/unlock on yahoo, that's one of the reasons I wanted to transfer registration, because yahoo doesn't seem to provide "lock" mode.

If this goes through ok and I've used the nameservers as given on my whois record, my site should have no down time. So far, my site's still functional as I hope it will remain.

Thanks for your replies.

When did you reg the domain name? Did you give it 60 days before you transfer out? You should have 0 down time

I have moved an .org website from Yahoo and now want to transfer the domain name to another registrar and need an EPP number. Yahoo INSISTS that I must cancel my Yahoo account before they can "release" the domain name, leaving me powerless over the domain name until such time as melbourneit sends me a key. I am more than a little concerned , especially after reading in this forum that it can take as long as 48 hours for melbourneit to send a key; not to mention what might happen if somehow melbourneit never receives the Yahoo release.
If you try to fill out melbourneit's contact form with a domain name "registered" at Yahoo, they will not recognize you.
I've transferred hundreds of domain names and have never had this problem; it seems to me an unethical and anticompetitive practice on Yahoo's part; I am surprized that other registrars aren't screaming about this.
Meanwhile, if anyone has any ideas how to effect this transfer without the website and email going down, I'd be interested in hearing it.

That is pretty wierd that you can't transfer a domain without cancelling an account. Can you send us the e-mail where they said that?

I don't have it in writing, I was on the phone. I insisted on talking with the supervisor, who identified himself as Bill and wouldn't give out his last name, but did give me an employee #: 71533

That part about having to cancel the account first sounds like a formula for more frustration. If your whois-listed email address is admin@yourdomain which forwards to your Yahoo email address (the typical arrangement), then if you cancel the account your whois-listed email address will become non-functional, and you won't be able to confirm the transfer. You can preempt that by changing the whois listed email address to something that won't get destroyed, but you need either Yahoo support to do that, or the MelbourneIT register key to do that yourself.

Here is Yahoo's contact information as listed with BBB of Silicon Valley:

Yahoo!
701 First Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1019
Phone Number: (408) 349-3300
Principal: Terry Semel, CEO

Here is the agency to complain to when they are unhelpful:

Santa Clara County
Office of the District Attorney
County Government Center, West Wing
70 West Hedding Street
San Jose, CA 95110
Fax: (408) 286-5437

Thanks disgruntled, you have saved me some research, I was thinking about writing to the DA, but then the thought of writing up a description of the problem and consequences in a manner that a DA could understand seemed like a great way to spend more unproductive hours (after already spending 2 unproductive hours on the phone with Yahoo)!
Client says don't take a chance, just stay with Yahoo; which of course is probably the point of the rule to begin with.
I was also thinking of posting a complaint at the internic registrar probem report page, they may be more receptive to wanting a fix.

My past experience from being a Yahoo customer (at which time I started to visit this forum and chose a nickname) is that within a week of the Santa Clara County DA receiving the complaint, Yahoo will probably connect you to someone who knows how to be helpful.

You can change your admin email through the domain control panel, I managed to do that so that my whois admin email is something other than my yahoo email. I did that after you recommended it, Disgruntled!

I've heard nothing since my last update on this which was that I'd received the transfer approval at my non yahoo email, and accepted the transfer. My site is still up.

I don't live in the US so I don't know if I can call the Santa Clara DA, but If this transfer doesnt work, I'll give it a go.

When I registered with yahoo I had to answer a "secret" question and I obviously made up an answer, which I've forgotten. I tried yahoo support to change the question, but they said they needed my secret answer before I could change the question!! I don't understand why I'm able to access and change my password and security key, but not this damn question, so there's that problem which is not resolvable. I get less happy and more concerned about my yahoo account as time goes on.

Here's a page that fills me with hope!:
How do I transfer my yahoo domain to another registrar? (http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/sbc/domains/accountmanagement/accountmanagement-24.html)

I'm just hoping yahoo is true to its words.

sd_dri

good luck, let us know how it goes

This transfer has gone through, no problems, no down time. I'm now registered at Registerfly and my site is hosted at Yahoo.

So Yahoo was good to its words:
How do I transfer my domain to another registrar? (http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/sbc/domains/accountmanagement/accountmanagement-24.html)

Originally posted by nadezhdazz
This transfer has gone through, no problems, no down time. I'm now registered at Registerfly and my site is hosted at Yahoo.

So Yahoo was good to its words:
How do I transfer my domain to another registrar? (http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/sbc/domains/accountmanagement/accountmanagement-24.html) However those with a dot org, like sd_dri still have a continuing and interesting issue. The Yahoo instructions say to close your account AFTER the transfer, however if it's a dot org, they won't give you the authorization code to transfer until you've first closed the account.

Therein is the problem, you can't tranfer without the auth code, and you can't get it unless you FIRST close your account with Yahoo.

--
Doug

I understand sd_dri's problem, it's similar to a while back when you needed the registry key to transfer a .com away from Yahoo and Yahoo would drag their heels, there were many irate people having a lot of problems, which was why I was nervous of instigating my transfer.

I also know well that Yahoo's support is appalling. I hope sd_dri finds a way around this problem. Maybe Disgruntled's above suggestion would help?

I actually like Yahoo's hosting. But Yahoo leave a lot to be desired, support wise, it used to be quite a bit better.