I am a former BulkRegister customer, whose account was switched over to Enom due to the buyout last year. I have between 200-300 domain names in my account with Enom at this time.

I was nervous when Enom purchased BulkRegister. I was worried that things would change for the worse as often happens when one is a patron of the "purchased" company. After 4 months, I must say that my fears have been justified. I will explain why in one statement..... "I do not feel that Enom respects me as a reseller customer as well as BulkRegister did".

That sums up my feelings. Here is one of the reasons why I feel this way.

I run a hosting company. My company is small, but well run. I have been in the business for over 5 years and I make a living at it. I do not do anything else and have not since I opened my company. Because I am small, I take every aspect of my business seriously as I fight to remain profitable.

Recently, one of my customers contacted me and asked me to update their contact email for them in their domain record. I explained to them that I would give them this access so they could change this for themselves. But, upon checking the customer's account, I found that, though we had automatically renewed their domain name because they pay yearly (as our contract states), they had decided to not renew their hosting with us. So, I contacted the customer and told them that since they broke the contract, they would be required to pay a sum of $15.00 for the domain name registration (which my company had already paid for on their behalf and which our contract clearly states), and then I would give them access to their domain record.

Instead of doing the right thing and paying for the domain, the customer evidently contacted Enom and told them they wanted to move the domain name out of our agency. Obviously, the customer did not mention to Enom that they owed us money for the domain name.

I was appalled to learn, after the fact, that Enom did just that. They moved the customer from our reseller account, and into a retail account under the customer's own name. The most frustrating thing about this is, Enom NEVER CONTACTED US to discuss the matter before doing this. They just did it, without considering our side of the story. Our side of the story could have been corroborated with receipts, help desk communications with this customer, and the like. Clearly, there was evidence on our side that would have justified our position in this matter.

But alas, Enom seems uninterested in such things. When I opened a ticket after-the-fact to discuss this with Enom, they simply closed the ticket and re-stated what I already knew... that they had transferred the customer to their own retail account.

Now, some of the more forgiving among you may consider that my company somehow deserved this. Or, possibly, you may state that Enom's end customer is the most important aspect of their business, and they must take care of them. Then, I would say to you, wouldn't it have at least been proper for Enom to contact us to let us know that they were doing this? I found out by contacting them and asking why the domain name was not in my portfolio.

If you are a domain reseller, heed my advice. Research reseller experiences with Enom before deciding to go with them or to use them. To be fair, I am sure many resellers are happy with Enom. I, however, am not. I have already begun a process to remove all of my domains from this company to a different company. I will not rest well until I have completed this process. And then I will be able to say, "good riddance".

If any Enom managers happen to be on this board and read this post, don't bother to contact me to resolve the problem. Your company has failed me. I am convinced that you have a culture of poor support for your resellers and I will never agree to stay with your company.

The registrant of any domain is the legal owner, therefore, ICANN would say that eNom HAD to help the end-user when they contacted the sponsoring registrar of the domain.

If your contract states that the customer doesn't own the domain until the contract is completed, then perhaps you should not have the Registrant and Admin contacts in your customer's name.


Btw, I agree that eNom should have contacted you as the reseller first, and in my experience have found that eNom always refers end users back to their resellers instead of helping them directly. You'll find accounts from end users on the other side of the issue, saying that eNom will not help them directly and they just get referred back to their reseller - who they don't want to deal with anymore ;-)

The registrant of any domain is the legal owner, therefore, ICANN would say that eNom HAD to help the end-user when they contacted the sponsoring registrar of the domain.

If your contract states that the customer doesn't own the domain until the contract is completed, then perhaps you should not have the Registrant and Admin contacts in your customer's name.


Btw, I agree that eNom should have contacted you as the reseller first, and in my experience have found that eNom always refers end users back to their resellers instead of helping them directly. You'll find accounts from end users on the other side of the issue, saying that eNom will not help them directly and they just get referred back to their reseller - who they don't want to deal with anymore ;-)

Yes, I understand what you are saying. In regard to changing the domain contacts to our company, I don't think that is a good thing for us or any domain reseller to do. We never place our company name as the registrant, etc. because we want our customers to have control over their domains, even if they have a disagreement with us and even if it puts us at a disadvantage. I realize the risk that this entails to us, but it is important for us to do things with an aim to protect the customer.

My concern is the fact that Enom simply took this action with no regard for us. I can say this with confidence because they did not contact us prior to or after this action. We are easy to contact. Their inability to contact us certainly was not the problem here. They simply did not feel the need to contact us as they did not place any importance on notifying their reseller that they had taken such an action.

BulkRegister had a dispute policy and they never did this to us in 4 years we were with them. Simply stated, and in my opinion, BulkRegister had a higher regard for their resellers than I feel Enom has.

I was appalled to learn, after the fact, that Enom did just that. They moved the customer from our reseller account, and into a retail account under the customer's own name. The most frustrating thing about this is, Enom NEVER CONTACTED US to discuss the matter before doing this. They just did it, without considering our side of the story.


Then I guess You had Your customers info in the WhoIs fields. So in fact the "owner" of the domain asked eNom to move the domain to another eNom account.

You could put Your own info into these fields and You will not experience it again.
And it would be like a WhoIs protection for Your customers.

Sammy :)

WOAH WOAH WOAH!!!

Then what is the point of access.enom.com then?

Say you give one of your client's or may be employees access to access.enom.com for that particular domain to edit nameservers or add dns entries and such do you mean to say they can change the registrant details in there and ask enom to move the domain to their own account?

That is absurd. Then there is no point to access.enom.com, right?

Wow, this does not sound right. They should not be able to move the domain off your account, especially when you paid for it and not the customer of you. I know I'm going to have to research this one some more.

not right at all, they should contacted the reseller/ETP and informed him about this.

playing with his customers violate the agreement he signed with them

what a private label solution!

we've had clienst contact enom asking for changes to their domains, enom *always* contact us regarding this, and the email form them asks to be kept in the loop on the ongoing discussions.

if you dont reply to the enom email within 2 dyas , they will take the registrants orders over the domain - so I'd suggest checking they have your correct contact info as the account owner

WOAH WOAH WOAH!!!

Then what is the point of access.enom.com then?

Say you give one of your client's or may be employees access to access.enom.com for that particular domain to edit nameservers or add dns entries and such do you mean to say they can change the registrant details in there and ask enom to move the domain to their own account?

That is absurd. Then there is no point to access.enom.com, right?

You can't unlock a domain (or get the auth codes) at access.enom.com

Sonixi - whilst I think eNom should have referred your customer back to you, which they do in most all cases, since your customer was in the Registrant and Admin Contacts, they are perfectly able to take instructions from them.

I think your mistake was to be too lenient on a non-paying customer. Every hosting company I know would lock their client out from their domain (so they couldn't transfer) until the billing dispute was settled.

not right at all, they should contacted the reseller/ETP and informed him about this.

playing with his customers violate the agreement he signed with them

what a private label solution!
Bashar, you’ve been around here a while and I have read many of your posts and respect your opinion and contributions here, but I am not so fast to agree with you on this one.

I understand the OP frustrations, but my first thought was they were not aware of the customer leaving and renewed the domain, and that is their own fault. They laid out the money and they should not have. Now the owner of that domain should have done the right thing and thanked the OP for not allowing the domain to expire and paid the renewal fee. However, the customer was no longer under a contractual obligation to the OP and had no legal obligation to pay them for their mistake. Even if they were in a contract, they were still the legal owner of the domain. As the customer was the legal owner of the domain, Enom acted accordingly to the legal authority here.

Unfortunately many times the right thing to do is not always the legal obligation. It would have been the right thing for the customer to reimburse the OP, but I don’t see a legal obligation to do so.

Sonixi, you appear to be a fair minded person and obviously a successful business owner. Notwithstanding, you have an operations opportunity here to learn from. Domain ownership does not allow a secured third party in the ownership – much as a lien holder does in a car title. The registered owner of a domain is authoritative in the ownership. I think if you adjust your operations model around that principal you can avoid this issue in the future.



But alas, Enom seems uninterested in such things. When I opened a ticket after-the-fact to discuss this with Enom, they simply closed the ticket and re-stated what I already knew... that they had transferred the customer to their own retail account.
While this annoys me, it does not effectively change the circumstances of this event

You can't unlock a domain (or get the auth codes) at access.enom.com
I know, you cant transfer to another registrar, BUT, they do have the ability to change the "Registrant" "Technical" "Administrator" details and I think the OP said the registrant information was his client's.

So the client just have to tell enom he owns the domian they will probably verify it by sending an email listed in the whois, which is the client's and push the domain into the client's new account.

ANYONE who has access to access.enom.com can change those information and ask enom to push the domain, right? Then my question again, what is the point of access.enom.com? Any one of my employees or clients can ask enom and they will push the domains, right?

Bashar, you’ve been around here a while and I have read many of your posts and respect your opinion and contributions here, but I am not so fast to agree with you on this one.

I understand the OP frustrations, but my first thought was they were not aware of the customer leaving and renewed the domain, and that is their own fault. They laid out the money and they should not have. Now the owner of that domain should have done the right thing and thanked the OP for not allowing the domain to expire and paid the renewal fee. However, the customer was no longer under a contractual obligation to the OP and had no legal obligation to pay them for their mistake. Even if they were in a contract, they were still the legal owner of the domain. As the customer was the legal owner of the domain, Enom acted accordingly to the legal authority here.

Unfortunately many times the right thing to do is not always the legal obligation. It would have been the right thing for the customer to reimburse the OP, but I don’t see a legal obligation to do so.

Sonixi, you appear to be a fair minded person and obviously a successful business owner. Notwithstanding, you have an operations opportunity here to learn from. Domain ownership does not allow a secured third party in the ownership – much as a lien holder does in a car title. The registered owner of a domain is authoritative in the ownership. I think if you adjust your operations model around that principal you can avoid this issue in the future.


While this annoys me, it does not effectively change the circumstances of this event
enom should not act without telling the customer please contact your reseller (like they ALWAYS do) and the reaso nthey have www.enom.com/help (reseller retrieval tool) , its also mentioned there:
If you are not an eNom client, please use our Reseller Information Retrieval Tool to look up your Domain Name Account Information, or use one of the links on the right to look up F.A.Q.s in our knowledge base or to find further information on the subjects listed.

To request HELP for your Domain Name management, you will need to contact your Domain Name Reseller.

Since your domain was acquired through one of our resellers, you will need to contact them directly for assistance with your domain name, login or DNS assistance. We do not have access to this data. Their contact information can be listed above for your convenience after you submit your domain name.

Also, your reseller has the tools and the capability to:
Register your nameservers for you.
Set you up with a password to access your name.
Set or remove registrar locks at any time.
Add, change, or alter contact information for your domain names.
Set, or change nameservers for your domain names.
Answer any questions regarding billing or services that they provide.
Renew your domain.
Your reseller will be happy to help you access your domain name to change any information that needs to be changed.

enom always contacted the reseller and ONLY if the reseller is out of business or unreachable they would help the end user.

ANYONE who has access to access.enom.com can change those information and ask enom to push the domain, right? Then my question again, what is the point of access.enom.com? Any one of my employees or clients can ask enom and they will push the domains, right?

I bought a domain at Club Drop. When eNom pushed it to my account they didn't blank the previous password. The previous owner, using access.enom.com changed the whois back to his own. Then somehow, even though the domain was still locked, was able to transfer the domain to GoDaddy. They called this a feature. They refused to file a transfer dispute with GoDaddy, and I lost the domain. It was "stolen" from my account. This was prior to auth codes being used on .com domains. So there seem to be lots of uses for access.enom.com. Not all of them legitimate.

enom should not act without telling the customer please contact your reseller (like they ALWAYS do)
Do we know they did not do that, and then the customer returned with a inaccessible domain that they were the registered owner of?

enom always contacted the reseller and ONLY if the reseller is out of business or unreachable they would help the end user.
While I would expect enom to take a generally passive approach to their involvement in a reseller’s actions, I would sincerely hope it would not be limited only to those two conditions.

I see this very straight forward. The owner wanted to transfer their domain. The OP did not assist in that transfer. I understand why the OP did not, but the authority must go to the owner of the domain.

It is my understanding that the customer's information was listed as the registrant for the domain name.

eNom is obligated to accept and carry out any request made by the registrant of the domain.

It does not matter what reseller account the domain is listed in.

If you want to restrict access by your customer's to domains in your eNom reseller account, then you must make sure YOUR information is listed as the registrant for the domain.

Otherwise, the registrant can simply go directly to ICANN and file a complain.. and ICANN would then force eNom to comply with the request.

The domain owner is the registrant -- not the reseller account.

Sonixi - whilst I think eNom should have referred your customer back to you, which they do in most all cases, since your customer was in the Registrant and Admin Contacts, they are perfectly able to take instructions from them.

I think your mistake was to be too lenient on a non-paying customer. Every hosting company I know would lock their client out from their domain (so they couldn't transfer) until the billing dispute was settled.

Lenient? Yes. It is a protection I decide to provide the customer, because I never want my company to be perceived as being difficult to work with... even if it puts us at a disadvantage.

However, the issue here is the failure of Enom to contact us before or after the matter. My contact info was up-to-date. There was no contact email from Enom about this matter. They just did it.

My opinion is,

1. Enom should have referred the client back to us.
2. If the client was not-satisfied, then Enom should have contacted us and asked us to fix the situation.
3. If, after giving us a chance to rectify the situation.. and we fail to... THEN, Enom should take any action necessary to protect the end client.

Enom skipped 1 and 2. I never had a chance to do anything. I do not respect such a policy.... at all.

Do we know they did not do that, and then the customer returned with a inaccessible domain that they were the registered owner of?

This client's domain never went down... Understand, this all took place in the course of a week. The only contact we had with the customer after they contacted us was to say, please pay what you owe us. We had just renewed their domain for a year and they had paid us nothing for that year. I do not think that is too much to ask. We never threatened them. We never said anything out of the way to them, just "pay us what you owe us for the domain name". That's it.


I see this very straight forward. The owner wanted to transfer their domain. The OP did not assist in that transfer. I understand why the OP did not, but the authority must go to the owner of the domain.

Even if the customer is screwing an Enom reseller. Fine, that is your judgement. However, like I have mentioned, the real issue here is that we did not even receive a courtesy contact from Enom before or after the transfer out. I feel that Enom has no regard for us as a reseller. That is the feeling I am left with. It would be hard to argue that my feeling is unjustified unless maybe you work for Enom.

we've had clienst contact enom asking for changes to their domains, enom *always* contact us regarding this, and the email form them asks to be kept in the loop on the ongoing discussions.

if you dont reply to the enom email within 2 dyas , they will take the registrants orders over the domain - so I'd suggest checking they have your correct contact info as the account owner

I'm not suprised that some people will consider that somehow I or my company is at fault here. However, this happened as I have stated. I do not embellish. I simply relate my experience and you can judge for yourself. There was no email from Enom to my contact email on file. My contact email on file is the same one I use to day, and the same one I used with BulkRegister before the transfer. An inability to contact us is definitely not the issue here. The issue is as I have stated previously. They failed to contact us before or after.

Sonixi. Hang on a minute, we're agreeing with you. What did eNom have to say about the situation? If they haven't answered you yet, get back onto them. I don't think this is their policy at all. To go after their resellers customers. It's an exception rather than the rule. As can be judged by all the ETP's who have answered in this thread have expressed already.

But we don't agree with your lenient policy to your clients. It's a dog-eat-dog world of unscrupulous clients, webhosts, and registrars out there. Even the most client-friendly webhost would have made every effort for prevent a client from transferring away when bills are unpaid. You are trying to shift all the blame to eNom when it was your lenient policies which allowed this to happen in the first place. Sorry to say, but you need to wake up and smell the coffee (no insult intended, just a dose of reality). All credit to you for wanting to run a super-ethical business, but you are going to have to count incidents like this as the cost of doing business.

It would be hard to argue that my feeling is unjustified unless maybe you work for Enom.

I hardly work for enom, and if you would relax and read my posts more carefully, I have said I understood the way you felt and that your customer should have paid you. However, thoughts and feelings do not take precedence over details. Addressing the latter, detail one - you said you discovered that you renewed the domain when you should not have. Detail two - your mistake is not the customer’s responsibility. Detail three – the customer owned the domain, and you have no legal right to hold it hostage. Detail four – whatever you did or didn’t do, the customer, after contacting you, felt it necessary to look to enom for relief.

.... I never want my company to be perceived as being difficult to work with... even if it puts us at a disadvantage.
Your customer obviously thought different and felt it necessary to contact enom, and in this case it did put you at a disadvantage. Considering your above preference, I would think you would be more focused on why your customer felt as they did and found it necessary to contact enom.


My opinion is,

1. Enom should have referred the client back to us.
2. If the client was not-satisfied, then Enom should have contacted us and asked us to fix the situation.
3. If, after giving us a chance to rectify the situation.. and we fail to... THEN, Enom should take any action necessary to protect the end client.


Some might think what did happen here and why would the customer stick it to you. Rather than exploring that, I would be interested in the following to your above opinions.

1. Do you know enom did not do that? It is conceivable to me they could have and the customer came back stating you would not release the domain.
2. If enom asked you to fix it, what would you have done different than how this event ended?
3. Normally I would agree, but that may depend on you response to the above.

I've had EasyDNS pull this on me twice and I wasn't happy about it. Similar situation to the OP.