What can you do when a customer who registers a domain then uses a charge back :(

Your then stuck with the domain name they registered. Any advise?

Generally, you are stuck with it. If you can take owership of the domain, you can always try to sell it - however many of these will never sell...

As a registrar however, you can have the domain put on hold by the registry, which means that the person who registered it cannot use it either...

-t

Its lucky I use dotreg as my wholesaler, they allow the registrar to cancel domains upto 3 days after the registration.

Originally posted by blob2
cancel domains upto 3 days after the registration. That may help you in some cases, but probably wouldn't help against a chargeback -- which you probably wouldn't know about until 30 to 60 days after the registration.

When a user purchased a domain registration, they have to agree to terms and conditions.

If you clearly state that the funds are non-refundable, how can they win a charge back? A consumer only has the right to issue a charge back if they are not happy with the goods or service they purchased.

In this case, domain registration is domain registration. Each registrar does the same thing, how can they win a charge back?

Ever heard of stolen credit cards? Many of these charge backs are simply irreversible. We always have our customers sign a document and fax it back to us together with a photo ID (such as driver's license) and copy of front and back of the credit card.

This should keep you safe.

Originally posted by belaus
We always have our customers sign a document and fax it back to us together with a photo ID (such as driver's license) and copy of front and back of the credit card.

Come on, even if the customers only orders 1 simple domain???

No, not when they order a simple domain, but most of our customers don't just order one domain... So, yes - you might have to figure something else out...

However, if even just the security code does not match, we do not accept the credit card payment.

Some amazing facts:

If the customer pays you with a stolen credit card they still own the domain name.
You cannot disable it or hijack it.
The issue of payment is seperate from the issue of ownership.

This assumes they give you real whois info, but it has happened to us twice and the domains are still in use.

We just had 2 orders for 10 year domains, both with stolen cards.
Its cost me $5 each to refund them.
Both orders from Antigua.

Gordon

That's incredible indeed. However, if you can proof your registrar that these domain name registrations have not been paid, I think they should definitely change ownership to your company, who could in turn sell it...

I mean, how can they have ownership if they don't even pay - that would make no sense at all, because if that was true, then if there was a mistae in the whois database made by some technical error or something comparable, and I would suddenly own 1000 domain names, because a handle was updated wringfully in the database, that would mean these domains are mine? Something is just not right.

The very reason I prefer to let my registrar do the processing. Both Dotster and Enom offer that capability.

Just to clarify, I was assuming you are a reseller and not ICANN acreddited.

When I sell a domain name I pay Tucows, they pay ICANN.
As long as ICANN have been paid then there is no issue and the owner owns the domain name.
They can charge back to me and it will have no effect on their ownership of the domain name.

With .uk domains (which we are authorised registrars for)
we can disable the domain by detagging it but the registrant can still retag it to another company.

The rules are there to stop companies like ours hijacking customers domain names but they work in favour of fraudsters.

Gordon

You can get the domain put on hold through compliance@opensrs.net, however it will simply be unavailable at that time. You cannot resell it - as you don't own it.

You stop the fraudster from using the domain, however you still lose your registration fee and any chargeback fees...

-t

Yes
But its a lot of paperwork and I would need to prove that transaction xxxxxx was for domain yyyyyyyy which given the way our system works would be difficult.
With .uk domains we can detag them because we are an official registrar.

Gordon

belaus is covering his A** and it's good/smart measure even if it's a simple one domain name..

utilize the protection you are in control of.

Originally posted by GordonH
Yes
But its a lot of paperwork and I would need to prove that transaction xxxxxx was for domain yyyyyyyy which given the way our system works would be difficult.
With .uk domains we can detag them because we are an official registrar.

Gordon I certainly don't know the ins and outs of your system, but we put domains on hold all the time for chargebacks or failure to pay (many of our LandRush domains were either purchased with stolen credit cards or just not picked up when we fronted the costs during registration. It seems that when we try to be nice, we always get burned...).

-t