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Thread: Holdfire.net Goodbye
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03-20-2012, 09:47 AM #1New Member
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- Feb 2012
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Holdfire.net Goodbye
After MONTHS of fighting with them and fighting with them, we are done with them. They changed owners awhile back and the new ones decided they didn't need to speak to their customers or run a functioning website.
Months back our websites kept going down, 4-5 times a month and sometimes days at a time with zero response. When they did finally respond to a support ticket, they made it seem like I'm the bad guy cause they had a "hardware problem" or needed to upgrade something and didn't give anyone notice. Then they're servers were breached and hacked into by some group(forgot the name) who plastered all kinds of vulgar language all over our websites.
Finally we had enough and my manager told me to take care of it, switch hosts and do something. Switching hosts was the easy part, just move everything over. But that's useless when you can't get the EPP codes to authorize the transfer, I will admit I don't know much about domain registration. So after zero response I didn't know what to do, I assumed we had lost the domains until they expired a year later. Which my manager was not having, we're an established company with a brand and couldn't' just change the name.
So, I tried to contact the ICANN and even GoDaddy for some form of advice. Legal action was in our sights but since we had no way of even contacting them I don't see how that'd do us any good. So after some reading on the ICANN policies I noticed they had a 5 day grace period on domain transfers, after the 5 days the ICANN could forcefully transfer the domain themselves. This is also when I found out Holdfire.net actually registered the domains via Reseller.biz(who have been EXTREMELY helpful and friendly through the whole process), so after a complaint filed through the ICANN after 5 days and contacting Reseller.biz, we finally got everything straightened out.
It only took buttloads of security and proof of ownership, but we finally got it taken care of. Our domains are finally transferring, now it's just a waiting game. I just wanted to share my horror story and I learned some things along the way.
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03-20-2012, 10:08 AM #2Aspiring Evangelist
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- Feb 2004
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I'm seriously sorry to hear what you went through, please let us know what you've learned from this experience so that some of us newbies, novices, and professionals alike can benefit from this as well.
“Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.” - Bertolt Brecht
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03-20-2012, 10:12 AM #3New Member
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- Feb 2012
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Well I have definitely become a little more knowledgable when it comes to domains and handling them. And my personal recommendation and one that I'll use from now one, dont use hosting or registrars you're not familiar with or heard something about. I originally used Holdfire cause a friend of mine was the owner, she sold it and the new owners never announced it.
Also once you start having problems like that, bail out and move on. It's only going to cost you money, time and frustration. We're still working on trying to get the money back of a years hosting we paid in advance.
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03-20-2012, 11:01 AM #4Actively learning French
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- Apr 2009
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I have never herd of those hosts before and do not think I ever saw them on here but nonetheless, I am sorry to hear of your experience and it must have been really frustrating for you and the company you work with to experience that sort of ransom act!
If you're the smartest person in the room then you're in the wrong room
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03-20-2012, 11:06 AM #5Premium Member
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- Aug 2011
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Yikes, What a story. I am extremely happy to hear everything was finally worked out in the end, but working with a company that seems so unwilling to help saddens me. Good luck in your future endeavors.
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03-20-2012, 11:26 AM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Feb 2012
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its good to know that everything worked out for you. ive been through this with another host. But as a lesson for anyone reading this...
never, never purchase your domains from the same people who host you. ever. its just not worth it. get your domains from a reputable dedicated domain host
never lose access to the email you book your domains from.
also most web-hosts are only domain resellers, remember that the parent registrar will always help you out , the basic procedure is the same everywhere. they require legal proof of identity, and bam, they'll pull the domain from the truant reseller.
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03-20-2012, 12:15 PM #7WHT Addict
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- Jan 2012
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I haven't heard of them, but it sounds like just another story with an unknown hosting company. I did a lot of research before I decided to choose a hosting company, and now I am glad I went through that research. Cheers.
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03-20-2012, 01:38 PM #8Retired Moderator
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- Oct 2002
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Our domains are finally transferring, now it's just a waiting game.
Perhaps your story serves as a warning to all of us, that after an ownership change, we're basically dealing with a completely new company. We should pay attention to any and all warning signs.
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