Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Gearworx goes under, need help getting domain back...

[grungepuppy]

i'm posting on behalf of my husband who was hosted at gearworx. last week they said they were closing the company and that their customers had about fifteen days to find new hosts.

i think a lot of you know how notoriously bad gearworx's support has been. he needs to migrate his domain to another service, but no one's answering his request for an auth code or to remove private whois info. none of that stuff was ever really available to request through the control panel. he can unlock it but nothing else. the only way it seems you can (or used to anyway) get a hold of them was through a ticket system (that i don't think was linked on their main page in the first place.) and no one's responding.

he's probably s.o.l., but i was wondering if there was anything we could do in this situation. i noticed that gearworx has an account here, but you can't pm them, and i don't know if they even bother coming here anymore or not. if they do, and they read this, please tell me what my husband needs to do to get his domain transferred.

thanks fellas.

[MikeDVB]

Depending on who GearWorx is using as their sponsoring registrar you may be able to go directly to the registrar. What is the domain name in question?

[Deroba]

If you are not able to transfer it on time you will have to wait until it expires and it's available again. Oh god.

Do they have a live support such as chat or phone? Try that

[grungepuppy]

@debora: they have virtually nothing except trouble tickets. they used to have skype, but they haven't been on in months.

@mike: stupidfingers.com

thanks for the responses guys!

[MikeDVB]

   Domain Name: STUPIDFINGERS.COM
   Registrar: ENOM, INC.

Get in touch with eNom.

[Konrad4]

If you continue having trouble with contacting them, contact eNom, the registrar, like MikeDVB said. Hopefully you will be able to get this resolved. You should learn from this situation though to register your domains separately from your web hosting. Always the safest way to go.

[sramadan]

grungepuppy,

If they are using an Enom reseller account your husband can transfer his domain himself through the registry rocket account. If they never setup their account then there's pretty much nothing you can do on your end until they do the transfer themselves.

sorry I meant to post the other contact info...my bad

[realvaluehosting]

I hope you have your own details in the whois info. of the domain else it is going to be very difficult to get it transferred.

[grungepuppy]

if i remember correctly the enom is actually the private whois service he had gearworx put on there (he asked about private whois services and they activated it for him through a trouble ticket. no other info about it was given.) the actual contact/administration info with his name and info is still listed on the hosting control panel. the only thing he has control over is that information, where or not it's locked, the DNS, and something else that's not useful for transferring the domain. those were the two things we needed in order to have it transfer (the private whois removed and to get a eep auth code) but we can't do that without contacting support.

i will have him contact enom though. maybe they know something he doesn't.

thanks for all the help so far fellas!

[MikeDVB]

As long as (beneath the WHOIS Protection) the domain is registered in your name then eNom will work with you once you explain what the issue is.

If it is registered in Gearworx's name then you're going to be SOL.

[JLHC]

It looks like Gearworx is using WHMCS as their billing system.

Try going here: https://gearworx.net/vip/
Then navigate to My Domains --> stupidfingers.com --> Get EPP Code.

[grungepuppy]

that's interesting, some of the whois search sites bring up the enom info... and some bring up his regular contact info. anyone know what that's all about?

the good news about that, i suppose, is it lists gearworx technical contact info, including their phone number. he'll be trying that next.

[grungepuppy]

@jlhc: that log in actually never worked for him. i believe it was an upgrade they made to their system some time ago, and he still had to use the old client login system, as directed by support. i don't know what that was about, if they just had it for new clients or what.

[grungepuppy]

some good news-
through some phone tag, my husband was able to contact enom. enom confirmed that is is his information in the who is, and told him that his domain is resold through parallels... which is then resold through gearworx. tomorrow he will be contacting parallels, to which he will explain the measures he's taken to contact the company and the situation at hand. parallels will then yank the domain if they too can not get a hold of them and provide the necessary info he needs to get his domain back.

i'll report back if he is successful or not, just in case there are any other former gearworx clients looking for answers.

thanks again for everyone's help. keep your fingers crossed!

[SiberForum]

Originally Posted by grungepuppy

some good news-
through some phone tag, my husband was able to contact enom. enom confirmed that is is his information in the who is, and told him that his domain is resold through parallels... which is then resold through gearworx. tomorrow he will be contacting parallels, to which he will explain the measures he's taken to contact the company and the situation at hand. parallels will then yank the domain if they too can not get a hold of them and provide the necessary info he needs to get his domain back.

i'll report back if he is successful or not, just in case there are any other former gearworx clients looking for answers.

thanks again for everyone's help. keep your fingers crossed!

Nice story is here. I hope you will be able to handle this situation.