[BALUG-Admin] So, joker.com, then?

[Michael Paoli]

On Sat, Jun 1, 2024 at 11:55 PM Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>
> Quoting Michael Paoli (michael.paoli@berkeley.edu):
>
> > But alas, many registrars (e.g.
> > NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com) will drag their feet and take
> > the maximum time they can contractually get away with (which is
> > I think 72 hours?   I forget precisely how long.
> > May also vary somewhat by TLD).
>
> That's my recollection, too.
>
> IWantMyName (actually CentralNic) at this point, 4.5 hours in, still
> shows PENDINGTRANSFER.  Detailed view shows "STEP 6 / 7".  I.e., the
> incumbent registrar forking it over is the last thing needed.

Yeah, sounds like one of the not-so-timely ones.  If they gave the near
instant capability, I'd expect they'd have sent you an email, that would also
include a link (or other means) to basically say "do this now" - which
would make things
happen quite quickly.  Short of that (or if they don't bother with giving
such an option), I think they have to wait 72 hours, or something like
that, for, e.g. registrant to object and block transfer (e.g. in case the
attempt was rogue - the email notification is also there as a safety
mechanism).

> I'm expecting release some time in the A.M., just as a hunch.  But if
> they pull a NetSol, that'd be petty of them but harmess.

Given that they didn't email with, e.g. link or some other option to
make this happen "now" (quite quickly), I'm guessing 72 hours,
or whatever that wait period is that allows registrant to object.
And then after that I'd expect it to go through promptly without a hitch.

> Already in my account is berkeleylug.com, for which I'm Admininstrative
> Contact.  I note to my pleasure (as this ticks off a "must do" for my
> own domains) that "Renew" is possible at any time.  Hitting "Renew"
> places a one-year renewal into the shopping cart; although there's no
> way to say you want n > 1 years added, though I guess you can go through
> the renewal for one year, pay, then repeat cycle as many times as
> desired(?).  (I've occasionally kept domains as much as 3 years out from
> expiration, but never more than that.  Perhaps I might want to if price
> increases were imminent.)

> Late edit:  I see you address the "multiple years extension" thing
> later.

Yeah, ... capability is there and in the interface, but yes, could be
more intuitive in the interface.

> > And, somewhere at your losing registrar, at their higher levels of
> > customer service and/or technical support - if they exist 8-O -
> > they probably have some means of being able to extend domains,
> > by positive integral number of years (up to whatever the maximum
> > is, which may also vary by TLD) ... but alas, seems they quite lack the
> > competence to reasonably well and easily do that - even via support
> > request or the like (not a great sign).  Sounds rather like lower-level
> > folks (and they may lack the higher), "pushing buttons" - selecting
> > among probably the only menu options they've given to such folks -
> > in order to at least roughly/grossly (but not well at all) attempt to
> > implement what they think the customer wants.
>
> That's part of it -- and we've all seen this at support organisations
> suffering from the race to the bottom _including_ outsourcing to
> whatever nominally English-speaking country offers the lowest-paid
> serfs:  Indeed, those techs are empowered only to do certain rote tasks,
> but, in the worst examples, they are also told to stick to "script"
> answers only -- often told they'll be fired if they improvise.
>
> The handling of my support ticket seemed like a classic:  He recited a
> rote "script" about the reasons why automated renewals works for one
> year only, even though I'd asked about _manual_ extension, because it
> was the closest match.  It's also telling that, when I rejected that
> answer, saying it was nowhere near an answer to my request, I got utter
> silence -- because the trail of rote answers had run out.
>
> > Or Joker.com
> > https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=system:registrars#jokercom
> > being grossly incapable of even updating a single IPv4 glue record.
>
> Out of curiosity, has this been re-checked?  When I discovered that to
> my indignation, it was a long time ago.  Probably about 20 years ago.

Haven't rechecked ... I don't know that there'd be a feasible way to
recheck it without actually having a domain there ... as, if I recall
correctly, their interface had the input capabilities ... but it didn't work,
nor could their staff figure out how to do the needed - and in fact they
gave information that would've effectively been a work-around ...
if it actually worked ... but it didn't work at all.  They basically said
drop the record entirely, then readd it ... that never worked - even waiting
out the necessary TTLs - there was no way for customer to remove the
old glue record at all - even if the corresponding NS was removed ...
and Joker.com was so incompetent that despite repeated support requests
they themselves also couldn't manage to do the needed - so after setting
time limits for it to be resolved (it wasn't resolved) ... came time to move
on.  I also won't miss Joker.com's web interface that looks like a bad
web design from
the late 1990s with tons of ads all over the dang place.

> [NetSol:]
>
> > Anyway, did that on a single one-shot basis ...  and I think I did
> > that by phone - in any case, never asked for my card data to be added
> > on to the (not my) account, etc. ... yet, alas, they stuck it on there
> > and enabled auto-renew on it.  Oh, and the kicker ... they wouldn't
> > let me take it off of there!  They'd only let the registrant remove my
> > credit card from the billing or automatic renewal on the account!
> > Ugh!
>
> Cheryl Morris, my mother-in-law, got vampirised by "Register.com", which
> IIRC is the same bunch of pirates, and what you describe was among the

Yeah, ... looks like the same bunch ...
a peek at whois for web.com ... and the registrar for web.com is registrar.com
so part of the same horrible bunch.

> several outrages that I got her away from by transferring her
> (remaining) domain to... irony alert...  IWantMyName.

Hey, iWantMyName ... not as bad as
NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com/Register.com
... uhm, ... but that's not saying much - that's a very low bar - would be
hard for an ant to limbo under.

> Deirdre also has hers at the latter.  I see more moves to Gandi in the
> near future, assuming I am not unpleasantly surprised (thought Deirdre
> will need to make up her own mind).

Yes, ... for better and/or worse, I see many, that if they're not running into
issues, they'll leave it as/where is, as "good enough" - at least for the
time being ... and I'm sure I'm also guilty of that too, at least at times
and/or on some matters, etc.

And, race to the bottom ... many opt for least expensive.  But alas,
fail to well consider total cost of ownership - and one's time is a
valuable resource ... and/or they just don't know how
flawed and/or bad a particular registrar is (many don't well research
first ... also many may not much care about many of the issues you
and I tend to care about ... well, at least not until they run into that
as a problem, anyway).
So, while paying top dollar isn't a guarantee of best or even close
(e.g. NetworkSolutions.com/Web.com/Registrar.com and their
typical gouging of default prices and pushing all kinds of extra
gunk all the time), bottom dollar is almost always a guarantee of
something at or near the bottom of the barrel - as they won't have
the margins/flexibility/budget to well maintain or improve services,
and often to the contrary that's the first and biggest thing they cut -
services - mostly looking at it as nothing more than expense to
be minimized.  But by the time they figure out they may be,
with that, minimizing their number of customers, it might be
too late.  But alas, many of 'em continue to attract new relatively
clueless customers based on mere cheap price alone.

> > I don't see an option for multiple years though ... and ... no, it
> > won't let me add that exact same item multiple times to the shopping
> > cart ... ah, yes, ... click wee bit further on shopping cart towards
> > checkout ... and can select integral number of years, so could extend
> > that one by anywhere from 1 to 8 years.
>
> More than good enough.
>
> > So ... already sounding helluva lot easier than your losing registrar?  :-)
>
> So far, so good.