I have had it with RegisterFly. I had issues with them in the past and now they have resurfaced. When my band set out to make a website, we settled on Registerfly for both hosting and registering our name (the hosting was handled by an affiliate named entryhost.com). Right off the bat, there were issues with hosting, DNS, e-mail, etc. So we ate the cash we spent on hosting and ported everything over to a different host.
But because we were rookies, we figured we'd keep the name registered with RegFly. Bad move.
For the month leading up to 5/27/06, I received e-mails stating that our domain was going to expire on the aforementioned date. Okay, no problem. I took care of odds and ends leading up to the expiration date, but by 5/22/06, I used their online interface to renew my domain. It said my card was invalid. I tried again. Same thing. I tried a 3rd time, carefully inspecting each keystroke. No dice.
I called customer service and EVENTUALLY a woman came on the line, confirming they had been having issues with renewals. Apparently all 3 transactions actually DID go through, but she would refund 2 of the 8.99 charges. To my surprise, when I checked my account, it only showed one charge. Fine.
I felt good about my situation until 5/27/06, when I typed in my domain name to check my updates and found a parking page! Furious, I called customer support. After 10 minutes, I got a guy who told me they were having issues with renewals and to check back in the morning. He didn't specify a time and he seemed anxious to be rid of me. I asked him for a time and he guessed 9 or 10 should be fine.
I checked at 11 and it was not fine. That night, I called again and the person I talked to told me the same thing: renewals are down, check back in the morning. When morning came around, I still saw the parking page and decided to open an online ticket. Later in the day I checked back and found the ticket was "closed." Usually this signifies that the issue was fixed. At least, that's how they handle problem tickets where I work.
But all they (RegisterFly tech support) did was apologize and assure me that it should be fixed within 24 hours. Even they seemed unconvinced with their response, as they added the caveat that if the renewal still didn't go through I should open another ticket and include my domain name in it and they would personally handle the renewal.
The next day (5/30/06 already—more than a week after I received the receipt of payment for a renewal), I called customer service and, anticipating the "it should be fixed by morning" speech, asked to speak to a manager. I was put on hold for a long time (it was at least 15 minutes... I stopped counting the number of times I heard "your call is important to us"), after which the guy came back on, saying his manager was "busy" and that there wasn't anything he would be able to do anyway. I didn't even care, I said "fine" and that was that.
I forgot to mention before that both Customer Service and Tech Support are Option #2 on the menu. The only way to directly speak with Tech Support is to talk to a Customer Service rep first. That doesn't say much about their confidence in their tech support.
So here I am, making updates to my band's website that nobody can see. Even if I wanted to transfer the domain to my current webhost (which I most certainly will do), I can't do so until RegFly renews it. You can't transfer an expired domain. I just hope it renews before the grace period is up, because then technically the name is up for grabs, even though I paid for it already.
The way things are going, however, I wonder if it will be more feasible to just wait for it to expire and hope I can purchase it before someone else gets it. I will continue to call them daily, but my confidence in this company is non-existent, especially when a Google search on them yields more negative than positive results on the first page.
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