I got to work on Monday morning to discover that my website looked like
this. After a bit of digging I discovered that my domain seemed to belong to someone else.
Off I went to my (very reliable and helpful) webhosts, Dataflame.
It started with a 'live chat' session with 'David'. Unfortunatly I don't have the logs, but the gist of it was...
Grim...: Hi there, I seem to have lost the domain hsmx.com to squatters - can you tell me why this might have happened?
David: Looks like you domain has not been renewed. You can send an email to billing@dataflame.co.uk and they will sort it out.
Grim...: Do you have a telephone number for them? It is quite urgent.
David: No, sorry, you have to email them.
So, I email billing, and we have the following conversation (me in red, them in black):
I have been informed by 'David' (via your live support) that I need to renew the domain hsmx.com, which expired on the 7th October.
I am frankly shocked that this has happened without any sort of communication with me from yourselves - especially as you managed to bill me for hosting on the same day.
Please can you do what you have to do as quickly as possible, as I am losing business. If there are any problems, please call me on (my phone number).
Thanks,
Matt Squirrell
Hello
The reason why the domain has not been renewed is because the domain has been cancelled in your Online Billing and this you can only do by completing the Cancellation Form.
If you wish for this domain to be re-instated, I can do this and also generate an invoice for the renewal of this domain.
Please let us know if you wish to proceed.
Regards
Steven
Please proceed.
Could you possibly give me a little more information about the person who made this request, as it wasn't me or my colleague, and, as far as I am aware, no-one else has the password to our domain settings.
Knowing when this took place would be useful as well.
Where is this form located?
Hello
The form is located at:
http://www.dataflame.co.uk/domainupdate.html and this is what would have been completed to cancel a domain.
We do not have any record unfortunately of the domain cancellation request as I have searched our system for this, but we would not cancel any domain in the Online Billing unless this form was completed.
Please be assured that the domain is now active and has been renewed successfully.
Regards
Steven
If the cancelation page has always been at that location then I can say that no-one from this office has ever visited it (unless they did it from home).
Can I also assume that the cancellation form emails the owner of the domain (on the address that you enter into the form) for verification?
I will ask around to see if it was anyone here, but the fact that you have no record of the request being made (or even know the date cancellation was meant to take place) suggests that either someone at your end made a mistake or that your systems were cracked the change was made that way.
Hello
We do not have any errors with our systems, when the domain was cancelled originally this has to be done manually.
The fact remains that the domain has now been renewed for you and is active in the Online Billing.
Regards
Steven
If you have no errors with your systems, why can't you tell me what was entered into the cancellation form (or, more importantly, when)?
How do you expain the proceedure of letting someone cancel a domain name without sending a conformation email to the domain owner?
The fact remains, Steven, that we've missed out (so far) on three days of business, and any customers who visited during that time are going to be completely put off visiting again in the future by the quite filthy splash site that is now displayed at hsmx.com.
Hello
You have not missed 3 days of business because the domain was not renewed. The domain is/was still active and was not due to be renewed until 7/10/006 anyway.
With regard to the cancellation form, we have recently updated the Billing System and because of this all previous cancellation requests are no longer in the system as this was not done recently.
As I have stated and will do again, the only way to cancel a domain is if this has been done manually by ourselves at the request of the client who produces the correct information on the form, which would have been done otherwise the cancellation request would not have been authorised.
I have made ourselves clear on this and I will not be responding with you regarding this subject again.
Regards
Steven
I would appreciate a contact method for your manager, or anyone who knows that 7/10/06 was two days ago, making this the third business day.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that no conformation emails were sent, and, quite frankly, I think you are lying to me.
Like I said, please let me know how to get into contact with someone who can actually give me some explanation of what happened here, not someone who doesn't even put their full name on their emails.
Yours,
Matt Squirrell
Hello
You are corresponding with a very senior member of staff in the organisation.
The domain was not due to expire until 7/10/06 and the WHOIS below confirms this.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=hsmx.com&cache=off
This was renewed for you successfully this morning. No emails would have been sent to you regarding the renewal of this domain because this was cancelled in the Online Billing and you or someone else with your correct details did this as we would not do this unless a form had been submitted.
As I have said and will say again, the domain was renewed successfully and is NOW ACTIVE IN YOUR ONLINE BILLING.
Regards
Steven
Steven,
I have some very serious concerns about how this has been delt with.
However, I'd imagine that we just have some misunderstandings about what the problem actually is.
So I'll start from the beginning.
1. What you can see right now on the hsmx.com site is nothing to do with the High Spirits company. The front page should look like this:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:GpEPnQr1_ygJ:www.hsmx.com/+hsmx&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2>
2. hsmx.co.uk is set to resolve to the same Dataflame account, and is just showing the default Plesk page. Entering the IP for the site shows the default page also.
3. You have repeatedly said that the domain was not due to expire until the 7th October 2006. Today is the 9th October 2006. The seventh was on Saturday, two days ago.
4. You say that my domain was cancelled, but cannot tell me when or who by. You originally told me it was cancelled using the form found at http://www.dataflame.co.uk/domainupdate.html , and later told me it was cancelled from within my online billing area. As it wasn't me who cancelled the domain, and because I only found out about it today, there must have been a breach in security somewhere along the cancellation method. Your refusal to investigate this is bewildering.
5. The updated online billing system that wiped out your previous records is flawed - the domain is showing as 'active' if I click on 'My packages' and expired if I click on 'My Domains'. You felt the need to tell me to look at the billing system in capital letters in your last email - I suggest you make sure it is telling me what you want it to before you do so again.
6. I am not a cunt, Steven. Please stop treating me like one.
Yours,
Matt Squirrell
[
Grim... here - at this point Steven, the 'very senior member of staff in the organisation' (who doesn't have a surname or a job title) bows out...]
Hello
I have just picked up this mail from my colleague Steven and I have to say that the abusive language in which you used to him has led me to inform you that we are cancelling your account and you will no longer be able to renew any of the services when they become due for renewal. I would suggest that you look for another host.
The domains etc are your responsiblity to ensure that they are renewed when they are due and this is clearly listed in the Terms and Conditions. After your email this morning the domain was renewed successfully by Steven at your request and there is no way that a domain can be cancelled unless the cancellation form has been submitted which you must have done.
As I have said because of the language which you have used, your account is being terminated and no longer able to renew. Your credit card details have been removed from the Online Billing to ensure that we do not take any further payment from you.
Regards
Duncan Knapper
Director
Dear Duncan,
Thank you for your reply.
I see you have neatly sidestepped all my concerns (including the way I have been treated) by focusing on one word in the email I sent.
However, for the benefit of your remaining customers, I feel I should once again try to point out the following, and I will try to be as clear as I possibly can:
1. The domain hsmx.com should not have needed any action from myself to renew.
Reading your T&C's carefully has not changed my opinion on this matter. All the settings in my billing area indicated that this domain would auto-renew on the 7th October, which it obviously did not do.
2. Let me be very clear about this point: I did not fill in any cancellation form. Repeatedly telling me that I did will not solve any problems. If I did not fill in the form, then somebody else must have done it without my knowledge. On top of this, I never received any sort of email informing me that this was the case, or asking me to verify that I am who I said I was when filling in the form (which didn't ask for any passwords). These are very serious problems, and I remain astonished that you brush them aside so easily, whilst not being able to even tell me when the cancellation was submitted or actioned.
It is a shame that it has come to this; I have been a Dataflame customer for four years, and your previously excellent customer service was a point I often made when encouraging other people to sign up for your service. If you dig back through your support records, you may also see that when you updated your Plesk software a year or so ago, I was on the phone with one of your support personnel at 2am, working through a problem with the Plesk update that gave everyone on the server access to all the MySQL databases it held, a problem that we fixed, together, after about half an hour of hunting for information on the web. Although I can't remember the support employee's name, I do remember that he sent me an email thanking me for my help if you wish to look it up.
I wish you the best of luck for the future - up until today your service has been flawless.
Yours,
Matt Squirrell
P.S. My language was not abusive, nor was it used in an abusive manner. It was merely rude. Some might say that being told look at a piece of software that clearly wasn't working properly in capital letters was rather abusive also.
No reply yet - but at least Duncan has a surname and a job title. I was tempted to reply:
"I would suggest that you look for another host." - I would suggest you put that at the top of every email you send.
But I didn't =]
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Right, a couple of days on (Thursday 12th) and there's been no change, so I email Dataflame support.
Hello,
Further to enquiry #152204, and despite being advised
by 'a very senior member of staff in the organisation'
and Duncan Knapper that my problem was solved, I am
still seeing a horrible homepage on hsmx.com instead
of my homepage.
hsmx.co.uk, which resolves to the same place, is
showing the default Plesk page.
Although my account is going to be cancelled soon (not
my choice, I might add, merely the results of wanting
an explanation about what happened), I do still need
my site to be working until then.
Hurrah for William, who sorts out at least half of the problem in less than ten minutes!
Hello,
We checked for your account hsmx.co.uk on sv32(85.13.252.198) and did not find any domain with this name created on the server. The domain which is on the server is hsmx.com, and is an active account but the website doesn't work because the domain name hsmx.com has expired on "Expiration date: 07 Oct 2006".
To activate hsmx.com, you'll have to contact billing@dataflame.co.uk and get the domain name renewed.
Regarding the domain hsmx.co.uk, please let us know if the domain is created on some other server. Whois record shows that the domain NS records as :
Name servers:
ns.123-reg.co.uk
ns2.123-reg.co.uk
which is not ours. If the domain needs setup on the same server, you'll have to contact the registrar of the domain and set the nameservers of the domain as:
ns3.dataflame.net and
ns4.dataflame.net
then add the domain as new domain from plesk.
Regards,
William
Technical Support
Surely, surely David hadn't made a mistake?
I've already talked to billing (take a look at #152204)
who assured me, several times (in capital letters at
one point) that the domain was sorted out.
Please could you check?
Cheers.
Hello,
The domain hsmx.com is now resloving. You can check
this at
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=hsmx.com&type=A
Regarding the domain status, you can check the url
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=hsmx.com
It shows the following:-
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK [the normal status
for a domain when it is locked]
Dates: Created 07-oct-2002 Updated
08-oct-2006 Expires 07-oct-2007
DNS Servers: DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM
DNS2.NAME-SERVICES.COM DNS3.NAME-SERVICES.COM
DNS4.NAME-SERVICES.COM DNS5.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Please let us know, if you have any further queries.
Regards,
Jane
Technical Support
Jane? Who's Jane?
It's funny how all these different people have such superbly British names. If they're in this country, I'll eat this keyboard.
There's nothing wrong with sending email to another country for support, so why lie about it?
But anyway...
Thank you very much.
Can you give me a rough idea of how long it will take?
Also, where did the page that is on hsmx.com at the
moment come from?
Hello,
The dns records for your domain(hsmx.com) has not yet updated, please check your domain after few hours.
Brian,
Technical Support.
Brian now, eh?
Notice that the question 'where did the page that is on hsmx.com at the
moment come from' has been completely ignored...
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Two days on and still no chage.
Hi there.
hsmx.com has been resolving for one week now and there is still no change.
The normal maximum time for this is 72 hours.
Can you please take another look at everything to make sure it is okay.
Cheers,
Matt Squirrell
No reply!
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Another two days on... It's Monday 16th October now.
Hello again.
As you can see, hsmx.com still isn't pointing to my webspace.
This has been going on for over a week now.
During the course of this problem I've been lied to, shouted at and because of this issue my account with you is being withdrawn in three months (withdrawn by Dataflame, I might add).
My search engine rankings are being ruined, potential customers are turning away from the site never to return, clients are asking me how to check their details, and I can tell them nothing.
It takes 48 hours for a domain to resolve, not 264.
Please can you take a look to see what is wrong, and then can you please let me know.
Now it's Tuesday...
Hello Matt,
You need to renew your domain name and then change the nameservers of your domain. To renew your domain please contact our domain department at domains@dataflame.com we have already informed you about domain
renewal in our last email.
[What? Where? - Matt]
If you have any query please contact us back.
Regards,
Luke
Technical Support
So again, the Tech Support user thinks the Domain hasn't been renewed. What the hell?
Luke,
I renewed the domain last week, as soon as I found out about the problem. The invoice number is 82597.
My last email from Dataflame said nothing about domain renewal, it said 'The dns records for your domain(hsmx.com) has not yet updated, please check your domain after few hours.' and it was from 'Brian'.
I'm afraid you'll need to read some notes and take some time on this, as I am fed up with saying the same thing over and over again to different people and getting no results.
Enquiry #152204 and #156411 (this one, but all of it) have all of the information in.
Hello,
The domain hsmx.com presently has the nameservers as follows:-
dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com
And the domain resolves to the IP address 64.74.223.7, which does not belong to dataflame. So the domain hsmx.com is not working from dataflame server. Please note, these were the settings before the domain expired and after renewal it picked up the same settings. Please check the attachment and confirm if it is your home page. If yes, please fill up the form at http://dataflame.co.uk/domainupdate.html and change the nameservers of your domain hsmx.com to ns3.dataflame.net and ns4.dataflame.net
Awaiting your response.
Regards,
Jane
Technical Support
Hurrah! So all I need to do is fill in a form (the one that 'Steven' said I had used to cancel my account) once I have checked the attachment...
I'm afraid there is no attachment on this email.
The home page should look like this: http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:GpEPnQr1_ygJ:www.hsmx.com/+hsmx&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2>
If that page is what you are talking about, please let me know and I will fill in your form.
I'm quite suprised that no-one thought to point out that hsmx.com isn't pointing to a dataflame server some time last week - perhaps I wasn't being clear enough.
Thanks,
Matt Squirrell
"[...]perhaps I wasn't being clear enough." when I said "What you can see right now on the hsmx.com site is nothing to do with the High Spirits company. The front page should look like this: [google cache]".
Anyway: Progress!
Hello,
Yes its the same page on our server. Please fill up the form at http://dataflame.co.uk/domainupdate.html and change the nameservers of your domain hsmx.com to ns3.dataflame.net and ns4.dataflame.net
Also, we are re-attaching the .doc file.
Please let us know, if you have any further queries.
Regards,
Jane
Technical Support
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And so, 12 days after it all started, hsmx.com is back online.
It turns out that all I had to do was tell them to renew my domain (which they should have done anyway) and fill in that form, because 'somehow' it magically started pointing at the other site (something else that I 'must have' done).
Right, I'm off to use that form and the publically availible data to point some other peoples (seemingly dead) websites at this page (sorry, if that's how you got here - just fill in
this form to get your own site back).
Oh, and just out of interest, there was nothing attached to the second email, either.
Bye, all.