A WARNING TO OUR CUSTOMERS

A WARNING TO OUR CUSTOMERS

Verisign, Inc. recently acquired a domain registration company, Registrars.com, that we have been using for a number of years for our domain registrations.

Upon the purchase of Registrars.com, they migrated all of our customers' domains to fall under the Verisign umbrella. Verisign, Inc. stated that they sent out an email to us to enable us to enroll in their "new partnership program". Unfortunately, according to Verisign, Inc., we did not respond in a timely fashion.

Therefore, Verisign, Inc. then took it upon themselves to migrate several hundred domains that we were financially responsible for paying for into "retail" accounts. In effect, we no longer were able to pay our discounted partnership fees AND they did so in a fashion that DENIED us access to editing, updating, and renewing these domain records. In effect, they've cost us thousands of dollars to us and our customers in domain registrations, time spent working on these issues, and site downtime caused by the inability to update these domains.

In fact, our customers are having to fax photo id's over just so they can get their domain issues resolved so that they (or us) can update these domains so that don't expire.

Customers looking for information to assist us in transferring your domain may click here.

But the story doesn't end there...

UPDATE: June 20-02 –- Judge in Go Daddy Lawsuit Enters Order: VeriSign Agrees to Cease Mailings to All Registrars

~> Go Daddy Software, Inc. achieved its goal today when an Arizona Federal Judge entered a stipulated order prohibiting VeriSign from sending the controversial domain name expiration notices to its customers. By signing the stipulation, VeriSign agrees that it will not only stop sending the solicitations to Go Daddy's customers, but also to the customers of all other registrars.

OBVIOUS DECEPTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICES WITH
MISLEADING DOMAIN REGISTRATION LETTERS

Please be aware that VeriSign, Inc. (formerly Network Solutions) is sending, via the US Mail, what we believe to be deceptive and predatory domain expiration notices.

The purpose behind these notices are to get the unsuspecting customer to transfer to and renew their domain name(s) with VeriSign Inc. at significantly higher prices.

The domain expiration notices are designed so that it is not obvious that the notices are from VeriSign, Inc. as opposed to some other registration company. To see a copy of one of these deceptive expiration notices, please click here.

Those customers who fall prey to the VeriSign, Inc. scheme will have their domain name(s) renewed at a price more than 2-3 times higher than would be the case if they renewed with their current registration company.

For a .com, .net or .org domain name renewal, the victimized customer would pay $35.00 to VeriSign, Inc.

Those customers, who fall prey to this scheme, will not receive any better service or value. They will, however, be tricked out of their money for each domain name.

If you believe, as we do, that this practice of VeriSign Inc. is misleading, predatory and improper, we invite you to make your feelings known by writing to ICANN (who is the governing body for all Registrars and Registries) and to VeriSign Inc. Contact links for both are provided below.

We are in the process of transferring all of our domains that we are responsible for paying for AWAY from Verisign, Inc. We are also no longer recommending any Verisign' products to our customers.

We are an honest company and we do not believe in these types of misleading business practices. We do not treat our customers this way and would not expect to be treated that way either.

Sincerely,
Paul Laudenslager, President
virginiahost.com, Inc.

ICANN Registrar Complaint Form (hosted at InterNIC)
http://www.internic.net/cgi/registrars/problem-report.cgi

VeriSign Inc. Customer Service
http://www.netsol.com/en_US/help/send-feedback.jhtml
Phone: 888-642-9675