123-reg 1&1 waycrest and GoDadday bakeoff

[disruptive]

The challenge:

TO REGISTER AN UNREGISTRED .CO.UK VIRGIN (never previously reg) DOMAIN NAME.

In order of attempt....

123: Down all day - could not perform the search on the domain name which I knew was FREE, the whois is showing fine and there were no issues with nominet. So I could not use this to even try.

1&1: System has no problems, picked up the domain as free and then I signed in and registered. Waited, got user registration and confirmed. Waited and Waited...and Waited. 20 mins waited. No reg occured, whois never updated.

WayCrest: Attempted to register the still free domain. Paid the money, signed up and got confirmation. No change in the whois....waited, waited.

GoDaddy: forgot my password. Found my password/username, signed in and registered the domain. Domain still be shown as free. Confirmed...Checked Whois. Its now mine! Now the proud parent.

Conclusion.....

Took Almost 50 minutes of waiting, playing around to register a name!

What the hell are these companies playing at. I was so fed up with the service I set about to see what service they all offer. Are they using their alloted lookups to scan the nic db for dropping names????

PS waycrest, 1&1 or 123 I hope are you listening and you all owe me a refund (123 permanently owes me a refund!)

 

[retired_member6]

weycrest are usually good and it's nominet's whois that isn't instant.

 

[rob]

nominet's whois that isn't instant.

It used to have a 5min delay but now is pretty much real time

 

[retired_member6]

It used to have a 5min delay but now is pretty much real time

It can take an hour sometimes.

 

[disruptive]

Put it anotherway:

If I am registering a name with 1&1, 123, waycrest I am going to be beaten by someonw using godaddy. Yes things are instant, but not all regs are instant. However the first time that I use 1&1 and waycrest they are not able to reg the name, which meant that it was available for someone else!

I should point out that my trials above were sequential.

 

[rob]

It can take an hour sometimes.

That is probably the ISP going slow rather than Nominet

 

[retired_member6]

That is probably the ISP going slow rather than Nominet

No it's nominet and they do state it's not always live. If it is the registrar then they're all 'kin hopeless.

 

[Admin]

I dont think its Nominet. I've had delays trying to reg via 123 before, so switch to my TAG and it goes through immediately, WHOIS updates too.

What really gets me is when their system manages to email you the Invoice right away but doesn't reg the name!

 

[disruptive]

Update

Looks like I have recieved at auto refund from Weycrest and 1&1.co.uk, much better than 123-reg in this respect as the latter give you nothing at all!!

 

[static]

I dont think its Nominet. I've had delays trying to reg via 123 before, so switch to my TAG and it goes through immediately, WHOIS updates too.

Nominet is normally right on time.

What really gets me is when their system manages to email you the Invoice right away but doesn't reg the name!

Their priorities are so 'right', and yet so very very wrong.

 

[grantw]

weycrest are usually good and it's nominet's whois that isn't instant.

I doubt this has anything to do with the nominet whois. If waycrest and 1&1 had actually sent the registration email at the time of placing the order then the domain would have been registered instantly - the whois being slow to update means nothing, the name would still be registered. If The Automaton was running slowly or had a problem then the registration emails would be queued and processed in order.

Quite why these companies don't send the registration email instantly is beyond me ?

Grant