Domain transfer issue

[stender]

I did a new website for my niece who is a travel agent and advised her to switch hosting to fasthosts from hostlogical (who by the way are the worst and most useless company in the world in my opinion and many others (just google for them)).
The problem is Hostlogical cowboys are uncontactable and haven't released the domain (2 months now) and have now been taken over by ukwebhosting.co.uk who also appear to be as useless. Is there any action I can take to transfer them? problem is I can't promote the new site until it's moved and it's costing my niece money. and fasthosts aren't much help in resolving.

p.s. anyone else been misfortunate enough to use these cowboys

 

[bb99]

Hi

I'm assuming it's a .co.uk name.

There's an easy answer to this if the domain name is registered in the registrants name (if they really are cowboys, the hosts may have registered it in their own name - you can check using WHOIS).

You can apply to Nominet for them to manually change the tag to FASTHOSTS instead of the current registrar.

This will cost £15 - details here:

http://www.nic.uk/MakingChangesToYourDomainName/ChangingYourRegistrationAgentisp/

 

[accelerator]

If it's a .co.uk domain, you can effect a "forced tag transfer" with Nominet http://www.nominet.org.uk/ (costs £15 I think) to change the Nominet tag to that of a decent domain name registration company.

I would recommend using http://www.123-reg.co.uk to manage your domains.

Open a 123-reg ac, transfer in the domain name to them using Nominet forced tag transfer, then use the 123-reg control panel to set the Nameservers of the domain name to Fasthosts.

Rgds

accelerator

 

[bb99]

Snap :smile:

 

[accelerator]

bb99

Ah you beat me to it ... man you are on fire!

Rgds

Accelerator

 

[stender]

Cheers Gents. It's actually a .co.uk and a .com and yes the cowboys put it in their name. Do you know if it's the same for.com?

 

[bb99]

Hmm. If they've registered the domain in their own name, this makes things quite tricky because they are the legal owner of the name and hence Nominet may not want to deal with you.

Your best bet is to telephone Nominet direct, tell them the name and the situation and see what they have to say. This is a common problem and so I'm sure they'll have a means of sorting it out. Can't remember off the top of my head what it might be though.

Unfortunately .com's are trickier - not my field I'm afraid but maybe someone else on here can advise.

Good luck.

 

[accelerator]

Cheers Gents. It's actually a .co.uk and a .com and yes the cowboys put it in their name. Do you know if it's the same for.com?

.com's are dealt with by ICANN instead of Nominet, start here:

http://www.icann.org/transfers/

Rgds

Accelerator

 

[EdPhillips]

Cheers Gents. It's actually a .co.uk and a .com and yes the cowboys put it in their name. Do you know if it's the same for.com?

There are three ways to get a .co.uk which is not in your name transferred to you:

1. via a transfer form, i.e. with the consent of the current registrant. That may be of no use to you, if they will not even do a tag-change.
2. via a court order - go get some legal advice; or
3. via the DRS (www.nominet.org.uk/drs.html) - about which you will find plenty of other discussion on this forum. Policy 3(v) was written with this sort of thing in mind.

I am assuming that the listed registrant is still in existence. If they are a company that now does not exist, the domain name can be cancelled. Equally, if the address details are false, the domain can potentially be cancelled. I hardly need to remind you (given the nature of this forum) that if it is cancelled there is no guarantee that your neice will get it...

 

[ratboy]

I once had a client... Top 500 growth company whos "media" company had registered the domain in their own name when they were a just little un. We had a nervous couple of weeks and managed to get the forms signed.

You wouldn't be surprised how many companies have had or are still in this situation.

 

[meinthecorner]

I have a similar situation, I am the registered owner of 3 domain names the company I work for use. If I ever left I doubt they would even think to ask me to transfer the names across.

 

[stender]

It's still ongoing but it looks like i'm not alone with this host. Not sure if I can name names on here but I will as people should be warned. It's been a very interesting trail which I reckon watchdog would be interested in.
The hosting and domains are with hostlogical.com (search google and you'll see all the problems) The site kept going down and would stay down for days.
It was obviously just a reseller outfit as you could not contact them for love nor money, they just wouldn't reply. I started delving and found the owner of hostlogical was one Matthew Prust. Then about a month ago Hostlogical site went and said they had been taken over by ukwebhosting.co.uk. I contacted them about transferring domains and got the same no response. Delved and lo and behold ukwebhosing.co.uk is owned by one Mathew Prust!. Also saw on google that hostlogical had once been taken over by adurmedia.com and lo and behold who owned that!!! yes you guessed it. It also says that ukwebhosting.co.uk is run by openinternetservices.com (couldn't see who owned that) but the address given is a shell company. Put the address in and there's hundreds of web companies using it!. Anyway I left voicemails and emailed and have ended up giving a piece of mind. I have a couple of addresses for the guy in Worthing and Shoreham so am going to pay them a visit. There's a long line of people wanting this guy and a long line of domain names left to rot. Also found a post where he's got a guy to design a new site for hostlogical and never paid and lost contact. Have a look for yourselfs on google, it's quite addictive this detective work.

 

[ratboy]

If you want the domains back, and they are .co.uk, try ringing nominet for a tag change £15 to a reputable company... 123-reg etc

Thats the only way to do it.

The wrongly registered domains are a real problem. This only occured during the boom a few years ago when suddenly every company wanted a website, and many were wrongly registered. I mean, basically, you could leave your company and take the domains away - legally - !! The company is left in the sh1t big time. It's daft, but then the directors must be daft. Imagine the damage that could do, just losing email alone.

 

[retired_member27]

Unfortunatly Stender the world is full of little shits like that. I can remember about three years ago a hosting company called SquareInternet did exactly as you described, i.e. being taken over by itself and then leaving debts everywhere, there should be a law against it! As Ratboy said it only cost £15 to get the domain transfered to you. Good luck anyway.

 

[bb99]

This only occured during the boom a few years ago

It was certainly more prevalent back then (like rats), but there's a small minority of dirty feckers still doing it

 

[stender]

Unfortunately it's both the .com and .co.uk

 

[ratboy]

Try your registrar for the .com... (whois your domain, see who the registrar is and email them). Explain the situation, bet they have seen it a thousand times.

Do you think there would be demand for a commercial product designed to help those who this has happen to?

 

[accelerator]

As a temporary measure you could always buy some new domain names.

Rgds

accelerator

 

[stender]

As a temporary measure you could always buy some new domain names.

Rgds

accelerator

The site is built, the logo is there, the stationary is printed and it's part of a branding for another site of hers!

 

[ratboy]

If you got your finger out, i'd bet you could have it resolved within a week (make sure you do it before the Nominet Christmas party though)