Daily failed to renew my domain - help!

[Skinner]

I didn't know that, last I heard Daily had bought Paragon which included Vida/TSO and on a separate occasion bought EvoHosting and some others, but I wasn't aware HEG pre-GD had bought Daily Group.

I haven't been keeping up, but not sure how I missed that. It would explain why my evohosting accounts are getting worse.

FYI, HEG own Paragon/Vidahost/TSO etc as of 2016 some time.

 

[RobM]

@RobM domain view's basic epp controls make basic management a doddle, if you have no interest in catching his automatic catch system would recoup your costs in no time.

Thanks for that. I always thought the nominet panel was convoluted and in some cases just obtrusive. Tagmanager coming soon - quick epp will be part of it

 

[dee]

Another vote for @RobM . He also goes way beyond the call of duty in terms of help and support. I honestly dont think ive ever waited more than about 10 mins for an answer.

 

[stellar73]

Hi again guys,

In relation to my original post here I thought people may be interested in an update on the woeful responses I've now had from both Daily and Nominet - I've done a lot more research into the matter and welcome anyone's opinions on where you feel I currently stand (apols if this is a long post!) For ease of reference I'm going to give the actual dates which were pertinent to my renewal of the domain name (this will probably allow some of you to identify the domain and the new registrant - I don't really mind this but if you do I would prefer you didn't post it publicly especially as my gripes are with Nominet & Daily and not this new registrant)

Anyway, I received confirmation that I had renewed the domain in an email from Daily on 4th July at 6 o clock in the morning (I'm not usually up at this time so I believe I probably did the renewal the night before) - Even if I had actually paid for the renewal on the 4th July itself this was still within the appropriate redemption period. I know this for a fact as on 28th June I received the standardly worded "7 days till cancellation" reminder email from Nominet (7 days from 28th June is 5th July so it was completely appropriate to renew on 4th July) - I always pay close attention to these emails.

The confirmation I received from Daily took the form of the standard email they always send out after you have made a renewal with them - they call it an "invoice" but it basically states the new registration period and confirms that you have paid by card (I know that the payment went through normally, the card was charged and they have acknowledged this). I never had any subsequent emails from Daily indicating that anything had gone wrong with the renewal and, as you know, I only noticed this week that it was no longer in my account. I then discovered that a new registrant had been able to register it on 6th July (which I am assuming was the drop date).

In my initial communication with Nominet they indicated that they had not received a "renewal request" from Daily's systems which was why the domain had gone on to drop. They have more or less now told me that I need to take the matter up with Daily and/or get legal advice and have implied that because their own system was not at fault there is nothing further they can do. I am absolutely incensed by this as a response!! I read their Registrars Agreement yesterday and it is clear to me that (based on various clauses) Daily have failed to meet basic standards of adequacy as a registrar and Nominet have an obligation to investigate this and impose sanctions on them as necessary. (Nominet did not even bother to notify me there was a formal Registrar's complaints procedure - I had to discover this myself).

In the Registrar's Agreement clause B.1.13 states "You [the registrar] must always allow a Registrant to renew a domain name (and maintain the registration in their own name) at any point up to the point at which we [Nominet] would otherwise have cancelled and deleted that domain name...."

This would indicate that Daily were obliged to accept a renewal request from me on 4th July as Nominet's direct emails to me suggest the earliest non-renewable date as being 5th July. Even if there is something buried deep in Daily's T&C's which means they can wriggle out of responsibility then I still feel I have a valid claim against Nominet as their seemingly clear and factual email informed the time that I chose to make this renewal.

Last night I received a very brief and perfunctory email from Daily's Head of Domains which offered no apology and simply stated that the reason the renewal failed was because I was too late. He stated that they have applied a credit to my account (obviously just the reg fee) which I do not accept as a valid solution. I really feel they are grasping at straws here as I don't believe I was legally too late but additionally there is something obviously wrong with their system given the fact that money was taken from me and I was given no indication (even AFTER the event) that the renewal had failed. If they had even flagged up later on the 4th or 5th that there was an issue with renewal I would still have had time to register the name or alert Nominet to the problem (since the new registrant did not register till 6th July)

I have now replied to both Nominet and Daily to indicate that I wish Nominet to formally investigate my complaint against Daily as per their Registars Complaints Procedure. - I am waiting on a response to this. I will also not rule out escalating a complaint against Nominet themselves in whatever way is open to me. If anyone has any other ideas as to how I should best progress this (Trading Standards, legal action?) then I'd be interested in hearing them. Nominet mentioned the possibility of DRS but it is clear that this is wholly inappropriate since it would put me in an adversarial position with the new registrant who I have absolutely no issue with.

I still feel that there should be some clear and obvious route by which I can get this domain name back as I believe I have demonstrated that I have a legitimate and contractual claim to it based on the time of my renewal. With this in mind I found a clause in Nominet's T&C's which suggests that they have discretionary power to place domains in a "special status" state (pending investigations) where there is evidence that an error has been made in making a domain available in the first place. I requested that they do this and they have point blank refused. They stated that they cannot make "unsolicited contact" with the new registrant and also that they can do nothing because it was Daily's error not theirs. I feel they are being completely unhelpful and just trying to stonewall me. Surely as the organisation that manages the action of registrars they have to take some sort of responsibility for registrar error otherwise what is the point in them? I also cant help wondering if I would get the same treatment if the domain in question was owned by a big company rather than me as an individual.

Anyway sorry for long post, it was part rant and part just to see if anyone has any further opinions or suggestions which I would welcome - cheers!

 

[monaghan]

I don't think you have any comeback against Nominet as they are simply Daily's provider and don't trade directly with you. It will be down to the small print in the contract between you and Daily and if it comes to it the cost of the respective lawyers. If the domain is not renewed, then it is fair game for the next person in the queue, that's hardly Nominet's fault.

Moving on, mention was made of getting your own TAG, what many people do is count their domains and base the time to move to your own TAG on reaching X cost in renewals. I always encourage people to also take into account the cost and aggravation of dealing with support issues and not just the simple number of domains calculation. The setup costs are only a half decent domain sale so quite low on the scale of things.

 

[stellar73]

I don't think you have any comeback against Nominet as they are simply Daily's provider and don't trade directly with you. It will be down to the small print in the contract between you and Daily and if it comes to it the cost of the respective lawyers. If the domain is not renewed, then it is fair game for the next person in the queue, that's hardly Nominet's fault.
.

Thanks for replying but I think you're totally wrong on this. The contractual relationship between Daily (or any other registrar) and Nominet is anything but "simple" and is something which I have third party rights in given this current situation. These rights are conferred legally by the "Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999". This act is referenced in the Registars Agreement and (from the reading I have done on this matter so far) it is on the basis of this that I am legally allowed to request Nominet to investigate my complaint against Daily. I haven't had the chance to read all the small print of my contract with Daily yet but even if Daily have some "get out clause" in relation to their conduct in this situation I don't feel that Nominet do. Nominet's "7 days till cancellation" email was something that I relied on when deciding when to renew the domain and as the overall body with responsibility for the registering of the domains I don't think they can argue that I acted unreasonably in following their instructions.

 

[monaghan]

I was on the workgroup a few years ago looking at the domain deletion cycle, so do have a little background on the subject. We did recommend the registrant had the right to renew up to the deletion cycle, however, it was noted that potentially a contract with a registrar could take precedence to the Nominet T&C's but nobody could produce reference to a tested legal case to confirm / deny this, hence my comment to look at Daily's T&C's.

You are of course allowed to raise a complaint about a registrar with Nominet if they have failed to comply with their T&C's. Note that the small print in many companies T&C's limit liability to the product cost which is why I referred you to the T&C's you agreed to with Daily before you launch into a potentially expensive dispute.

I'm not defending Nominet, but their pee-cancellation email is an informational email and not a contractual email and it refers you to the people who manage your domain.

Dear Alex Monaghan

Following our previous emails to you we notice that the domain name
xxxxxxxx.co.uk
has not yet been renewed. Unfortunately if not renewed, your registration
will be cancelled in 7 days. This means that
xxxxxxxx.co.uk
will be made available for other people or businesses to register.

Cancelled domain names can be easily re-registered by someone else so don't
delay if you do want to keep your domain name.

If you would like to speak to someone about this then you can either contact
the people who manage your domain name for you or call our friendly helpline
on 01865 332244 anytime between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday. If you no
longer need your domain name, no action is required.

 

[stellar73]

I'm not defending Nominet, but their pee-cancellation email is an informational email and not a contractual email and it refers you to the people who manage your domain.

First of all can I just say that I like your accidental slip up there ("pee-cancellation" is very appropriate given that Nominet are currently pissing on me from a great height ;-)

I don't think it makes a jot of difference whether this email from Nominet is "informational" or "contractual" - I don't even think it's appropriate to draw this distinction actually. Essentially it is an email relating to an important subject I have a legally vested interest in ( a contract I have for a domain name)- it is an official communication from the governing body of UK domain names therefore whatever way you look at it the information contained within could be deemed as important.

EDIT: If they are going to allow registrars to have different time frameworks for when renewals have to be completed then they need to be stating this far more clearly in multiple places (including these 7 day cancellation emails) - if you asked 10 random people in the street to look at that email and give an indication of when they were allowed to renew the domain till then I think they would come to the same conclusion as me. This is why ultimately I hold Nominet as more responsible than Daily for this error - Nominet are in charge of the overall process and have failed to manage it effectively IMHO.

 

[monaghan]

Good spot, didn't mean to take the pee

As I said before, I'm not defending Nominet, there's much I disagree with but...

If you'd chosen to renew directly with Nominet and they'd failed to renew it, then I'd agree with you on fault, but your domain was managed through Daily and as you stated earlier, you asked Daily to perform the renewal, not Nominet. Nominet has already advised you that they didn't get a renewal request for the domain from Daily so I fail to see how that makes Nominet at fault.

I'm sure it would be good to have a legally tested case for future reference, so feel free to throw this down the legal route, but do make sure you really understand all the T&C's you signed up to and limits of liability in your contract before handing over any hard earned cash to the lawyers.

 

[stellar73]

your domain was managed through Daily and as you stated earlier, you asked Daily to perform the renewal, not Nominet. Nominet has already advised you that they didn't get a renewal request for the domain from Daily so I fail to see how that makes Nominet at fault.

Nominet have ultimate responsibility to manage failures in process by their registrars. Even if Daily did not technically "fail" (as per some tiny small print clause) then, as I have already stated, I really don't think this invalidates my overall complaint to Nominet. This is because there are 2 main strands to my complaint anyway - one strand is my issues with Daily but the other strand is issues with Nominet themselves and in particular the wording of this "7 day cancellation" email which I acted on. Irrespective of why the domain renewal failed I have evidence that I attempted to renew within the timescale specified by Nominet and that my money was taken therefore to all intents and purposes a contract was formed giving me rights over this domain which Nominet are now obliged to uphold..

 

[monaghan]

I don't recall seeing anything in my registrar agreement making Nominet liable for my failure to issue an EPP command to their system. Feel free to test this in the courts and report back to us.

 

[ian]

You’re waiting to renew domain names many days past the registry expiration date which is many days into the 92 day registry renewal grace period, before you’re asking the registrar to process a renewal request. “A couple of days before they would drop” meaning 90 days after the registry expiration date?

You’re appearing to be operating a risky strategy if you’re waiting until 48 hours before drop day to renewal and not checking for renewal confirmation. I presume you realise that you don’t get any extra days by renewing after expiration; the renewal is backdated?

I was going to highlight the same point; it is a risky play that many do. Unless mistaken (I'm not!), you use to play this strategy; what made you change your approach?

 

[Systreg]

There shouldn't be any risk associated with leaving it late to renew a domain, because you expect that if your money is taken, and you get confirmation of renewal from the company responsible for renewing it, then you should be confident that your domain has been renewed.

The only risk associated with leaving it late is that you yourself forget to renew, anything other than that and there should not be any risk attached.

[edit]

Rather than telling a customer their domain has been renewed, when it hasn't been, how difficult would it be for the renewing company to have a script in place, which checks the who-Is to make sure the renewal is confirmed, and if not, it notifies the company and the registrant that the renewal hasn't taken place, can't be that difficult to have something like that in place?

 

[stellar73]

I don't recall seeing anything in my registrar agreement making Nominet liable for my failure to issue an EPP command to their system. Feel free to test this in the courts and report back to us.

If you had failed to issue a command following a legitimate request from a customer (and that failure resulted in loss to a customer which was not the customers fault) then Nominet (assuming the customer complained to them and asked them to initiate an investigation) are compelled to investigate, assess the degree of liability that the registrar has and impose sanctions where necessary.

I never said anything about "making Nominet liable for an EPP failure" - what I am saying is that Nominet themselves have clear liability over written communications that they send out to customers which customers rely on. I think I have made my point on this as clearly as I can so no point going over and over it.

As for EPP stuff being in the Registar's Agreement well there are relevant clauses in relation to registrars doing things in a time appropriate manner.

Anyway my brain is getting a bit too tired to argue technical stuff tonight...might have to watch the Apprentice and think mind numbing thoughts.

I have now at least had a brief response from Nominet indicating that they have been in touch with Daily and are due to have a further conversation with them tomorrow so hopefully I'll hear something then.

 

[stellar73]

There shouldn't be any risk associated with leaving it late to renew a domain, because you expect that if your money is taken, and you get confirmation of renewal from the company responsible for renewing it, then you should be confident that your domain has been renewed.

The only risk associated with leaving it late is that you yourself forget to renew, anything other than that and there should not be any risk attached.

[edit]

Rather than telling a customer their domain has been renewed, when it hasn't been, how difficult would it be for the renewing company to have a script in place, which checks the who-Is to make sure the renewal is confirmed, and if not, it notifies the company and the registrant that the renewal hasn't taken place, can't be that difficult to have something like that in place?

100% agree with all of this!!
I can see from comments in this thread that other people perceive my late renewal as wrecklessly sailing close to the wind however the way I have always looked at this is that if I am legally allowed to renew up to X date then there should be no risk whatsoever at leaving it to this particular date to renew - as you say the only risk is that you yourself forget but I have always been pretty organised in this respect and only ever dropped domains I have wanted to

 

[Skinner]

As per above Daily is owned by HEG, HEG is owned by GoDaddy, combined GoDaddy holds nearly 50% of ALL .UK domains, if Nominet was a little (a lot) toothless with HEGs Antics in the past, like when they auto-assigned dropping names to backorder customers without dropping, I can see them being somewhat more gummy here.

 

[bulkcorn]

Not a DRS matter! It's a 'Daily, gimme my domain back' matter. REG THE .UK NOW if you already haven't!

They have done this to me before, and my situation was similar to yours - renewal email and all - except it was a name I didn't mind letting go. It was either the new owner had placed a back-order or .....! The new owner was a firm I had marketed the name to months back. I picked up the .uk immediately, waiting patiently for the day I'll recover that loss!

 

[stellar73]

Not a DRS matter! It's a 'Daily, gimme my domain back' matter. REG THE .UK NOW if you already haven't!

They have done this to me before, and my situation was similar to yours - renewal email and all - except it was a name I didn't mind letting go. It was either the new owner had placed a back-order or .....! The new owner was a firm I had marketed the name to months back. I picked up the .uk immediately, waiting patiently for the day I'll recover that loss!

That's a really good point (about the .uk) - with everything else that's been going on I totally forgot about that. Just checked and the new registrant has already registered the .uk on the same day. I will need to add that into the mix re things I expect them to resolve. (still awaiting a response though they've apparently been speaking to Daily today)