Nominet shambles

[Skinner]

To be honest... if you follow this up with "This is why we (nominet) need to increase the prices so we can continue to provide this excellent customer service" or something like that, I am actually going to laugh out loud. :/

I'm sure it's quite obvious how beneficial it is to easily and quickly interactive with their customer service teams when issues like this arise.

 

[ian]

Too easy to blame everything I do on Nominet. I do realise my long and involved posts probably cause the eyes of a great many to glaze over!

Sorry, missed all that

 

[Admin]

You can't help yourself can you. Why don't you wait for facts, slow down with the assumptions and consider how you come across to others. Nominet have called and emailed this am. Im now waiting for the 2nd call having been unable to accept their first. So be surprised as they are going into further detail....


Hi Steven

I am contacting you regarding an issue with your account that occurred during the transfer of the domain name xxxxxxxxx.

Firstly I would like to apologise for the issue that has occurred and would like to give you a call so we can discuss this further and I can explain what has happened.

Please let me me know the best number to contact you on and a conevenient time for you.

Kind regards,

Karen Surrage

I see that's a response to an email from you but to be absolutely fair to Nominet we don't know the exact content of the email you sent first. I think we should consider that it is a possibility that you might have made an error, despite your ascertain that you didn't, for example, check the box to select all the domain names. However we should also equally consider that you could have stumbled upon a bug in the system, perhaps triggered by a particular set of steps that you undertook but nobody who was involved in testing the system may have done. Nominet is known to log pretty much everything so hopefully they will be able to view the steps you took.

Given they have rectified the eventual unintended result I would be surprised if they go into further details but let's see.

I'm sure it's quite obvious how beneficial it is to easily and quickly interactive with their customer service teams when issues like this arise.

 

[Admin]

To Everyone,

Had the call from Nominet, David I will wait for your apology.

They apologised roughly 20 times, it was a massive f*ck up. In summary, on Tuesday they rolled out an update to the portal. There were a number of bugs, one of which related to not being able to process domain transfer payments for some people on certain browsers. The buyer of my domain was one of those. Nominet didnt know how long it would take them to fix the problem so intervened with a manual transfer and the person who did it messed up and transferred all my domains to the buyer. Nominet's apologies have been extreme.

I took the opportunity to feedback on the price hikes that have accompanied such lack of control in their systems and also that their new design is really poor and harder to read.

I asked if they did any testing or had a focus group for such things before they rolled them out, she said no, not on the registrar side. I've submitted that as a suggestion for their next meeting. She did say they have had a number of negative emails about the design.

 

[Edwin]

Glad you got to the bottom of it and Nominet came clean. One of those negative feedbacks on the redesign came from me.

No doubt David will find a way to spin it anyway - he seems to have appointed himself Spinner in Chief since the 50% price hike was announced!

 

[foz]

Glad you got to the bottom of it and Nominet came clean.

+1. Was worried about this incident.

 

[Admin]

Thanks Gents, me too.

I've had another email which I requested, fully explaining what happened. I cannot paste it here for legal reasons. Anyway, that's the end of it from my side.

 

[Systreg]

I dread to think what they've done to the registrant transfer on the receiving side!

I'll tell you Grant, it was a fecking nightmare when I accepted a paid for transfer a few minutes ago. Wish I'd taken a screen shot of each page.

On the old system it used to take about 60 - 90 seconds to complete a transfer, not so on this amazing new system they've designed, it took about 20 minutes and 2 different browsers to get it to work, and I think the main failing is that the transfer process is done without you being logged in to Nominet, you're only given the login screen after completing the transfer payment.

It's bloody repetitive having to enter your name, email address and postal address several times, then you get to the bank details page and finally the payment processing page comes up with my banks name on it, and then the page turns to an error page saying:

Not Found

The requested URL /acspage/undefined/rest/actions/returnedFromDataCash was not found on this server.

Tried it all again using FireFox and it worked that time so it may have been browser related as I'm on an old browser, but a bit like the stupid colour changes, why make a new system that takes so much longer than the old system to do a simple transfer, zero though has gone in to it.

For someone who doesn't know how transfers work, they could struggle, because some non domainer types struggled on the old easy system, so they have no chance on this one.

[Edit]

I just checked the email transfer link again and on the transfer page it says:

Complete each section of the form with the new registrant details or add your new domains to an existing account by logging in, then click the link provided in your ‘Registrant transfer request’ email

I know how to do transfers so I didn't bother reading any of the instructions, I also had another tab open where I was already logged in to Nominet but didn't read anything about doing that, I assumed as I was already logged in that I'd be logged, and not have to log in then go back and click the email link again.

Either way, it's a pointless having that bolded part of the message because you only see that after clicking the transfer link, maybe that should be written in the transfer email before you click the link, otherwise you click the link, read that, then have to close the page and open the link again after logging in.

[edit]

The person who transferred the domain to me said he sent another transfer yesterday, and the receiver of that one had problems and had to phone Nominet to assist them with the transfer.

 

[diablo]

I'll tell you Grant, it was a fecking nightmare when I accepted a paid for transfer a few minutes ago. Wish I'd taken a screen shot of each page.

Just trying to do one now. To save you entering your details time after time it says:

If you would like to transfer these domains to an existing account, please log in here first and return to this page by clicking the link in your email.

So I logged in, followed the link again and am back at the same page, asking me to fill in page after page or:

If you would like to transfer these domains to an existing account, please log in here first and return to this page by clicking the link in your email....

Did nobody check functionality before this dog's dinner went live?

 

[Systreg]

So you're suggesting that the Transfer Email should suggest to the Transferee that they login to Nominet Online Services before clicking the link but as the email doesn't suggest this one clicks the link in the email and is then asked to log in before having to click the link in the email again?

I don't see any reason why that can't be mentioned in the transfer email as well, it would make things clearer, especially for people who aren't used to transfers. As per my earlier comment, I was already logged in to Nominet in another tab, but I still had to go through adding a new user name/address etc, there was no option offered to me to login, which may be because I was already logged in to Nominet.

But, at the same time, you mention in one of your other posts that it may be because the person receiving the transfer is both the registrar and the registrant, which it is in my case, so even though I was already logged in, it would have been on a different port, as you mentioned, so it didn't know I was logged in on that other port, but it still gave me no login option after clicking the transfer email link.

I'd prefer to click the link in the email, read the instructions on the web page about logging in if required, click a button on that page to log in to Nominet Online Services and then be automatically redirected back to the page to continue the transfer without being required to click the link in the email again. There may be a logical reason why this doesn't occur but I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I'd also prefer to click the transfer link and then login to continue the transfer, because that's exactly how it used to work until they brought this new system in!

 

[diablo]

I have taken a look....

Thanks for doing this and for taking the time to explain what probably happened.

Never used to be a problem though. I also tried in two browsers, one of which I opened for this purpose, so I wasn't already logged in as a Registrar.

I'll try what you did next time.

As it was I went through the process of filing in three forms, each requiring an address - would be much simpler if there was a tick box to say Registrant and invoice address are the same. If this was an e-commerce website, the number of abandoned baskets would be astronomical.

 

[Admin]

WTF is going on at Nominet. I can no longer receive a domain push (registrant transfer) without having to enter pages of information. I cannot login and accept. Seriously, this is unacceptable!

 

[Admin]

Yes and I glazed over, seriously... you are talking about 'ports' ? I didn't see an obvious answer. Back to you. I'm outraged at this.

 

[Admin]

Google Chrome, it doesn't work. I am now wondering 'who's soon who is 'good at computers' they paid to hash this crap out'.

 

[Admin]

Of course I am, I've paid to be a member and registrar as well as a registrant supposedly to make these things easier and cheaper.

Your 'get around' works but is that what it has come to ... knowing tricks and get arounds? This is the opposite of progress, why hasn't this been fixed yet?

Why arent' you on the phone to someone? What's the complaint procedure?

I've emailed the customer service manager that last called to apologise for messing things up.

 

[Sam]

Are you logging in with an email address that is shared with both a Nominet registrar and Nominet registrant account? If so you need to scroll to the bottom and click on the Domain Manager. The URL will change to one ending in port 8443. Login with a separate browser tab first and do this. Then click the URL in the email again and you should be logged in.

Yes this works but this should be fixed they should of left the site how it was!

 

[Admin]

Yes they should have left the site how it was. They've made it harder to use, harder to read and broken the functionality. All this at a COST which they are then charging us more for. Baffled and disillusioned.

 

[Admin]

Jesus David. Listen to yourself. They are excuses, it doesn't work how it should, it's a backward step, admit it. NED's aren't required to defend everything regardless of it's validity, step up.

 

[Edwin]

Noted but see post 77. I'd be surprised if Nominet wanted to use a non standard port for http and are only doing it because they had to, and likely as an interim.

It's really weird how, even when it's clear that Nominet's progress is a retrograde step, you feel compelled to keep finding reasons for it, David...

The world's an imperfect place... Sometimes companies JUST GET THINGS WRONG. No ifs, no buts, no beating around the bush. Just WRONG.

One of the fantastic perks of being a NED must surely be the ability to pick up the phone and talk to the right Nominet folk and be sure they're listening to you when you're describing a real, actual, genuine, authentic problem. So more calling and less excusing, please!

 

[AssetDomains]

Fortunately it's not a wide scale end user problem, just a problem for a minority of registrars who also use a registrant account sharing the same email address (I don't).

That may the case but this small number of people hold a disproportionate amount of names, likely use the system on a regular basis which the masses don't and may never do.
Most importantly the very same people played a significant role in getting your seat on the board. Would it kill you to just pick up the phone and see if there's anything that can be done sooner rather than later.
I understand that there will be times now were your new role generates a conflict of interests or were you generally agree with the company line in the wider range of discussions going on about the path nominet seem to be taking. What don't understand is why you seem to have reverted back to the old arrogant scornful posting style when addressing the members who voted for you in the elections