Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

While working on completing my 2nd mid-$x,xxx sale of last week, I encountered a problem that I hadn’t experienced before.

In the past, I’ve used many 2nd tier domain registrars and some might be quirky; others outright useless, particularly if they’re based in countries where English is a secondary language.

The transfer of the sold domain away from Fabulous.com – my favorite domain registrar – was to a Tucows reseller, FatCow, which is based in Canada.

When the new owner of the domain initiated a domain transfer to FatCow, Fabulous never received a transfer request and neither did I.

Two days later, with the agreement still pending, I contacted FatCow and I was told that there was no Technical Contact for the domain.

Of course, that was not the case; all of my domains have all contacts (Registrant, Administrative, Technical and Billing) and since they all match, Fabulous groups them together at the WHOIS.

Apparently, the API of FatCow parsing the WHOIS information failed to see that and recorded the Technical Contact as “blank”.

I had to get on the phone for 30 minutes with the FatCow tech support and explain that they should be using DomainTools to verify that the WHOIS data is as expected.

Instead, I had to inform the buyer that they had to open a ticket and provide my domain’s Technical Contact email and FatCow would escalate it to their domain department in order to send out a manual request.

Finally, when that happened we had wasted three days; while payment was safely at my bank account, the new owner was definitely anxious to get hold of their domain as soon as possible.

These programming glitches can cost dearly; the best way to resolve any such anomalies is to get on the phone and insist that the matter is examined while you wait.

The few times that I needed tech support from Fabulous – the popular domain registrar from Down Under – I had no trouble hearing back in a timely fashion.

All this, while due to location Fabulous is 14 hours ahead of the US East Coast, a full 17 hours ahead of California and the West Coast. And miles ahead in customer satisfaction.

As it happened, yesterday was one of those extra rare times that I attempted to reach Fabulous by phone, and my 3 attempts were unsuccessful, resulting in a dead line every time.

It appears that right on that day, Fabulous is transitioning its phone network and is using an alternate phone number in the interim.

Once the migration is complete, our contact numbers will remain unchanged, however during the transition, if you need to contact us by phone please call: +61 7 3233 6100

Unfortunately the Contact page does not include this new, temporary number which is the reason why I could not get through. Still, my issue was taken care of via email very promptly; I just thought it might be useful to share in case someone is calling the unplugged number.

It’s important to state that GoDaddy was my primary domain registrar after I broke the chains of Network Solutions in 2000.

Positive things arise from competition, all while monopolies bring down entire industries. Throughout my early active use of GoDaddy – and prior to discovering Stargate around 2002 – I witnessed my domain portfolio climb into three digits.

While at GoDaddy I also had my first ever domain sale and it was there that I transferred my sole hijacked domain after it was temporarily stolen while at Network Solutions. In addition to that, I helped GoDaddy squash a serious security bug and also witnessed the GoDaddy appreciation of humor two years ago.

In other words, just because I don’t use GoDaddy anymore doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the past; business decisions are sometimes quite simple.

However, GoDaddy has annoyed the heck out of me for the past 30 days. How so?

A month ago I received an email asking me to authorize transfer to GoDaddy of an important domain that I own – which sits safely at Fabulous.  The email read in part:

Dear GoDaddy.com, Inc. Customer,

GoDaddy.com, Inc. received a request on 12/20/2010 for us to become the new registrar of record.

You have received this message because you are listed as the Registered Name Holder or Administrative contact for this domain name in the WHOIS database. If you are not the Account Holder, or you are transferring the domain to a new owner, please forward this email to the appropriate Account Holder so that they may complete the transfer process.

It then provided a transaction ID and a security code that’d initiate that transfer of my domain. I left an important detail out: I never initiated that transfer.

After the first three emails arrived, I contacted GoDaddy and explained to their tech support that I never authorized such a transfer; whoever was doing this was basically trying to fool me into approving the process.

I asked them to stop the process and GoDaddy’s response was that they could not. Every week, I got one such reminder email telling me how the transfer is in danger of failing if I did not log in and approve it.

What pissed me off was not the fact that I was receiving emails attempting to gain authorization to transfer a domain to GoDaddy. As it is, whoever attempted this transaction could not have completed it without further knowledge of the Auth/EPP code and without first unlocking the domain itself.

My domain was secure – the whole time at Fabulous.com.

What ticked me off was GoDaddy’s refusal to terminate this transaction, despite the fact that I alerted them to it. Were they hoping that despite all this whoever initiated the transfer would forget about the fees they paid?

I was told that the process would automatically end a month after it was started, and so it did. Four weeks and six email reminders later, it stopped.

It’s one thing to get renewal reminders at GoDaddy, attempting to also sell a dozen different services, it’s another to get “spammed” for domains that are with a different domain registrar.

Over the course of the past 18 months I’ve moved the majority of my domain portfolio over to Fabulous.com and I couldn’t have been happier.

I’ve written before why I think Fabulous is *the* best domain registrar catering to domainers.

This time around, I will discuss an important layer of security, available to Fabulous.com customers via an one-time fee: A security token or “fob”.

When I met Mike “Fabulous” Robertson at TRAFFIC Las Vegas in January, I could not but mention how great Fabulous.com is for domainers like me. For being an Aussie, Mike was particularly sober but regardless, he promised to send a spanking new Fabulous fob to my mailbox. I just could not wait!

A few days ago, as promised, the fob arrived in a small envelope. For almost an hour I simply examined it, planning what to do with it. Eventually, I simply ripped the envelope open and the fun began!

The envelope’s particulars showed a total weight of 11 grams or less than 1/2 an ounce. That thing was light as a feather, yet it managed to make it all the way from ‘down under’ intact. After I opened the envelope, I saw that it was packed in some bubble wrap for protection. And no, that’s not the layer of Fabulous security I was referring to!

Inside the bubble wrap was a small square plastic folder, complete with a label. My excitement peaked, as I saw the Fabulous.com logo with the blue gradient and the stars of Australia! The words “Security Key” made it clear that this was the real deal.

I opened the plastic folder, barely wider than a business card. Inside was a printed piece of paper that consisted of the front cover with the logo, the back bearing instructions and finally, the Fabulous fob in all its glory!

Here is a scan of the instructions portion. Since this was my first time to ever face a ‘security fob’ I had no idea how it’s used. The instructions miss one important detail: you have to plug the Fabulous fob into a USB port before you proceed with the steps above!

You can see how tiny the Fabulous fob is, the hole on the left allows you to put it in a keychain – although I would not recommend it – and the right side is what you plug into an available USB port in your computer. So what is the center part that looks like a ring? Hold on!

This is the magic glow of the Fabulous fob, after it was plugged into the USB port! It is now ready to be used and provide an extra, solid layer of security to your domain portfolio with Fabulous.com

After your Fabulous fob is installed, log into your Fabulous.com account as usual and go to the Admin section, then click on “Security”. A menu will be available. Select “Fabulous Security Key” and you’re ready for the registration part.

At this point, you need to ensure that you have easy access to the USB port; first click inside the form field as displayed above. Then press your finger firmly on the round, green ring of the Fabulous key.

As if by magic, the form will fill with a long set of encrypted characters in just a few seconds. That’s the time when you should lift your finger from the Fabulous fob and press the “Register Fabulous Security Key”.

The next step will confirm that everything went as planned with the registration of the security key token. Head over to this discussion if you want to know how the security fob works. Who said I’m not assisting you with your technology education!

At the bottom of the same confirmation page as above, you will see this nifty menu of options which will allow you to set up the extent of security that you’d like to implement. For example, you can enable authentication via the use of the Fabulous fob only when you want to make finance changes, or before you push a domain to a different account. Since you have this Fabulous device in your hands, you might as well check them all!

Finally, this is what you’re looking at when authentication is needed. To proceed with authorizing any action specified in the checkboxes above, the Fabulous fob must obviously be plugged in. Then, click inside the form field, tap and hold the glowing green ring of the fob until the form field fills – then hit Continue and you’re in!

I hope you found this review and tutorial about the security key, a.k.a “Fabulous fob” rather helpful. Fabulous.com is indeed a quiet giant, in the dark blue sea group of companies and it’s the domain registry of choice for anyone serious in the domain business.

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It seems that Sedo.com has run into a potential issue when it comes down to managing domain pushes at Fabulous.com

Several domainers complained that once instructed to push a domain to the Sedo account as part of a sale, they are faced with a message at Fabulous, stating that the Sedo account is invalid or locked.

The problem appears to be that Fabulous locks accounts out for multiple login failures – as part of a security measure. While the measure is valid – and yet another reason to choose Fabulous.com as your preferred domain registrar – it creates some practical issues with regards to completing sales at Sedo.com

Yesterday, while in the middle of a web server crisis I had to deal with this very issue at Sedo/Fabulous.

After calling Sedo and realizing that the business-to-business bureaucracy would add several days to my ongoing mid $x,xxx sale, I decided to take matters in my own hands.

And that’s the Acro way.

Despite the 1/2 day time difference between the East US coast and Australia, my message to Mike “Fabulous” Robertson about the issue was treated with kangaroo speed. They unlocked Sedo’s account and I was able to push the domain and update the transaction, which was then completed within hours.

It’s interesting seeing how complex matters can be resolved within a reasonable amount of time and minimal effort, once you realize that it’s all a matter of good business relationships. Kudos to Mike and Fabulous.com

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