RegisterFly's Implosion Nears Its Bizarre End
In the world of domainers, it seems one name is on everyone’s lips. The RegisterFly debacle has all the aspects of a front-page scandal: sex, CEO spending excesses, a class action lawsuit and a $6,000 Chihuahua.
The company, founded in 2000, was managed by John Naruszewicz and Kevin Medina. From the outside, things were going well for the business and personal partners. However, inside the private lives of the pair and the company they managed, things were headed south quickly.
In late 2005, ICANN began receiving complaints of fraud at the small registrar and eNom reseller. Customers told ICANN of unanswered support tickets, interminably long hold times for phone calls and overcharging three to four times for registrations and renewals. Customers audacious enough to have the charges reversed by their credit card companies often found that RegisterFly had denied access to their registered names.
In a strange circle of events, ICANN was forwarding complaints regarding RegisterFly to registrar eNom. In the eyes of ICANN, RegisterFly was a reseller of eNom services and thus all complaints against RegisterFly were complaints against eNom. On January 17, 2006 eNom was notified that ICANN was “receiving an unusually high number of complaints concerning RegisterFly.” RegisterFly then notified ICANN that it would be transferring its domains from eNom to RegisterFly’s own account. Complaints continued to pour into ICANN and ICANN issued a second statement to eNom warning that company of a potential breach of their accreditation agreement. The alleged breach was due to eNom’s failure to resolve allegations that RegisterFly was deliberately entering false data into customers’ WHOIS records. Still, the accreditation process for RegisterFly went on.
Months passed and ICANN continued to receive complaints of poor customer service and outright fraud at RegisterFly. In addition to the previous complaints, customers were now reporting the sudden disappearance of domain names which were not about to expire. Kevin Medina, then co-chair of RegisterFly told ICANN the complaints were merely “growing pains” at the registrar. Shortly thereafter, complaints grew graver as domain name theft allegations began to find their way to ICANN officials.
In December 2006 ICANN met with RegisterFly officials to deliver a letter outlining ICANN’s concerns over complaints of failure to renew domain names, billing inconsistencies and failure to pay ICANN invoices. RegisterFly was to respond to these concerns, in writing, within 30 days of this meeting.
January 2007 came and went. No letter from RegisterFly was received at ICANN, but the complaints certainly continued to come in. The bulk of the complaints were the same as they had been for the previous year. However, three groups also lodged complaints with ICANN. These were other ICANN registrars, ICANN board members and the US Department of Commerce.
It is no coincidence, then, that the implosion of the company began in earnest the very next month. Citing a long and well-documented history of unresolved customer complaints, eNom cut all ties to RegisterFly. Kevin Medina was fired from his post as CEO of RegisterFly amid allegations of misuse of company funds. In an attempt to force Medina to sell his half of RegisterFly, business partner and ex-boyfriend John Naruszewicz filed suit against Medina. Naruszewicz claims Medina used corporate funds for such personal luxuries as a $10,000-a-month South Beach penthouse, a $9,000 escort, $6,000 in liposuction services and even a $6,000 Chihuahua.
These alleged raids on the company’s wallet have resulted in bringing RegisterFly to the brink of bankruptcy. The lawsuit states that RegisterFly’s customer base has fallen from 200,000 to 125,000 customers because the company cannot afford to pay the registration fees when requested.
If it all were to end it here, this would be one of the strangest stories of excess and brazen disregard for customer service yet recorder. Of course, the adventure doesn’t end here.
After his firing, Medina set up a visually identical site at RegisterFly.net. This was effectively a phishing site. On March 8, 2007 Naruszewicz stated that the company had regained control of its website and account information and that the company would begin rectifying payment problems and unfairly expired domain names immediately. However, in a move that surprised even Medina's lawyers, Judge Sheridan of US District Court ordered that control of RegisterFly be returned to Medina.
Meanwhile, ICANN was proceeding towards removing RegisterFly’s accreditation. On Sunday, March 4, 2007 ICANN announced their intent to file suit against RegisterFly to cease and desist doing business as an ICANN accredited registrar. RegisterFly was able to delay this action by providing a minimum of customer account information to ICANN. On March 16, 2007 RegisterFly was notified they would lose ICANN accreditation on March 31, 2007. RegisterFly exercised their right to appeal and stalled ICANN’s temporary restraining order for 30 days.
The temporary restraining order against RegisterFly was granted to ICANN on April 16, 2007. This order required RegisterFly to hand over all data to ICANN and supply updates to this data every seven days. Failure to meet these terms resulted in an injunction on April 27, 2007. This injunction allows ICANN to begin transfer of registrations from RegisterFly to another accredited registrar as soon as practical. The ICANN release also requests statements of interest from qualified registrars to handle the transfer. These are due by today (April 30) so no transfer action will take place before that date.
The injunction against RegisterFly requires the following statement be posted immediately at RegisterFly’s website:
NOTICE TO CONSUMERS: THE INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS, THE NOT-FOR-PROFIT ENTITY THAT ADMINSTERS THE INTERNET’S DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM, HAS ISSUED A NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF THIS COMPANY’S ACCREDITATION TO SERVE AS AN INTERNET DOMAIN REGISTRAR. PLEASE SEE www.icann.org FOR FUTHER INFORMATION.
As of right now, RegisterFly has not posted this statement, is still claiming ICANN accreditation at its website and is still taking in funds for services one can reasonably assume will never be rendered.
So what comes next for RegisterFly’s customers? ICANN is working towards a mass transfer of registrations to another accredited registrar and a deal has been reached with several domain registries to prevent improperly expired domain names from being resold to new owners. A class action lawsuit has also been filed against RegisterFly to attempt to regain some of the payments lost. However, it is likely that many RegisterFly customers will never receive full reparations.
In the wake of this debacle, questions are flying in ICANN’s direction. How did a company with such an egregious complaint history become accredited in the first place? Why did it take so long for ICANN to take action against RegisterFly given the gross number of complaints lodged against them? As the implosion of RegisterFly nears its bizarre end, the answers to these questions will have far reaching effects on the world we do business in.
RegisterFly is really the worst,I think ICANN should
take its responsibility.It is far from enough just accusare RegisterFly.IMO ICANN should commitment to guarantee the rights of customers who regged at RegisterFly.
This is the first time I've seen something like this happen, and I feel very sorry for people who had domains with Registerfly. It's sad to see such a crappy company survive for so long. What really gets to me is how they haven't responded to ICANN and are still stealing people's money. For shame.
They have one of my customers domain names re-registered to expiredfly.com, although it is shown as renewed on my account. As with everyone else, I have no contact options left. I think that ICANN should have some control or recourse, after all they are the ultimate responsible party in the world for regualtion of domain names.
this is a long time coming.. we just need ICANN to start policing this process a bit more..
Way too late that action has been taken in my opinion, RegisterFly has been messed up for a long time already and as they had closure coming ICANN should have handled a lot faster as well. It is nice to have a service like ICANN present, but if they just push away their tasks to others anyways they can just as well not be there at all.
Whether the registrar is a reseller or not, ICANN should act fast in all cases like this even if it is simply to keep the trust of the domainers.
How to moved your registerfly domains including protected domains before they will lost .
RegisterFly will not be a domain reseller in march 2007, and all your domain there is in risk of losing, spicily whois protected domains !.
so how to save your domain:
1. Create A New Register Fly Account.
2. Login into the Old RegisterFly Account.
3. Click on Manage Domains
4. Click A Domain Name
5. Click On Change Ownership
6. Click On “Push your names to another user”
7. Click Continue
8. Enter The User ID of The New RegisterFly Account
9. Verify The User ID of The New RegisterFly Account is Correct
10. Click Continue
11. Select Each Domain Name to Push
12. Check the Check Box Marked “Change the Whois/Contact info on the names being pushed”
*** Check This Box Only if your Domains are Showing ProtectFly Information on a Whois Database, If it’s Showing your Real Information with Working Email Then Continue Without Checking the Check Box ***
13. Login into Your New RegisterFly Account, Your Recently Transferred Domains Should Be All Unlocked.
14. Click Change Whois Information And Get Authorization Code for Each Domain.
15. Wait about 2 Days until changes are updated to the world.
15. Begin Transfer to New Registrar.
Illegal Business Practice by Enom and Registryfly
Let’s say there is a hurricane that blows down your home. You go to get wood to build it up or gas to run your car and the price has now been multiplied by ten times. This is price gouging and is illegal and unfair business practice. Enom has applied this concept to domain renewals through their own reseller, whom went out of business, as well as their current practices (June 20th 2007). Enom and Registry fly were in business together and have had some of the same billing issues. Enom denies this, but it is a true fact based on lawsuits and my own personal experience with their management team lying and stealing from people who do not know any technical jargon. Do not deal with this company called Enom. Yes, they are very nice on the phone and nice people, but what they are saying is one thing and what they do is another. They are thieves. I spoke with Brendon out of the Enom Seattle office and caught him in lies and let him know. he really had nothing to say except to send an email to Enom. I am providing my number below to show this is a true and legitimate complaint.
Christian 865-769-3866
May 5th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
[...] RegisterFly's Implosion Nears Its Bizarre End What's next? ICANN is authorized to transfer RegisterFly's domains to a new registrar "as soon as practical", according to an April 27, 2007 injunction (pdf file). So far, ICANN has received four applications from prospective registrars. Once the transfer is complete, RegisterFly will likely collapse. Cogit Group (Report), Frank Schilling and others have tried to buy the embattled registrar but were apparently rejected by Kevin Medina. [...]