mwh.geek.nz

The DNC has made their final determination and gotten back to me (yes, it really did take six months). They have upheld my complaint, finding that the crooks did in fact inappropriately withhold my UDAI codes.

I get the impression from the updates the DNC has sent me during the process that Bottle Domains gave them the run-around too, claiming not to have received the complaint (where have I heard that before?) and then taking well beyond the ordinary deadlines to respond – the Commissioner implied they hadn’t even bothered to reply substantively at all at the time the draft determination was made, by which point they’d already had an extension. None of this has done anything to resolve my doubts about them, so I still have to recommend staying well away from anything associated with Domain Central, Bottle Domains, the Australian Style Group, GetMac.com.au, search.net.au, Nicholas Bolton, or 50 Fitzroy St, St Kilda. Just to be on the safe side, you understand.

Supposedly, they have “taken steps to address the processes that contributed to the issues I had with them”, though I’m fairly unconvinced of that given their attitude in the past and during this entire process. The end result is a formal warning that lasts twelve months and a note in the December .nz newsletter (not out yet, it seems). I would prefer the shysters be shut down entirely, but it’s something.

The DNC didn’t address Bottle Domains’ actions regarding the illegitimate charges they made to my credit card. As I understand it, they don’t consider that kind of thing part of their remit. That’s fair enough, since there are other avenues for dealing with it if I’d wanted to pursue them. The company did eventually resolve it themselves after a couple of weeks worth of followup, once they figured out I wasn’t going to quit. It took a few rounds of their pretending to have issued refunds but not actually doing it, and trying to pass off partial refunds as the whole thing. Between that and the flagrant and unapologetic breaches of the .nz registry rules… well, the less said the better.

Hopefully, this will be the last post on the subject, and the last time I have to deal with them. 1st Domains is still treating me well.

Time to follow up on the post from a few weeks back about those crooks at Domain Central; I have, finally, gotten everything resolved. I had to chase them up every step of the way, and it took three weeks, but they got there.

I intend to complain formally to the DNC about the whole thing. If nothing else, three weeks is not a “reasonable time” to fulfill my UDAI requests, and they came piecemeal at that – I had to follow up more than once to get each single code one at a time, despite asking for them all on the first day – and then when I did get it, it would be wrong. I wasn’t provided with the codes upon registration as required by DNC policy either.

In total, I had to send fourteen emails (in streaks of up to four without reply, each separated by at least a day) and use their live chat support service three times to chase it up. They gave me a “refund” that was only partial and tried to pass it off as the whole thing, and their 24-hour response guarantee for the complaints@domaincentral.com.au address is a total fiction. Twice, I had to wait an entire week before receiving even a token response, and I’m still waiting on the complaints one.

At this point, I’m genuinely not sure whether they’re just spectacularly incompetent or an actual criminal enterprise; either way, I’d recommend keeping your business elsewhere. I’d also recommend staying well clear of anything owned by their parent, Australian Style, which includes Bottle Domains, GetMac.com.au, and search.net.au. Unfortunately ASIC doesn’t provide the same sort of detail as the New Zealand Companies Office, so I can’t find out who’s actually behind it, but anything based at 50 Fitzroy St, St Kilda should raise some red flags.

I only used them for registrations under .nz, so I’ve transferred them all (after I finally got the UDAIs) to 1st Domains, with whom I’ve been pretty satisfied so far.

This domain, and some others of mine, are registered through Domain Central in Australia (no link, for reasons the title may make apparent). Yesterday I received an email from them informing me that one of those names had been automatically renewed at a price of AUD49.50 + GST (10%).

This story is all well and good so far, until we consider that their advertised price for these domains is AUD24.50 including GST, and that as a non-Australian resident I exempt from their GST anyway by Commonwealth law (§38-190, A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999). As well, I wasn’t notified even once in advance rather than the half-dozen times promised.

So after being charged almost 250% as much as I should have been I was a little concerned, but I figured it was a mistake and contacted them to get it resolved. Here’s their response in full:

Hello Michael,

Thank you for writing in.

The domain zzzzzzz.nz has been successfully renewed.

Please let me know if you have any further questions. Simply reply to this email to reopen your support request.

Best Regards,

Vikrant XXXXXX
Customer Support

The brush-off. Just in case there was a misunderstanding of what I was asking, or just laziness in reading it, I replied again explaining explicitly what I was enquiring about and requesting the UDAIs for my other domains, but over a day later – nothing. At this point it’s either deliberate fraud, or supreme incompetence and terrible customer service. Either way, I don’t intend to give them my business in the future, and I don’t encourage anybody else to do so either.

If there’s still no response in the morning, I’m going to contact them one last time before I call the bank, the Australian Tax Office, and the Domain Name Commission and pot them for breaking the rules of every one of those.