Sunday, January 14, 2007

Namesecure are they the worst domain name registrar?

I have several domains registered with Namessecure.com, including heartandmind.org, eidors.org, and sarahlionheart.com. I wonder if they are the worst place to register or host a domain? A few years ago when my friend Rick Booth recommended them they were good value and easy to use. Over the last year or two the service has degraded, especially email forwarding. This has been extremely inconvenient for my wife Sarah as she relies on the email address for business.


I am currently trying to move heartandmind.org to a UK hosting company fasthosts.co.uk. I selected them from several economically priced hosting services as they had a human being who answered the phone, in an accent I could understand (slightly West Country I think, and that fits as their address is Gloucester), and who could reply intelligently to my questions. We will see how it goes, my problem now is to actually get the ironically named namesecure to actually do their part to transfer the domain. Google threw up a litany of complaints from other namesecure customers and former customers, including someone who lost the domain completely while trying to transfer it out of namesecure!


Here are some examples of complaints


  • namesecure not answering phone for 4 weeks
  • Mail forwarding not working
  • This press release by namesecure is followed by a long list of user complaints about their service, including "
    VERY BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE !! I have been using NameSecure since 2000. However their customer service is practically non-existent" and "Ron Lautmann wrote:
    Namesecure is a fraud. They refused to transfer my domain before it expired and then when it expired they say it can't be transferred until I renew. Catch 22? My advice, don't use Namesecure. "


Anyone else out there care to share their experience about namesecure? Has anyone managed to contact customer services? Do you have a phone or fax number for them? Has anyone managed to transfer their domain out, or recover their losses? Please add a comment below.

(Added 7/2009 They seem to have got alot better recently, letting you transfer the domain from the "Dashboard". Maybe they are under new management)

16 Comments:

Blogger Dr Rick said...

Only just noticed this.

I bitterly regret, now, recommending them to you and others. As you say, at the time they were pretty good. Now they are made of suck.

The incredibly over-aggressive filtering on the email forwarding was the last straw for my use of that service. Unfortunately my inertia and fear of their incompetence is strong enough that I'm still using them, but with a friend providing MX for me.

I am truly sorry.

10:24 AM  
Blogger Billlion said...

At the time it was good advice. You weren't to know they were to go sour. BTW thanks for the investment advice, I am so glad I opened that savings account with Northern Rock.... :-). Sorry that was uncalled for. Your advice still valued.

1:10 AM  
Blogger The Cubelodyte said...

If you weren't already aware, NameSecure got bought out by Network Solutions in late 2000 or very early 2001 after they ran out of money (read: horribly mismanaged investors' dollars). How do I know? Because I worked there. Look up the whois info on NameSecure and NetSol: you'll see they share a mailing address.

For a few years afterward (to the best of my knowledge) their "support" staff consisted of a single person answering mail. Not sure why NetSol keeps the "brand" around, but no, I wouldn't buy anything from them now, either.

12:25 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I was an early adopter in the domain name buying fade. Now, I can do nothing with the domains I have with Namesecure. It's as if the company is holding my domains hostage so I either have to pay them to renew my domains or let them expire. I can't sell or move them. If anyone has advice, I'd love to hear it. I haven't spent hours on this.

10:43 AM  
Blogger Robert Burns said...

Somehow I switched or opened one domain to NameSecure last year and I am bogged down now in transferring my primary one now. I cannot get E-mail response to my inquiries. I cannot find a telephone number for NameSecure. My registration has expired with the old registrar since the transfer was initiated. My Yahoo E-mail forwarding is disabled pending the transfer. I'm pissed and may have to sue.

1:21 PM  
Blogger Robert Burns said...

Somehow I switched or opened one domain to NameSecure last year and I am bogged down now in transferring my primary one now. I cannot get E-mail response to my inquiries. I cannot find a telephone number for NameSecure. My registration has expired with the old registrar since the transfer was initiated. My Yahoo E-mail forwarding is disabled pending the transfer. I'm pissed and may have to sue.

1:21 PM  
Blogger Billlion said...

Dear Robert
I never got a reply from them either. But I did manange to use the dashboard to change some setting that allows the domain to move. Then I switched to a new provider and changed the DNS settings. I think this has worked for my wife's main site heartandmind.org. Good luck with it.
Bill

1:34 PM  
Blogger Billlion said...

Re: Warning: Your NameSecure Services Are Going To Be Deactivated

Dear Namesecure

Please note that we transfered this domain to another domain name registrar. And as you know that is largely due to your non existent customer service and failiure to reply to any communication.

I am amazed that you still have the gall to claim that you are still operating any kind of business at namesecure. Perhaps you are not, and it is just that you have left a computer switched on somewhere that is still automatically sending out emails.

Bill Lionheart

renewals@namesecure.com wrote:

> *Notice Date: 12/28/07*
> *THE NAMESECURE SERVICES BELOW
> ARE GOING TO BE DEACTIVATED
> *
>
>
> Attention: William Lionheart
>
> This is to notify you that the services listed below are going to be deactivated if they are not renewed.
>
> Renew today to avoid any undesirable loss in service, lock in at a great price, and continue to enjoy premium service at a GREAT VALUE.
>
>
> *Services* *Type* *Status* *Expiration*

9:09 AM  
Blogger Nicole said...

I am cutting my losses as far as namesecure is concerned.

I've been a customer for 5+ years and they were great when I first started out.

My hosting was cut off about 6 months ago when I changed credit cards. I tried to no avail to contact them to get my sites back up and running but never received a response.

I am now transferring my domains to another registrar and will never reccomend or use namesecure again.

I found a few numbers but I haven't bothered to try them as I am truly fed up. But if someone else would like to give them a try:

1-800-299-1288
925-609-1111
703-668-4600
703-668-5230

10:12 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Admittedly, I was negligent in this, but I received no e-mail notifying me that one of my domain names was expiring. All of a sudden, my domain is in a "pending deletion" status. Namesecure would "attempt" to redeem it out of this deletion stage for a price of $100. I attempted to contact customer service through several means, and received no response.
I went to another registrar and tried to backorder it, but someone else has snatched it up already.
I despise Namesecure. Their customer service degraded and disappeared.

1:56 PM  
Blogger Billlion said...

Update. I was recently able to finally complete the transfer of the domain heartandmind.org to fasthosts. This now works fine on the namesecure dashboard and was completed in a few days. It seems that they have now managed to get their act together. I encourage you all to try again if you have had your domain trapped with namesecure.

4:10 AM  
Blogger Gabriel Mainville said...

Let me tell you the worst domain registrar is iWeb, I had a very bad service. My domaine name didn't work properly and most of the time the representative lied to me and I didn't like it.

8:52 AM  
Blogger Richard said...

Just 10 minutes ago (in April 2009) I renewed two domains that I have with Namesecure, one of which is minormania.com and has been registered through Namesecure for about TEN YEARS.

On a whim I thought I'd backorder another domain so I googled "namesecure backorder" and came across this blog.

Apparently a lot of people have had issues with Namesecure, but I have never had a problem in all this time.

Admittedly, my sites are now actually hosted by Lunarpages.com (who have also been excellent and great value for money) - more from a features/price point of view than anything against Namesecure.

I have considered transferring registrars from Namesecure to Lunarpages just to keep everything simple and in one place, but given that I haven't had any problems with Namesecure is it really a necessary hassle?

6:11 AM  
Blogger mtnwing - Living IVMTB strong said...

my email at Namesecure has been down for two days and I can't get a response out of them. very frustrating. I have spent a lot of money parking domains with them over the years but only recently started using their email. My experience is that their service really sucks based on this lack of response to multiple tickets I have filed. I am ready to move my 100 domains else where.

2:04 PM  
Blogger mtnwing - Living IVMTB strong said...

my email has been down for two days and I can't get a response out of these clowns. They suck.

2:05 PM  
Blogger Gustavo said...

Yes, they provide the worse support, i was trying to transfer one domain to namesecure, but it failed, because they doesn't exists. After 30 days i receive an email from they sayig "your domain transfer failed..." stupids, and i lost one domain! because i don't renew with the previous registrar.

But there is something good with them, if you don't renew your domain at time you don't have to pay a penalty as godaddy does, about $90.
now i want to edit the DNS zone to redirect my blog at blogger but i'am unable to add a simple A record. Their control panel es very basic.

7:45 AM  

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