I know many of you have been waiting for the latest breakthrough of news regarding the Registerfly debacle.  Someone said the silence is deafening.  So, I put a call into John at Registerfly and he said he was in the Federal Courthouse in NJ and ICANN was there as well.

Basically, John stated that they spent all day in the local courthouse yesterday in meetings with the prosecutor and today they are at the Federal Courthouse in NJ and expect to be there the entire week in meetings with the Federal prosecutor.  From what John told me, the FBI and the Secret Service are both getting involved in this investigation and that there was new and incriminating evidence that was turned over to the prosecutor yesterday.  This is all I can say at this point.

I will do my best to keep things updated on this site with credible news and information regarding Registerfly.  Please stay tuned.

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guido Registered | 2007-02-27 12:47:17 All I can say is "AWESOME!!!!!" Thanks Admin for the update

Destroyer X - Please Write Local Television Registered | 2007-02-27 12:48:33 I appreciate everything that you're doing for us, admin, and your website is one of the first websites I visit on a daily basis. In my personal opinion, I think the pressure needs to be turned up on RegisterFly.com, Inc. and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). One way we've managed to attempt to bring this to mainstream media attention was when one of the members of the message board provided us with a link to CNN to share our stories. I am attempting to send a fax letter explaining this situtation to any radio and television station that would be interested in this debacle. RegisterFly isn't posting any of this information on their own website. They didn't post any of their company documents regarding removing Kevin Medina as the CEO. They didn't put the public on notice with their broken shopping cart system, and for all I know, it's still taking people's money with no services rendered to customers. They didn't post the ICANN notice about being in breach with ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement. All the news that has been posted about this has been posted on websites other than RegisterFly's website. If RegisterFly is supposedly "sincere" about wanting to make things right, then they need to start acknowledging the general public on their own website. They need to post information related to this in a special news page or on their main page. ICANN shouldn't escape this radar either, and it also needs to come under public scrutiny and investigated by the United States Federal Trade Commission. ICANN has known of this problem dating as far back as 2005 (and I supspect, even longer than that as well), and it wasn't until now that they're doing anything about it. I strongly encourage everyone to get the media interested in this story, because we cannot let this be "just another Internet story." There're over 1,000,000 at stake (as so claimed on RegisterFly's website), and many people are losing their businesses and livelihoods because of this. Well, that's my two cents on this issue.

kimvette Editor | 2007-02-27 15:33:46 Destroyer X wrote: RegisterFly isn't posting any of this information on their own website. They didn't post any of their company documents regarding removing Kevin Medina as the CEO. They didn't put the public on notice with their broken shopping cart system, and for all I know, it's still taking people's money with no services rendered to customers. They didn't post the ICANN notice about being in breach with ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement. All the news that has been posted about this has been posted on websites other than RegisterFly's website. With all due respect, I think that one needs to be a little more forgiving regarding RegisterFly's apparent lack of acknowledgement. Since Kevin Medina has control of their web site and their domain, is there really any wonder why their site does not acknowledge the ongoing controversy? Kevin Medina certainly is not going to boast of his being voted out of the company for gross misconduct, misappropriation of funds, fraud, theft of trade secrets, illegally accessing a computer network, and a few other accusations which have not yet been made public. Destroyer X wrote: ICANN shouldn't escape this radar either, and it also needs to come under public scrutiny and investigated by the United States Federal Trade Commission. ICANN has known of this problem dating as far back as 2005 (and I supspect, even longer than that as well), and it wasn't until now that they're doing anything about it. No, ICANN should not escape scruitiny by any means. If nothing else, the RegisterFly scandal has uncovered a much, much bigger problem which requires the focus of everyone serious about using the Internet as a reliable means of communication: ICANN. ICANN is the overseeing body responsible for the accreditation of registrars and takes a cut of every fee that you and I pay for every domain registration and renewal. They underwrite each registrar, and provide "ICANN Accredited" logos to each registrar. However, when a registrar is violating guidelines/bylaws and is engaging in fraud or is merely negligent, and one sends complaints to ICANN, what is the response? It is a canned reply informing the registrant that ICANN does not interfere with or otherwise resolve registrar problems, and simply forwards complaints on to the registrar in question. I believe that when the Mafia engages in this sort of activity, it is called racketeering. We as an industry need to set our sights on ICANN, and bring ICANN down. Admin brought down RegisterFly almost singlehandedly; we as an entire industry can do the same with ICANN, and bring real accountability into the picture.

Samson - Bring down ICANN? Registered | 2007-02-27 23:20:22 Quote: We as an industry need to set our sights on ICANN, and bring ICANN down. Admin brought down RegisterFly almost singlehandedly; I think you overestimate our chances if you think we number large enough to bring down an entity as large and powerful as ICANN. All that money they rake in from all the domains out there surely has given them plenty to throw at their lawyers. Also, you give Justin far too much credit for bringing Registerfly down. Actions like this take months to prepare. And sometimes years to execute. This website has been puttering along for awhile now and the only reason it suddenly exploded was eNom's letter to domain holders. That was the major catalyst that brought everything to light. eNom shined the bright light of scrutiny on Registerfly. They could have just quietly informed Rfly that the jig was up and left it at that. None of us would have been the wiser.

nightflight - FBI and the Secret Service Registered | 2007-02-27 13:37:26 How come, that now even FBI and the Secret Service still permit registerfly.com to promote their dubious offerings. How come, that the ICANN logo is still used at registerfly.com website to attract more victims ... something smells fishy ...

PC Medic Registered | 2007-02-27 17:10:16 BINGO!!!! It also does not take a week of meetings to bring possible charges in a scandal this big. Either there is evidence of wrong doing... or there isn't. The fact that there is nothing on any of the major news services (or financial networks even) and no indications I have found yet of any court dockets with case or trial info also has me skeptical.

lwpman26 - A World without ICANN Registered | 2007-02-27 18:00:52 ICANN would be worthless if all of us had the choice to use other domain companys who in no way would sell or resell by using ICANN's accreditation.

guido Registered | 2007-02-27 14:06:19 It's been obvious for quite some time that NO ONE at RF is sincere about protecting it's customers. This includes the possibly future CEO John and his buddy Glenn. They had the opportunity on numerous occassions to alert, notify, warn..anything the customers that may still to this day have no idea that sites they own are gone, money they are paying with is being filltered out to personal bank accounts etc... etc...etc... bottom line is RF is done and those involved should never be allowed to work for any type of internet company ever again. ICANN is just a shell and IMHO, there had to be a little more than promises being made behind closed doors to get the to firstly Accredit RF at all or to look the other way for so long. ENOM is in the same position as ICANN but was involved for even longer and they are both more than likely named in Class action lawsuits for their roles in all of this no matter how much they backpeddle today. Kevin Medina is a whole different ball game and should be saying hi to bubba in his designer jumpsuit very soon and i couldn't be happier. You'll see the media picking this up like it's the OJ simpson trial soon enough I bet. Can you imagine the number of plaintiffs involved here? Can you imagine the headlines? "Chihuahua Medina sticks it deep into his customers without any lube." He doesn't have hope in hell of getting out of this one. My main concern is to salvage and salvage fast. Unlike alot of the RF customers that actually heard about this whole thing so far I was not until now in a position to move any of my domains out. I have only lost two domains officially now and after i get the domains out that I have access to I will work on the ones that I don't. My first transfer was started yesterday and once that goes through i will press on with the others.

Biz Guru - Something is Happening Registered | 2007-02-27 14:25:19 Something is definitely happening! As I have done every day, several times a day for the last 3 months I tried to renew my vital domain. And it worked! You have renewed the following domains in your account: Order Number : 64924132 Domain Name : adsensesites.biz Domain Id : 30292099 Expiration Date : 2007-02-28 Years added : 1 New Expire Date : 2008-02-28 And the whois has been updated. Now if I can just get the lock off it.... Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited I had money in my account - so thought I would use that - would never risk giving them my credit card details! Will check it again tommorrow!

each1 - Help!What should I do??? Registered | 2007-02-27 15:20:17 I've renewed my domains 2 weeks ago and it seems that money was missing. These domains will expire soon, can anyone tell me what to do? They had charged me already and those domains are very important for my business...

kimvette Editor | 2007-02-27 15:46:13 I would tell you to complain to ICANN, except all they will do is tell you to complain to the registrar. The very, VERY best we can hope is that Kevin Medina be locked up and someone who gives any kind of thought to customer services steps up to the plate and starts addressing these issues.

captainproton - re: what should I do Registered | 2007-02-27 19:50:55 Transfer the domains out ASAP. I hear that godaddy is very fast. I had good luck with mydomains in getting a domain out that was two days from expiring (as RF took my money).

asylum Registered | 2007-02-27 15:33:40 Thanks for keeping us updated, Its appreciated. Lets hope this guys get butt f**ked in prison

Marion - INDUSTRY WIDE INVESTIGATION Registered | 2007-02-27 15:49:20 A whole lot of Registrars have been just changing WHOIS data on domain names and hijacking domain names for YEARs and no government agency appeared concerned until now. VERIO has sworn in affidavits that it filed in FEDERAL COURT that it believes it has a right to just change whois data on domain names and take the domain names without any court orders or judgments. IT DOESN'T TAKE A ROCKET SCIENTIST TO SEE THAT VERIO, MELBOURNE IT and other ROGUE REGISTRARS ARE A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY. If someone can just change the whois data on domain names and bring down hundreds/thousands of US companies, how is THAT not a threat to the USA's national security?

zakofrax Registered | 2007-02-28 00:03:49 Not to disagree with what your saying but MelboureIT is an Australian company so like all the foreign customer of Registerfly hard to deal with legally.

each1 - Thank u 4 reply! How about tra Registered | 2007-02-27 15:56:43 Is it possible to transfer my domains from registerfly at this moment? Saying, to Enom? Will I be able to get the password or something from customer support? If I transfer these domains, all I lose is just the renew fees I paid 3 weeks ago, but if I keep waiting, I'll lose all these domains. Any suggestions?

PC Medic Registered | 2007-02-27 17:13:49 So far I have been able to transfer all but 4 of minein the past 10 days. Some times it takes a couple tries to get them to unlock to get the KEY, but after that I processed them all and only 4 are stuck for varying reasons.

Brad R Registered | 2007-02-27 16:07:32 Several people are reporting that they have been able to transfer domains fromregisterfly this week. (I'm partially successful so far.) Check the forum for how various people have succeeded. The instructions have been collected here: http://registerflies.com/component/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,26/func,view/id,1239/catid,5/

sirchadlington Registered | 2007-02-27 16:08:08 each1, check my FAQ thread. If your domain has been renewed already for 3 years... and you transfer it... that will remain. When you transfer a domain to a registrar you pay for a minimum of 1 EXTRA year.. and then you can transfer it to them and have you existing expiry date + 1 yr. However... if you're transfering to ENOM... you don't have to pay for 1 year extra. Since ENOM already owned your domain, they just move it to your ENOM account out of regfly. It only works for domains that have ENOM listed as the registrar.

umonster - RRP auth code? Registered | 2007-02-27 16:21:02 Things did seem to get better in the last few days. I got almost all my names out except for 3 that have RRP as auth codes. These are, of course, rejected by the new registrar. Customer support, both here and at RF have been unresponsive. And I do so want to claim a dispute on overcharges, but I'm afraid RF will lock my remaining domains. Ugh, what a disgusting little industry.

sirchadlington Registered | 2007-02-27 16:26:13 ya, I wouldn't complain to regfly cause they'll either not respond or lock you out. Make the overcharge complaint with the BBB, then phone up your local police and credit card company to reverse them.

wheel - Chargebacks. Registered | 2007-02-27 16:47:50 Do NOT make any credit card chargeback, until you have all your domains out. Otherwise they will take all your domains hostage.

legaadmin - The solution? Registered | 2007-02-27 19:23:09 I propose to every of us to email ICANN with request to not expire domains registered with Registerfly, AND EXTEND ALREADY EXPIRED WITHIN LAST MONTHS, before everything will sattle. This is a real solution. IMHO.

guido - re: RRP auth code? Registered | 2007-02-27 19:32:40 umonster wrote: Things did seem to get better in the last few days. I got almost all my names out except for 3 that have RRP as auth codes. These are, of course, rejected by the new registrar. Customer support, both here and at RF have been unresponsive. And I do so want to claim a dispute on overcharges, but I'm afraid RF will lock my remaining domains. Ugh, what a disgusting little industry. Better clarify that the support form here is sent to Registerfly people and really has nothing to do with Registerflies.com other than Admin was nice enough to help us get a more direct connection to the bad support at Registerfly. I have yet to receive a response from that form and I submitted 6 or 7 days ago now. The reason being is Medina took over and the support form was for John and Glenn's people.

JRBHosting - Umm... Registered | 2007-02-27 20:04:50 Tell me...what the hell have the Secret Service to do with this? According to http://www.secretservice.gov/, there is nothing about protecting the business economy directly or shutting down registrars...

kimvette Editor | 2007-02-27 23:08:52 credit fraud is under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service Interstate commerce is under the jurisdiction of the FBI, as is computer security breaches Mr. Medina is in some very, very serious doodoo.

whizz - Thanks for the update ... Registered | 2007-02-28 00:59:00 Thanks for keeping this website up to date! For months we've been struggling with RF. We have some 140 domains of our own registered through RF and many of our customers have used RF based on our past (never again!) recommendation. Of course, we thought it was something to do with our use of RF - possibly contact data or something - that was causing problems. Eventually (we're slow learners), we found this website and the penny dropped... Just before that, we requested that Icann formally investigate RF. Anyone can do that and I encourage people to contact Icann through its Ombudsman service - you have to persist to get them not to write you off as a "simple case of customer/supplier dispute". We have also begun the painful process of domain name recovery. Some are not yet recoverable, but quite a few have transferred out to another registrar. We have also spoken with ENOM about this and are locking down all names that have not yet transferred to RF. ENOM is being quite helpful on that front. It is a mess but believe me, you don't get scared until you are hosting your own DNS (for your own sites and your clients) and your DNS domain name is hosted by RF and apparently not renewable... Somehow I got the support staff at RF to manually renew that domain. That was two months ago and now the support staff appears useless. Actually worse that useless as they know what is going on but aren't coming clean. Icann has a scandal on its hands. Unfortunately, we are all paying the price for it at the moment... Please keep us all up to date on what's happening ... for our part, I'll post any paths we find to domain recovery that appear to work. One quick tip: if you've used ProtectFly, get it off now and keep it off. Others have commented on this but it is essential. Also note that ENOM is aware of ProtectFly and if a domain that you can't transfer is still with ENOM and obscured by ProtectFly, ENOM has a special process to let you keep the domain at ENOM - just ask them for the instructions (support ticket or phone call). Good luck to everyone in getting through this shared misfortune!

tann - re: The solution? Registered | 2007-02-28 03:58:42 legaadmin wrote: I propose to every of us to email ICANN with request to not expire domains registered with Registerfly, AND EXTEND ALREADY EXPIRED WITHIN LAST MONTHS, before everything will sattle. This is a real solution. IMHO. Yes, this is what I offer as well. This is not our fault. I am trying to move some domains to somewhere else or to do something with it, no success.

stealthdevil - I'm free... :) Registered | 2007-02-28 07:25:29 I finally transferred over my domain yesterday. The transfer was fully successful and I'm now with a reputable provider (OpenSRS).. To those who are still stuck, good luck to you all and hopefully you will be in my position soon enough :-)

dsmj - getting real Registered | 2007-02-28 10:19:30 At Least from the rumors i hear - multiiple agencies are on Kevin's case. IMHO it makes John and Glen look a bit weak what with all the year or so of problems that they couldnt solve without intervention, but at least thier intentions seem good. go here: http://lifeonline.com I am going to be on with Bob Parsons tonight, pls fwd anything good about a GoDaddy transfer, or juicy tidbits ( whatever i can mention ) to this email: Registerfly@blindfury.tv

jax1492 - re: Thank u 4 reply! How about Registered | 2007-02-28 10:42:38 cont each1 wrote: Is it possible to transfer my domains from registerfly at this moment? Saying, to Enom? Will I be able to get the password or something from customer support? If I transfer these domains, all I lose is just the renew fees I paid 3 weeks ago, but if I keep waiting, I'll lose all these domains. Any suggestions? i just moved my domain to enom.com, very simple you need to provide them with screen shots of your domain control panel on RF and your licenses. they pushed mine over in about 1 hour and my web site is back up after 3 weeks of not being able to change dns settings on RF. i tried godaddy but RF will not send them or give me a auth code so its a no go to godaddy. edit: your remainig time from RF ex. 2 years will be pushed to enom as well

thiebes - Can anyone advise me? Registered | 2007-02-28 17:08:52 My domain is registered at registerfly. I accidentally and stupidly let it expire (I am a busy person) and I tried to renew with no luck. They have claimed my domain. I have been trying for a week, wasting time on the phone with them, paying three times for renewal... no luck obviously. Do I have any hope of getting my domain back, or should I just cut my losses and create a new domain? Please help.

freddieb - re: Can anyone advise me? Registered | 2007-02-28 20:12:44 thiebes wrote: My domain is registered at registerfly. Who is the Registrar? If it's eNom then you may have a chance, Contact elida@enom.com and explain the situation if eNom is shown as the Registrar

legaadmin - re: Can anyone advise me? Registered | 2007-02-28 19:30:49 thiebes wrote: My domain is registered at registerfly. Do I have any hope of getting my domain back, or should I just cut my losses and create a new domain? Please help. I have almost same thing, and that was not your fault, as RF had a 30 days grace period. That is RF's fault in your case. You, as all of us just have to wait. Go here: http://www.internic.net/whois.html and look for Domain Expiration Date. If Whois shows it's expired, you may just wait a months or two and register it again. If domain actually was renewed, but still not work (like in my case), then you need to wait until RF support personel will be able to help you. At this time they have no access to the system.

RunAway - OMG x 2 Registered | 2007-03-01 17:34:34 I'm posting this comment in two spots to try to get more input. Not exactly sure where it should go. I've just spoken with various alternative domain name companies and they're telling me that 1) ICANN has already pulled the plug on RegisterFly and that 2) any domain names that have not been transferred out within 15 days will essentially be lost in deep space and be available again on the open market. Does anyone have similar information? I still have almost 100 names stuck in RegisterFly so moving them all out in a matter of days (esp. with all the auth code problems RF causes) will be nearly impossible. Suggestions? Besides, "buy tissues and cry"??

Domainz - re: OMG x 2 Registered | 2007-03-02 21:44:26 RunAway wrote: ...any domain names that have not been transferred out within 15 days will essentially be lost in deep space and be available again on the open market... Apparently not true anymore. ICANN has a news release on 3/2. It discusses a Restraining Order (a lawsuit which will be filed on Tuesday, 3/6), and protecting domain names that are pending deletion. Appparently, ICANN is working with the major registries to protect our names. Very interesting: http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-02mar07.htm

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