Site down for 2 days

How we came to be at catalog.com

Before choosing a host and registrar for the domain I checked around some. The issue was to find something cheap, no frills but dependable.

After reading reviews of different hosts I found a review at C|Net, a source I normally trust. Their review of catalog.com was positively glowing - this was as good as it gets for free hosting with a domain. In reality we would pay $35 a year and get the hosting for free... forever.

Said and done, we registered and moved the stuff there. Not ideal as some of the relly big documents (trial transcript) couldn't be placed online due to space restrictions.

However the stability and speed was adequate, and has been for the whole two years we've had our site there. And to begin with we were pretty happy with the choice.

First misgivings

Lo and behold, less than six months after we parked our butts at catalog, they changed the conditions of the contract. I'm sure there was a disclaimer somewhere in it, but it is still not something you do just like that. The "free hosting" was still to be "free", but to use it you had to become a "hosting club member" and that at the "measly" fee of $24.99 annualy. The cost suddenly went up to sixty dollars a year.

Add to that the small but important fact that any extras came at $50 a pop - you want databases $50 thank you, you want a cgi-bin $50 thanks, you want asp/php another $50...

Frustration and irritation

So we dragged ourselves along using static pages and external services for BBS, mailing list, counter etceteras. It was somewhat of a pain as it limited the possibilities, but we could live with it.

Then in 2003 came the first shocking experience. One payment didn't go through as planned, but bounced. We tried to resupply the information fast as can, but to no avail - they took the site down before we could correct the problem. In fact it took about 24h before the site was put on hold. The payment went through shortly after that - what was frustrating was that it took twice as long to get back online.

We started to feel angry, it's not like we tried to shirk our responsibilities. We started talking about moving, but nothing came of it right then. We decided to wait out the term and at least get our moneys worth - silly us.

Moving ship

In Mars/April 2004 we took up the discussion of moving ship. I looked around once again, and this time we opted for a somewhat more expensive solution. Not that expensive as solutions go, but still a lot more capable than before - and far more value for our money as the total cost would be less than $100 annually and we would get more or less everything we could ever need.

To make the move we would switch host, as well as transfer the domain to another registrar, preferably in the UK to make possible, a more ordinary way, to pay our bills by invoice.

The switching of hosts went well. And while at it we switched to a dynamic solution - the one you see here.

The domain transfer went a bit slower. In part because I wanted Karen, who owns the domain, to make the contact - and her fluency in tech lingo isn't really on the level. However the registrar was kind enough to provide a personal contact that understood the issue... eventually *grin*.

So far so good, that is until they tried to initiate the transfer.

How to NOT transfer a domain

Before the transfer I had already asked catalog.com to change nameservers (the ones that point to your host) and also asked:

Second question: I'm going to need to move registrars to one that can bill me rather than charge by credit card. What do I/you need to do to make that possible? This will have to happen before the domain expires in June.

The answer to that second question was very short.... zero, zip, nada. This was in the last week of April.

But of course there WAS something

When we first registered all data neccessary was given to catalog.com, so reasonably they should have registered in our name. Blame my stupidity, but I assumed a company as old and big as catalog.com would use the reasonable approach.

We got an email the 19 of May from the new registrar:

Hi Karen
It appears this domain name isn't registered to you:

Registrant Name:Catalog.com
Registrant Organization:Catalog.com
Registrant Street1:14000 Quail Springs Parkway
Registrant Street2:Suite 2600
Registrant City:Oklahoma City
Registrant State/Province:OK
Registrant Postal Code:73134
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+888.9324376
Registrant Email: "This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it!"

The ownership of the domain lies entirely with catalog.com. I presume you bought the domain name off them ? Before you can go about doing anything with the name you need to get this rectified. I recommend you contact them about this. It must registered you Your name/ company / address etc...
Give me a call if you need furtehr explanation. 01582 572148

Kind Regards,
J****

Counting from 05/19/2004 to 06/02/2004 is 15 days, a number to remember...

We opened a support ticket at catalog.com 05/22/2004 requesting that they change the ownership data, that was done 05/24/2004 

I expressly stated once again that the change was crucial for transfering the domain ASAP. The note in the anwer to the request said nothing other than that the change had been made. The information went back to the new registrar.

On 06/02/2004 I got a mail notifying me that a catalog.com bill for the domain had bounced. Realizing that they were about to charge us for another year I opened yet another ticket...

I got this answer:

2004-06-03 09:29

The (ICANN) rules are that the current registrar must be paid if the domain is not completely transferred 14 days before domain renewal date, not our rules.

...snip...

Thank you,
Melva Crull
Customer Care Associate
Catalog.com, Inc.

A few hours later we went offline.

The day after 06/04/2004 we paid the bill to get online again.

They reactivated the domain 06/07/2004

Had the ownership of the domain been correct in the first place, this would never have been an issue - the new registrar was about to take over but couldn't.

So what will this lead to?

Tranfers can't happen while the domain is on hold, so of course we're back to square one. But we have decided that losing money or no, we will shortly go ahead with the transfer anyway. We want to get away from catalog.com once and for all, I don't need an ulcer everytime a bill is coming up - the sums are really ridiculous so I'd rather we buy ourselves free of that problem.

I will however never again use catalog.com for anything. Nor will I recommend catalog.com to anyone, rather the opposite.

In the end it seems to be far too expensive to have a "free" account.

I will also never again trust a company on the merits of longevity and third party reviews - have become a bit more paranoid and a bit less naive because of this story.

/Webmaster