
Network Solutions Auto-Enroll: $1,850 - zdw
http://inessential.com/2014/01/21/network_solutions_auto-enroll_1_850
======
brandon272
I have an account with Network Solutions that they will not let me cancel
without calling their sales team. I do not have an active credit card on file
with them nor do I have any domains or hosting services. They send me e-mails
every month trying to bill me for something that I haven't signed up for with
language indicating that I'm about to "lose" my services (that don't exist) if
I don't pay.

They're terrible.

It fascinates me because I wonder who the leadership team is and what the
company culture is like. Do they decide to be terrible by sitting around in
meetings brainstorming ways to screw their customers?

~~~
burke
If you send them an email demanding your account be canceled, CC companies
will usually let you use that to dispute further charges until your account is
actually canceled.

~~~
jdkuepper
Maybe if they get enough chargebacks at up to $100 a pop they'll stop trying
these things.

~~~
pedalpete
they'd have to get 18 chargebacks per successful charge in order for them to
stop. I'm sure this was a calculated risk.

------
eigenvector
Using your stored CC info to auto-bill you for an unrelated product that you
never consented to be billed for is quite likely in violation of their
merchant agreement with the CC processor.

~~~
eurleif
Isn't it straight-up fraud and/or theft?

~~~
meritt
In the event a customer is actually charged for said service, it absolutely
is. I have a feeling the attention they're about to garner will correct that
prior to ever occurring.

~~~
cookingrobot
Even if they don't succeed, it seems like an attempted theft.

~~~
rhizome
More like fraud.

~~~
waps
If it's really fraud, there's criminal liability. Meaning the person behind it
is responsible, as well as the firm.

------
mark212
This is a violation of federal law, specifically the Restore Online Shoppers
Confidence Act. Opt-out or negative option charges to credit cards are illegal
as of January 1, 2011. So is using a credit card number on file for one reason
(e.g., auto-renewal of annual registration) for a second product or service.

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/8401](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/8401)

Note that the law doesn't prohibit 30 day free trials, which is how a lot of
SaaS products are sold, so long as that's conspicuously displayed at the time
of the original sign-up.

~~~
tjmc
Only since 2011? This stunt's been illegal in Australia for as long as I can
remember.

------
georgemcbay
To customers of Network Solutions who are considering moving their domains off
the service:

When they (inevitably) recant on this policy, please continue your plans to
transfer out of their service, even though the phone calls required will make
it painful to do so.

This goes way beyond a situation in which the company (Network Solutions)
needs to learn a lesson about customer management and into the area where the
industry as a whole needs to learn a lesson about what happens to companies
that go this far off the deep end and the best way for that to happen is the
rapid death of Network Solutions.

------
beat
Network Solutions has _always_ had appalling business practices that verged on
the criminal. Some years ago, they poached a domain my wife had registered
with another vendor, by sending her a misleading renewal letter. That
particular event ultimately wound up with them at the receiving end of a class
action suit.

I absolutely refuse to ever register another domain with them. Their business
practices are about as evil as I've ever seen from such a mainstream company.

~~~
Caligula
I prefer their other method of registering domains that you checked for
whether or not they were available. They would then charge a premium to get
that domain.

~~~
dlubarov
FMI -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running)

~~~
audiodude
Any information more recent than 2008?

~~~
eli
I don't think it happens any more. ICANN added a nonrefundable registration
fee and "domain tasting" stopped being such a pervasive problem. This either
solved what Net Sol was trying to protect users from, or removed the
justification they were using (depending on how cynical you are).

Not sure I would ever recommend testing domain names on NetSol's WHOIS server
though.

------
gphilip
OP says he will be transferring his domains elsewhere. Seems like he is in for
more suffering before that happens [1]:

A Phone Call is REQUIRED for Domain Transfers from Network Solution to Other
Registrars

.. Transferring a Domain from Network Solutions to another provider requires
the Primary Account Contact to make a phone call to Network Solutions
technical support (average time 10 to 30 minutes).

.. Use of the Network Solutions website procedure to obtain a Transfer Code,
by the Account Primary Contact, requires a minimum 3 days wait.

(EDIT: Formatting)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions#Network_Solut...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions#Network_Solutions_Standard_Customer_Service_Policies_and_Practices_Confirmed_as_of_October_1.2C_2013)

~~~
wysguy
This was not the case for me. I recently transferred a domain from Network
Solutions to Hover for reasons similar to the OP.

These instructions worked for me:
[https://help.hover.com/entries/21240798-How-to-Transfer-a-
do...](https://help.hover.com/entries/21240798-How-to-Transfer-a-domain-from-
Network-Solutions)

This requires patience; it took 2 days to receive my transfer code from
Network Solutions but I did not need to make any phone calls.

------
mariusz79
Disclaimer - I hate NetSol with passion.

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the following excerpts imply that you need
to opt-in first?

"In addition WebLock enrolled customers will have access to a 24/7 NOC and
rapid response team in the event of any security issues."

"We strongly encourage you to take advantage of this security program and
register Certified Users before the program launch date. Thank you for helping
us protect you better."

"To establish Certified Users and pre-register authorized phone numbers and
email addresses please call 1-888-642-0265 Monday to Friday between 8:00AM and
5:00PM EST."

"Replying to this email will not secure your services. Please click here to
unsubscribe. Please note that unsubscribing from our marketing emails will not
affect important transactional correspondence such as administrative and
renewal notices related to your account"

Key words here are - "established", "enrolled", "encourage","marketing
email","not secure your service".

To me it just looks like this is just a sales letter that makes you think like
you have no choice...

Edit: added even more proof that most people have trouble understanding what
they are reading.

~~~
Lazare
I'm pretty sure it's you that's misunderstanding the letter, actually.

"Starting 9:00 AM EST on 2/4/2014 all of your domains will be protected via
our WebLock Program. In order to make changes to your Domain Name's
configuration settings you must be pre-registered as a Certified User. [...]
To establish Certified Users and pre-register authorized phone numbers and
email addresses please call 1-888-642-0265 Monday to Friday between 8:00AM and
5:00PM EST. Please make sure to establish Certified Users with authorized
phone numbers and email addresses before launch date. To establish Certified
Users and pre-register authorized phone numbers and email addresses please
call 1-888-642-0265 Monday to Friday between 8:00AM and 5:00PM EST. Please
make sure to establish Certified Users with authorized phone numbers and email
addresses before launch date. [...] To help recapture the costs of maintaining
this extra level of security for your account, your credit card will be billed
$1,850 for the first year of service on the date your program goes live. After
that you will be billed $1,350 on every subsequent year from that date. If you
wish to opt out of this program you may do so by calling us at
1-888-642-0265."

That makes it very clear. As of 2/4/2014 his domains WILL be protected, any
changes will require him to be registed as a Certified User, that will require
a call, and he better make sure to register as a Certified User before the
launch date (which is given; 2/4/2014). And after this launch date he will be
billed $1,850, and he has to call in order to opt out of the program. There is
no ambiguity in any of this. He WILL be protected, he WILL need to be a
certified user, they WILL charge his card, and he WILL need to opt out if he
chooses.

The only ambiguous phrase is this, right at the end:

"We strongly encourage you to take advantage of this security program and
register Certified Users before the program launch date. "

Now, you could interpret that to mean "if you don't register Certified Users
you will not be protected". But you could also interpret that to mean "if you
don't register Certified Users you'll be fucked, because your domain will be
protected anyhow but you can't make changes". So it's ambigious. But the
proceeding paragraphs explicitly state that you will be protected anyhow but
can't make changes, so I think that, in contet, it clearly means that the
program is opt-out, not opt-in.

More charitably, it's possible NetSol managed to copy-paste a few paragraphs
from the "thanks for opting in, your protections start {{ date }}" email into
their "have you considered opting in, it's awesome" email; the general
rambling and incoherent nature of the email would certainly support this. But
while we can guess as to what insanity led them to send the email, and if they
actually meant it, I maintain that the plain meaning of the email is jut what
it said: That protection WILL start on 2/4/2014, unless he calls to stop it.

~~~
mariusz79
I would generally agree with your assessment of the situation, but the fact
that the company decided to opt-in AND bill the customer $1850, does not make
sense.

and this "WebLock enrolled customers" sentence makes it clear that only
enrolled customers will have this service, so although it seems like you have
no choice, I'm betting my virtually nonexistent reputation on the opposite. I
guess the time will tell.

~~~
Guvante
Everyone is saying that you can opt-out, which makes you a non-Weblock
enrolled customer. That is not in question.

The problem is the opt-out bit, that you are by default enrolled in at a cost
of $2k a year.

~~~
corbin
"Starting 9:00 AM EST on 2/4/2014 all of your domains will be protected via
our WebLock Program"

They are only saying you will be protected via their WebLock Program, not
enrolled in their service. But they are deliberately ambiguous to make it
sound like they are the same thing.

"To establish Certified Users and pre-register authorized phone numbers and
email addresses please call 1-888-642-0265 "

"If you wish to opt out of this program you may do so by calling us at
1-888-642-0265"

"Give the security team a call and they can explain 1-888-642-0265"

They are pushing hard for you to call them, that is where they will attempt to
get you signed up for this "service"

~~~
Guvante
> But they are deliberately ambiguous to make it sound like they are the same
> thing.

Ambiguity is the problem here. They may be enrolling you, they may not, they
could argue either way.

If a company can say "that letter was your warning" then I will take it as a
warning, whether they meant it to be one or not.

------
georgemcbay
Didn't see this tweet earlier, seems to be Netsol's primary public response:

[https://twitter.com/netsolcares/status/425751251369095168](https://twitter.com/netsolcares/status/425751251369095168)

"We are working to get you opted out."

Holy shit, what a crazy response. "Working" to get him opted out? Like they
are doing him some kind of a favor and putting in effort above and beyond just
not defrauding him in the first place?

~~~
brandon272
This echoes the response I've received from them when trying to just cancel my
account in general. I e-mailed them months ago asking to have my account
cancelled. I was told:

> Please be advised that your account through Network Solutions will not be
> cancelled or deleted for historical purposes. However, if the system
> determines the inactivity of the account, your Network Solutions account
> will be deleted automatically.

Long story short, my account was never cancelled. I called them by phone
yesterday to attempt to cancel again. The rep told me that he would have to
"escalate" the issue to someone else, but then told me my account had been
cancelled. However, I am still able to log into the account today so I'm
guessing it hasn't been cancelled at all.

------
roozbeh18
Network Solutions has been doing other unethical things for years. I used to
search for available domains using Network Solutions to only find that the
domain instantly had become inaccessible to purchase. I later found out they
were buying the domain people were searching for , for a period of 5 days so
that you wont be able to purchase it from anyone else. very shady

~~~
rhizome
It was called front-running, and they still do it:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions#Controversy_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions#Controversy_over_domain_name_front_running)

~~~
YokoZar
So why doesn't someone just programatically search for a bunch of garbage
domains from them?

~~~
prawn
As a registrar, someone's suggested they can put domains on hold at no cost.
Not sure if domain tasting is still a thing too.

------
tehwebguy
This is almost as bad as ResellerRatings.com

We signed up for something like $15 per month, a year later they upped it to
$50 a month and we didn't notice. Still later upped it to $1500 per month and
charged several grand before we noticed.

As soon as we realize the prices gone up we reached out, The rep on the phone
instructed us to email the CEO to see if he could do anything. He replied with
a straight face claiming that we had been notified (as this notifying us is
enough, we should have to confirm).

Turns out the price increase had been buried three pages deep in a five-page
mailer. We got a partial refund but not before threatening to chargeback.

The best strategy here is to publicize it and then issue a chargeback anyway,
the only reason that we pushed was that some of the charges were too old to
actually charge back.

------
Pitarou
357 words before they get round to saying "your credit card will be billed
$1,850". Unacceptable.

This would be more honest:

\---

Dear valued customer,

blah, blah, blah, blah, have you fallen asleep yet? We're going to charge you
$1,850. You will not notice this charge on your credit bill. You will not
request a chargeback. You will wake up when I snap my fingers in 3 ... 2 ... 1
... and you're awake.

kthxbye

------
sytelus
Simple Question: Can't you just call your credit card company and ask them to
void all of these charges?

My assumption is that credit card companies are obligated to take off any
charge you deem is unfair. It is _their_ responsibility to find a proof that
charge was with your explicit agreement. This is why they get to keep 1-4% of
each transaction in first place. Doing this also had side advantage that
merchant ruins reputation and loose their ability to charge like this in
future.

Wouldn't this be the least hassle way? Just 5 minutes on call and charges are
poof! gone.

------
firebones
My first thought: why this whole notion of having to call in to cancel reeks
of AOL in the bad old days. So I Google "aol 'network solutions' executives"
and find:

[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Network+Solutions+and+America+...](http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Network+Solutions+and+America+Online+Announce+Multi-
year,...-a061929194)

Relevant part:

>>Network Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: NSOL), the world's leading registrar of
domain names with more than 10 million registrations, and America Online, Inc.
(NYSE: AOL), the world's leading interactive services company, today announced
a multi-year, multi-million dollar strategic marketing alliance to offer
Network Solutions' (NSI) domain name registration and value-added services
globally across America Online, Inc. brands, making it easier and more
convenient than ever for businesses and consumers to create an online
presence.

Interestingly, I ran across what I thought was a great anecdote about Jim
Rutt, CEO of Network Solutions in a Barron's article this week:

[http://online.barrons.com/article/SB500014240531119046810045...](http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904681004579326532181934464.html?mod=googlenews_barrons)

>>The second inspiration for this memo came from a report entitled Alpha and
the Paradox of Skill by Michael Mauboussin of Credit Suisse. In it he talks
about Jim Rutt, the CEO of Network Solutions. As a young man, Rutt wanted to
become a better poker player, and to that end he worked hard to learn the odds
regarding each hand and how to detect "tells" in other players that give away
their position. Here's the part that attracted my attention: At that point, an
uncle pulled him aside and doled out some advice. "Jim, I wouldn't spend my
time getting better," he advised, "I'd spend my time finding weak games."

Seems like he found a weak game with auto-rebilling.

------
busterarm
Clearly from this thread I'm not the only one who deliberately chose to forget
this company's existence over ten years ago.

Talk about blast from the past. I remember having conversations about how
awful NetSol was on /. in 1998-99.

~~~
latj
I was thinking this exact thing. I didnt even realize they were still in
business. Although they sound more like a Jesse Willms scam now than a real
business.

------
chewxy
I'm so glad I cancelled my Network Solutions account 2 months ago. I
discovered they were still charging me for a domain I no longer was interested
in. Unlike most other domain name registrars, they actually auto opt-in for
automatic renewal.

Pissed me off to no end. To cancel, I had to :

1) Find out that you cannot delete your domains or let them lapse. Gotta call
them.

2) Call them. They will tell you to send an email instead

3) Email them at deletions@networksolutions.com.

4) Get a confirmation email, which you have to call in to verify.

I ended up cancelling my account after 4 phone calls.

------
zedpm
$1850/year for the privilege of having extra hoops to jump through and extra
lag introduced into the process of updating DNS? Where do I sign up?

Seriously, there is potential value in having extra security steps surrounding
DNS changes, since that is a known attack vector. It's not clear that this is
a particularly good way to provide said service, and the cost is prohibitively
high for most customers.

~~~
m0zzie
> _Where do I sign up?_

We've already signed you up! Please find the attached invoice.

~~~
a3n
We've already signed you up, and it's been sent to collection as a convenience
to you.

------
Andrenid
This seems too ludicrous to be true. Is this something they expect ALL
customers to pay? Even my dad who has 1 domain with them since the late 90s?

I'll be transferring all my domains (only a couple, most are with Namecheap
these days) + any domains my family/friends have with NS out today.

------
philsnow
They are giving out 9-digit unique PINs required for making changes to
accounts, rather than using (H|T)OTP ?

What, _exactly_ , is that $1350 / year supposed to pay for ?

~~~
cheeseprocedure
My guess is the same legal team that OK'ed this.

------
llamataboot
Has to be other HN readers who have gotten similar emails if this is true (I
know their twitter support person confirmed it is real, but the price seems
completely outrageous to be true). Looking forward to the first person with
200 domains registered there to write here that they got auto-enrolled for a
cool 100k a year?

------
NoPiece
This is my nightmare story with Network Solutions. We were running our
business on a domain with Register.com back in ~2002. Network Solutions sent a
"bill" for renewal, which our office manager paid without telling anyone. That
triggered a transfer from register.com to Network Solutions, blasting all our
DNS entries along the way. I was at E3 in Los Angeles and got the call that
the site was down, and no email was coming in. I remember sitting on the floor
of the convention center trying to troubleshoot over the phone what
happened... I'm still angry at Network Solutions for engaging in something
awfully close to a phishing scam.

~~~
oakaz
Can't you sue them ?

~~~
dangrossman
For what happened in 2002? The statute of limitations on that's probably
expired. Fortunately, they were sued by the FTC back in 2003, which put a stop
to that practice. [http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2003/09/networ...](http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2003/09/network-solutions-settles-ftc-charges)

------
arbuge
On a smaller scale, I just noted that my 1&1 shared hosting account bill went
from $8.99 monthly one year ago to $17.99, after a bunch of questionable
security features were tacked on. Only way to opt out was by phone.

~~~
robflynn
I have had nothing but trouble with 1&1, as well. (I don't use them
personally, but I have some clients that used them previously.) What a pain
trying to get anything done.

------
jonknee
Isn't it their job to not illegitimately allow changes to your domains in the
first place?

~~~
toast0
Yeah, but they're not very good at it, so they want to charge $1,350/year plus
an extra $500 per year for the first year for the privilege of getting them to
do their job.

(see this for an example of them not being good at their job:
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2053380/network-solutions-
inv...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2053380/network-solutions-
investigating-dns-hijack.html) )

------
delinka
Is Network Solutions _trying_ to lose customers? How could auto-opt-in to a
program costing that much be a good idea? Does _anyone_ have a reasonable
explanation from Network Solutions about this?

------
Suncho
Ugh. Network Solutions is terrible. In 2003, I registered my domain for 100
years at $9.99 per year for a total of $999. Then ten years later (2013), I
received a notice that they were having a problem charging my credit card for
the domain name renewal? Apparently, it went into their system as a ten year
registration.

I've been on the phone with them periodically for about a year now trying to
resolve this, and in the mean-time I've paid for two additional one-year
registrations. It was basically a miracle that I was able to track down the
credit card number I used back in 2003. I had to fax them various documents as
evidence and now they're supposedly doing an investigation, but I haven't
heard from them in a while.

I really should follow up again. I hope I can get a refund for the remaining
90 years and switch registrars. In the end, I might just let Network Solutions
keep my $900+ and switch away from them for the peace of mind.

~~~
duskwuff
Domain registrations have always been limited to 10 years. If NetSol ever
claimed to be offering a 100-year registration, they were either wrong or
being misleading.

~~~
Suncho
They said they'd automatically renew it on their end. It was marketed to me as
a service that I'd only have to pay for once and never have to worry about for
the rest of my life. Obviously, the opposite has been true. =/

------
deepsun
Here I collected prices for domains (only what I'm interested in). If you did
that too, I'd be glad to see your spreadsheet.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amel5Zz4w7aLdFl...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amel5Zz4w7aLdFl1cWtvRjRtb1V3NjdBWUdRdFRhdUE)

~~~
10feet
Look at [http://www.crazydomains.co.uk/](http://www.crazydomains.co.uk/), they
only charge £2.67 per domain name, the cheapest I have seen.

~~~
adders
have you used them? looks suspect.

~~~
10feet
Used them for years. They are great!

~~~
pbhjpbhj
How many years - the domain appears to have only been developed in 2012?

FWIW they also appear to be breaking European law by not displaying their
trading/registered offices address on their website.

Crazydomains.co.uk seems to be a non-registered trading name (ie it's not
lodged with Companies House) for DreamScape Networks FZ-LLC. That company is
apparently based in UAE?

[http://www.auda.org.au/news/breach-of-registrar-agreement-
by...](http://www.auda.org.au/news/breach-of-registrar-agreement-by-crazy-
domains/) :

>"auDA has found that accredited registrar Crazy Domains Pty Ltd has breached
its obligations under the Registrar Agreement to comply with the .au Domain
Name Suppliers’ Code of Practice and all applicable laws."

UK branch may be no better ...

[http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Crazy-
Domains/internet/Crazy-D...](http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Crazy-
Domains/internet/Crazy-Domains-Took-money-for-a-domain-didnt-authroise-domain-
and-did-not-refund-money-o-1069929)

 _Caveat emptor_.

------
jasey
I can confirm that network solutions engages in this type of disgusting
behaviour with my own experience.

I have one domain with them which I bought through a private buyer. They had
it with NS so I just stayed with them instead of transferring to another
domain registrar.

Yesterday I got a email about renewal which was nice and genuine. However
throughout the whole renewal checkout process they added up-sell services by
default. Also they defaulted to 5 years renewable.

Finally their domains are $40 / year which is about 4x more expensive than
other providers.

By the end of the process I had been through like 4-6 "upsell" screens and had
to opt out of about 2-3 things I didn't want like private registration and
brand protect (registers all the useless tld's for your brand).

By the end of it I vowed never to do business with them again. Im already
being robbed at $40 / year

------
yummyfajitas
Helpful tip - your CC provider probably lets you generate single-use credit
card numbers. BankAm calls this service ShopSafe, but it is very likely your
bank provides something similar. Use it.

For example, say I want to buy something for $10. I create a new CC number
with a spending limit of $11 that expires in 2 months. Auto-renew, overcharge,
try whatever you want. You got hacked and my CC # got stolen? Hacker can spend
at most $1. You can also create CC #s with monthly spending limits (e.g.,
$cost_of_service+$1).

Canceling these single-use CC #s is easy (no phone call - it's one click
online) and because they are single use, you only affect a single merchant.

------
michaelhoffman
How many domains are we talking about? It's one thing if it's $1,850 for one,
another if it's 100 domains at $18.50 each. Not that I'm defending Network
Solutions' horrible business practices here.

~~~
llamataboot
First sentence of the article:

I got an email from Network Solutions — where I still have two domains,
originally registered in the ’90s

~~~
michaelhoffman
Wow. That's insane.

~~~
hamburglar
That someone has been a Network Solutions customer for 14 years (minimum)?
Yes, that is insane. :)

~~~
Vivtek
My hand's up. In 1996 there was of course no choice, and after that I just
never had real cause to switch. Eventually I probably will. All new domains,
of course, go through Joker. I like their hapless Deuglish.

------
xer0x
Network Solutions has been doing other unethical things for years. This is a
pretty huge one, but I'm surprised you haven't run elsewhere years ago!

------
jaebrown
I saw this and had to read. I feel obligated to post after reading some of the
comments. I've never dealt with Network Solutions until I arrived at my
current employer, fall of last year. I've to say, that they're by far the
worst in the industry. I've dealt with many registrars and I use to think
GoDaddy was the worst until I came across these guys. They nickel and dime you
for everything. It cost just to redirect a domain via their c-panel.
Transferring domains is a pain, along with just about everything else. You'll
definitely be talking to a sales guy when you call support and he'll escalate
the issue because he has no idea what he's doing. The real support guy will
also try to sell you. I work for a company that owns a lot of domains (in the
100s) and have found my experience with Network Solutions to be horrible.
Lucky for me, we only have 30 something domains with them and I've been
waiting until this year got here (new budget begins) before I paid the fee to
transfer them all over to the registrar that manages majority of our domains.

------
llamataboot
Here is the first update I've seen from the company (rather than just tweets
from a CS person). Looks like the program is not targeting all users, but the
top 1% of their traffic.

[http://domainnamewire.com/2014/01/21/network-solutions-
auto-...](http://domainnamewire.com/2014/01/21/network-solutions-auto-enrolls-
customer-into-1850-weblock-service/)

------
poopsintub
Something similar happened to me at one of the domain registrar sites. I can't
remember, but I believe it was register.com or namecheap? I unlock a domain at
the last minute to request a transfer. Of course they offered a lower price to
renew it with them. The next time I logged in, I couldn't unlock the other two
domains without talking to support.

------
beedogs
I left NetSol almost a decade ago. Their ludicrous pricing was bad enough, but
this is basically a scam they're running now.

------
sifarat
is't it the registrar we are talking about, who would register a domain name
himself, if you search it using their website. Only to find, you would have no
choice for 5 days except to register it with them or wait for 5 days to
register with someone else. 'douchebag' is seemingly an innocent word for this
kind of business.

>Back in December, the domain registration and hosting company tested a new
system that would automatically register any domains searched for by users of
its site. That system went live last weekend, meaning users doing a search
found the domain they wanted became unavailable and held by Network Solutions
shortly afterwards.

link: [http://www.geek.com/news/controversy-surrounds-network-
solut...](http://www.geek.com/news/controversy-surrounds-network-solutions-
automatic-domain-registration-572245/)

------
andrew2984
Network Solutions now says they will not automatically enroll anyone into the
program. It will be opt-in only:

[http://domainnamewire.com/2014/01/22/web-com-weblock-
program...](http://domainnamewire.com/2014/01/22/web-com-weblock-program-will-
be-opt-in-not-opt-out/)

~~~
larrys
Hacker news discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7105830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7105830)

------
johnjlocke
Isn't Network Solutions the company that got caught buying up domains that
users would search for, if they didn't buy them immediately? Thereby forcing
users to backorder domains at an increased cost? This post does not surprise
me. GoDaddy isn't close to this bad.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I thought it was GoDaddy that was caught doing that.

~~~
blueskin_
I thought they both were, maybe at different times.

GoDaddy certainly purchase their customers' domains when they expire though,
then sell them back at a huge markup.

------
Nitramp
Here's something I just don't understand about this:

How could anybody ever just "opt out" charge you money for anything? Charging
somebody requires a contract between the two parties. That doesn't need to be
written or signed, but there must be an agreement between the two parties of
some sorts, verbal or whatever. If not, I could just spam the world saying "I
herewith unlock you for Foo Service at $5000 per month, opt out by travelling
to the North Pole and doing a waltz around it". Surely, that must be illegal
in US law, too?

How do these people not end up in jail? Or at least sued to death by some
consumer organization?

------
thupten
I think I don't have an account with them. But after reading this news, I
wanted to make sure I don't have any inactive account with network solutions.
So I went to their website and did a forgot userid/password and entered my
email address. It appears my email is on their system because it says they
have sent an email with my user id.

Its been about 15 minutes and I have not received any email from them. I have
checked inbox, spam box..not its not here. I hope they did not activate an
inactive account I may have with them or worse I hope they did not create an
account I never had in the first place.

------
benmorris
Working with a new client this year and I've been coordinating with the old
developer migrating their hosting to my hardware. Long story short the client
wanted to move registrars also. Moving from Network Solutions required a phone
call from the client to Network Solutions. They proceeded to confuse my client
by explaining they really didn't need to transfer the name out, just request
the new name servers from me. They also tried to up sell a garbage SEO
package. I've never used Network Solutions, but the way they operate is
ridiculous.

------
brianzelip
I've begun taking over volunteer webmaster duties for a non-profit beekeeping
association (made up of non-technical >= middle-aged folks) with domain reg
and hosting through network solutions. I spent an hour on the phone with NS
getting to the bottom of some things and got pretty appalled fairly quick. If
the org hadn't renewed their setup with NS a month prior to my stepping in, I
would have canceled everything on the spot. In addition to a couple other
points, they charge double what godaddy charges for a .us domain. (~$40 vs.
~$20).

------
PhantomGremlin
To add to the chorus of "use this other registrar" posts, I'd like to add one
thing: _read_ the terms and conditions you are agreeing to.

I did that quite a number of years ago and wound up choosing to use Melbourne
IT, aka inww.com for my domains. They were one of the few that didn't have
Ts&Cs which they reserved the right to unilaterally change at will. Of course,
I've been too lazy to read their current Ts&Cs so maybe their current terms
are even worse than NetSol (but that doesn't seem possible, does it?).

------
gcb0
lol. They are the new AOL.

scaring old people with threats into paying recurring premiums for absolutely
nothing besides their own corporate incompetence.

Also, kids, this is why you change your credit card info every year, at least.

------
bane
This is so egregious and outrageous, why isn't this story a top result when
one searches for "network solutions" in google or google news? Let's not let
this die here in HN.

------
ceejayoz
I find it fascinating that the first year is _more_ expensive. You'd think
they'd want to do the whole "first year is cheap!" trick to catch people on
the renewal.

------
blantonl
I think I have over 150 domains with Network Solutions and I stay with them
only out of convenience.

But each time I register a new domain name, I swear I am about to sign up for
a bunch of crap that I don't need - their registration workflow is fraught
with pitfalls and if you simply want to reserve a domain you must navigate a
minefield to complete the transaction.

Is there a domain registrar out there that simply focuses on domain
registration? If so, I'd love to hear about alternatives...

~~~
Tepix
I've been using INWX ([https://www.inwx.de/en](https://www.inwx.de/en) ) for
several years now. They don't get on my nerves at all and they are still
helpful and knowledgeable. And most of their prices are pretty good.

------
emacdona
It's been almost a day since this was posted, but I still haven't heard of any
other customers having had the same experience.

Is there anyone else out there to whom this has happened? I'm having a hard
time finding a colleague that is a NetSol customer -- so I have no one to ask.
Can someone confirm that this isn't the only case of this happening?

I'm no fan of NetSol, but this seems ridiculous beyond belief. I just want to
know if there is more to the story.

------
elwell
I was really pleased with the instantaneous load of this blog.

------
MichaelTieso
I HATE that they require you to call to transfer your domain. Every client I
ever come across that still has Network Solutions I immediately transfer them
out.

------
aquadrop
I had only troubles with network solutions. I curse the day I decided to use
them. I don't understand how they still got reputation of a solid registrar.

------
pseingatl
Remember that in order to get a chargeback you have to tell your credit card
company that you specifically want a chargeback. Do not tell them that you are
disputing the charge. If you do not use the term "chargeback" they will merely
contact the vendor who will then advise that the charge is valid. Under
Visa/MC rules, if you ask for a chargeback using that language they have to
give it to you.

------
bjitty
I'm glad to see he's transferring to hover.com. I moved my domains there a
little over a year ago and couldn't be happier. I didn't have issues with NS
but had a lot of issues with Register.com doing shady things like this.

Hover.com is about first domain registrar I've used that didn't feel shady as
far as milking every last dollar they could out of me. Trying to up sell, etc.

~~~
llamataboot
namecheap is also great IMHO

~~~
joshkehn
gandi.net is great

~~~
rom16384
Seconded. They are a bit more expensive, but to me it's worth it. On the
negative side their control panel is subpar, but there are tutorials to side-
step that.

------
jypepin
If it's only for domain name, I would definitely recommend iwantmyname.com.
It's a small team and their service is really great.

Just my 2cents!

------
10feet
I really do not trust hosting or domain register companies, which is why I use
paypal to pay them. But recently, they have been able to setup an automatic
recurring payment when I do this (9web). There is no option when I entered
paypal, but to paypal's credit they did send me an email, and it was easy to
log back into paypal and stop this.

~~~
goatse
Use your credit card directly, my experience is that disputing with paypal for
non-physical goods or services is almost impossible for the buyer. Despite
paypal's marketing, they offer virtually no protection for purchase of virtual
items or services eg software.

------
CodeWriter23
Netsol recently caused me a bit of a problem, they auto-renewed my domains for
me. THREE MONTHS before they were set to expire. I decided to move my domains
after that.

If you look at their site "Network Solutions is now a web.com company". Seems
like the new owners are digging deep into Netsol's bowels to get that extra
golden egg.

------
gr2020
Ya know what else is funny about these guys...go to their home page
([https://www.networksolutions.com/index-v2.jsp](https://www.networksolutions.com/index-v2.jsp))
and tell us how much a .com domain registration costs, without creating an
account or signing in.

~~~
spartas
Easy, add a domain to your cart. When prompted to create an account or sign
in, click on the little "Cart" icon at the top right.

$34.99 / 1yr … $999.00 / 100yr

edit: If NetSol still does domain name front running, they may now be the
proud owners of correct-horse-battery-staple.com

~~~
jrs235
100 years? I thought the max ICANN allowed was like 10 or 12. If you sign up
for 100 years its going to be 100 years strictly through NetSol auto renewing.
Ugh. Stuck with NetSol! Then after they pull the crap they did to OP and you
decide you want to transfer you'd lose all those "years" you bought.

------
ChrisNorstrom
Oh them, I searched for PolyFocus.com and another domain using Network
Solutions and they registered both the next day and auctioned them off to the
highest bidder. They are nasty. I've heard some registrars do that. They check
the search logs for anything good and grab domains up.

------
shravvmehtaa
The same thing happened to me. I keep getting charged $15 for customer support
I am not ordering, and I can't get it cancelled. After spending over 10 hours
on the phone with customer service none of them have the ability to refund
orders... Never use them.

~~~
rotten
Have you tried complaining to your credit card company? I would think if
enough people complain, the credit card company might cut them off.

------
Cowicide
I've always considered Network Solutions to be the worst of the worst in many
ways. Just trying to get a lot of their pricing off their website is a run
down the rabbit hole. Even crapster Godaddy is more upfront about pricing than
they are.

------
mmgutz
I've never had any issues with GoDaddy for domains. There are always coupons
for renewals. I've never paid more than $7/yr for each of the twenty or so
domains I have.

Just make sure you don't have domains autorenewing.

~~~
dlubarov
But it's a pain to have to dig for the latest coupon codes every time you want
to renew a domain for a reasonable price.

~~~
dclara
They will send you coupon on the renew notifications. Last year was 30% off,
this year is 20% off, mostly on new products.

------
thrush
I think it would excellent if there existed a blacklist of companies that do
this. This is clearly not an isolated incident (think freecreditreport.com).
All we would need are the following columns:

offender || evidence || amount || date

------
oliversong
I just moved away from Network Solutions. Their scumbag business practices
just keep getting worse. "Auto renewing" your domains and forcing you to call
in to turn off auto-renew was bad enough.

------
crusso
I love easydns.com. Not a big player AFAIK, but professional and very
responsive.

I wouldn't consider registering a domain with NetSol and wouldn't hesitate to
remove any domains they house from them.

------
dpcan
Is anyone else afraid to check their ancient Network Solutions account to see
if they have outstanding bills for thousands of dollars worth of crap they
never purchased or agreed to purchase?

------
bhartzer
Domain Name Wire found out about this program, directly from Web.com.
Essentially, if your domains are within the top 1% of traffic at Web.com, the
company is going to opt you into WebLock.

~~~
watershawl
Yeah, that's what I don't think people are realizing here. This isn't an issue
of Network Solutions culture, but a result of Web.com purchasing them
recently. It's Web.com culture.

------
bebop
A different situation, but I was just charged almost $40 dollars for a renewal
that I never authorized. Network Solutions is about to loose my business. As
small a sum as that may be.

------
drdeadringer
I'm glad that the worst hosting company I got in bed with was Yahoo. Maybe I'm
lucky, but sometimes a little research with a little experience does a stress-
level good.

------
blueskin_
Why does anyone still use Network Solutions? I think that by now, I've
probably heard as many horror stories about them as GoDaddy, if not slightly
more.

------
kiallmacinnes
This has got to be a hack? or something. No company could possibly this
charging this sort of money "opt out" is even remotely acceptable.

------
rosslazer
Hopefully other people that get this email will google it and see this post.
I'm sure many non-technical people fall for this sort of thing.

------
dschiptsov
Seems like famous "Darklord of the Internet " article got wide adoption.

Being "successful" scammer is now considered a vertue.

------
protez
Unbelievably sustainable business practice. It's amazing that they've been
doing that decades after decades.

------
verytrivial
And this gem from the foot of the email:

"Please note that unsubscribing from our marketing emails will not affect
important transactional correspondence such as administrative and renewal
notices related to your account."

i.e. Anyone whom DIDN'T get this email because they have previously
unsubscribed are still going to be stealth-charged? Are Network Solutions
TRYING to put themselves out of business?

~~~
sokoloff
Far from defending NetSol here, but that's not what that means. It means that
if you unsub from marketing emails, they are still able to send you
transactional emails (emails relating to order confirms, existing business,
technical support. Etc).

It's actually what you WANT as a consumer because otherwise it would be too
risky to unsub from a vendor. It's also part of CAN-SPAM (not defending that
either).

------
spullara
This finally convinced me to move the last 5 domains I had hosted there out.

------
puppetmaster3
How hard is it for anyone to file a small claims? Not hard I think.

------
rrich
Wow! Definitely time to get out of there.

------
cranklin
People still use network solutions? lol j/k

------
tapmap
cheeky fuckers

