This started as as an article about RegisterFly which was rebranded as RegFly and later closed, in the process costing me $320. Now it’s a warning, do NOT keep a large balance in the account of a domain name registration company, because if they go under, you lose your money!
RegisterFly has been re branded as RegFly, from my research it’s the same people “Kevin Medina”, that was behind RegisterFly and when you go to registerfly.com your redirected to regfly.com.
Log in to RegFly with the same user name and password you had for RegisterFly and you get to see a list of domains that got transferred to Godaddy and eNom.
Until a week ago when I logged in to RegFly I had a $320 balance that I had left over from my RegisterFly account.
RegFly = RegisterFly
So RegFly = RegisterFly, there is no doubt that this is the same company.
Like I mentioned above, a week ago RegFly had $320 of my money I’ve been trying to recover for months. In June 2008 I threatened to ruin their RegFly relevant SERPS through SEO means (I’m a very good SEO consultant, so it’s not an idle threat) giving them a deadline to refund my $320 by the evening of Monday June 16th or I’ll start my negative SEO campaign against the RegFly SERPs. Tried to log in to my RegFly account to read the support ticket response and the account has been suspended.
Sent an email to risk@regfly.com but it bounced, tried other addresses, but I’ve had enough, it’s time to destroy their RegFly SERPs.
Original RegisterFly/RegFly Article
Registerfly (now called RegFly) was the first domain names registration company I used for cheap domain names beyond the sort of service where you pay a hosting company to host/register your domain (they do everything).
Registerfly domain registration was cheap, had a very good interface/set of domain registration tools and was reasonably easy to use and so before the problems that resulted in ICANN Termination of RegisterFly.com (now RegFly.com) Registrar Accreditation Agreement in March 2007 I’d purchased over 70 domains with them and had used my credit card on many occasions to add funds to my Registerfly domain registration account so my domains would be renewed for a year or two without having to make manual credit card payments (figured I’d be with Registerfly for years).
I’d not kept track of Registerfly/RegFly as a domain name registration company (I have no interest past buying cheap domain names from them, when it comes to domain registration companies) and so had no idea they were having problems until they affected my domains.
First problems that hit me was with .co.uk domains (which happened to be my most important sites) wasn’t being renewed quickly by Registerfly and in one case one .co.uk domain was almost transferred to someone else by mistake!!
Because of this some of my sites had several days downtime which cost me revenue and Google SERPs! I also had the wrong registration info on many of my sites whois info which caused problems with Nominet (had a domain suspended for a week or so for having the wrong info!).
Registerfly ICANN Termination of Registrar Accreditation Agreement
To cut a long story short :-) after Registerfly/RegFly lost registrar accreditation about half the domains got transferred to Godaddy and the rest to eNom. I’d been using Godaddy for a while as well since I buy domains from their domain auctions and so had no problem with the domains that went to Godaddy.
The eNom ones however I wasn’t happy about, eNom registration company charges way too much for renewals and so I set out to transfer all domains to Godaddy and 123-reg.co.uk since Godaddy doesn’t deal with .co.uk domains!
You can read about my eNom problems at eNom review.
RegFly Review
For some reason this left two domains (.co.uk ones) with Registerfly/RegFly, one fortunately still worked, (could access the site via a browser and my site was visible) but one didn’t work (nothing online). I had to pay through Nominet to get them transferred from Registerfly since their support staff at the time either ignored tickets (closing them without responding) or didn’t answer the actual questions/problems.
After weeks I eventually regained control of both domains.
You’d think that would be the end of the Registerfly saga, but no I’m never that lucky. Unfortunately this left over $300 in funds (paid in using my credit card) in my now empty Registerfly account!
I’ve asked on half a dozen tickets to RegFly, sent emails requesting a refund to my credit card and the one response I’ve got is-
Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product or service that we offer. This policy is without exception. Thank you
Senior Client Care
Registerfly.com
This can’t be legal (can it?), they can’t withhold my money!
I’m trying one more ticket to try to get a refund on my credit card and then I’m going to my credit card company to start chargeback proceedings. I don’t want to do this, but I’m not going to leave over $300 with this domain name registration company when I have no intentions of ever using their domain name registration services again (they suck).
This will probably mean issuing credit card chargebacks for over the amount they owe since it’s highly unlikely I made a credit card payment that exactly matches the amount owed by Registerfly and I expect to get ALL my money back.
If anyone else has had this problem with credit card quick checkout balances with Registerfly I’d appreciate a comment if you managed to get your money back.
If your using Registerfly/RegFly still (your a fool :-)) do not add funds to your account as they refuse to refund them.
Update: never got my cash back : RegFly/Kevin Medina sucks :-(
David Law
Website - SEO Gold Services
This is the support ticket I started:
I have removed my business from Registerfly and have no plans ever to use you again. My account holds [ $319.11 ] which I want back.
Last ticket on this states-
Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product or service that we offer. This policy is without exception. Thank you
Senior Client Care
Registerfly.com
This is unacceptable, there is no service you provide that I wish to use.
How do I get a refund?
If you say I can not I will go to my credit card company and issue a chargeback which is not in your best interests as it may be for more than you owe me since I doubt I made an exact payment for $319.11 and have no intentions of loosing money over this.
David Law
Their response:
David Law
Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product, service or special promotions that we offer. This policy is without exception.
Thank you
RegisterFly.com
Rapid
Thanks
Rapid
And the ticket was closed!
David
Found a page of Registerfly’s which states the following:
Refund of account balances
We do not refund account balances unless explicitly agreed to by a manager. Due to the cost of credit card, payment processing we cannot refund the balances. You may use the balance towards any product or service that we offer.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but that is not the same as what Registerfly support is saying regarding refunding my credit card payments. Lets see if I can get a manager to agree to the refund!
Have started a new ticket pointing to this information.
David Law
I have the exact same problem as you, i have now over $119 in my account, i have removed all my domains to GoDaddy.com (and used enom and got out of those thief’s). And what i have been doing to recover my money (i used to have more than $200) is to buy domains via RegisterFly, secure them for as many years as i can and moved them away from them.
Is a shame that what used to be a good company, is now the worst in customer service.
They should close their doors forever (after returning the money they owe)
Try to sell domains, or use them as birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, etc….that way you can use that money while saving in gifts. I am doing that now. Hoping to reduce my balance to $0 in a few months.
Hi to all
I have the same problem with registerfly holding my money. I tried everything.
My last refill was in January of 2007. Since that problems started.
I tried to register several domain, but domains are nt registered and money was taken. Then they did not answered tickets for months. In the meantime I read all about it on ICANN. Later in 2007 they finally answered one ticket and then they dragged me for couple of months saying that they refund my money to the credit card I refilled my account.
I had several ticket with the same question and every time the answered that they refunded. Then on one ticket they told me this crap you are all saying here, that they are not refunding at all !?!? I asked what was that couple of months that they saying they are trying to refund. No answer.
Then I filled a complaint to ma credit card company/bank. My bank told me that complaint must be made within 3 months from purchase and in this case I made purchase before like 10 month (in time making of complaint).
So they told me that there is nothing they can do anymore. now after some months again, i tried to register some domains with this balance I have but now they do not permit to use balance to pay . I contacted them again, and there it is , again the same crap answers.
I have 4 tickets asking for that and they keep saying that their risk management review my case and they opened possibility to use this balance I have. But actually nothing is opened. i am still not permitted to use this balance and I don’t see solution to this as they keep copying replies , the same ones, over and over again, and problem is not fixed.
Anyway, this is my story
Oh, geez….. what a nightmare!
I watched the whole RegisterFly mess unfold when all heck broke loose.
I’m sorry that you guys have been through the ringer with this.
Did any of you ever get your situations straightened out?
Good luck to all.
The best thing one can do in such cases is to cut and run as quickly as possible.
I’ve had similar problems with a couple of my domains and found that trying to get them resolved should not go beyond a couple of calls or emails.
More than that it becomes a waste of time, which is costlier than the $100 at issue.
If I can use the credit in any way, I would certainly do it.
I make sure I leave posts about the issue to hopefully prevent others from having the same problems and move on.
Forgot to update this.
Sent a support ticket on 10th Feb subject:
Get a Manager to give me a Refund
==============================================
Time Submitted:19:40:22
Since you closed my last ticket lets try again-
Time Submitted:8:30:9
I have removed my business from Registerfly and have no plans ever to use you again. My account holds [ $319.11 ] which I want back.
Last ticket on this states-
Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product or service that we offer. This policy is without exception. Thank you
Senior Client Care
Registerfly.com
This is unacceptable, there is no service you provide that I wish to use.
How do I get a refund?
If you say I can not I will go to my CC company and issue a chargeback which is not in your best interests as it may be for more than you owe me since I doubt I made an exact payment for $319.11 and have no intentions of loosing money over this.
David Law
Now I found
………………..
Refund of account balances
We do not refund account balances unless explicitly agreed to by a manager. Due to the cost of credit card, payment processing we cannot refund the balances. You may use the balance towards any product or service that we offer.
………………..
That does not say without exception, that says I need a manager to agree to the credit card refund, so lets get a manager to agree to the refund and give me my money back.
BTW your response will be posted here and there’s a very good chance that page will rank high in Google for relevant search terms (like Registerfly) in the near future.
Can you not see how unreasonable this is? I make credit card payments to my Registerfly account in good faith, only later to discover Registerfly has lost it’s ICANN accreditation resulting in my domains being transferred to Godaddy and eNom. The 2 remaining domains was not accessible through your control panel (had to pay extra to get them transferred through Nominet) and this left me with over $300 in credit, but no Registerfly services to spend it on.
As you might expect I want a full refund and I’m told no, you have to use our services!
So tell me what Registerfly services should I use exactly?
I have no need for hosting (rent a dedicated server and if I didn’t I still wouldn’t use Registerfly), all my domains are with other registration companies (and wouldn’t transfer them to you if you offer to pay the registration fees for free) and currently have no need to register new domains and even if I did why would I use Registerfly an unaccredited registration company that has a track record of poor customer services and renewal and whois data screwups?.
So please tell me under this situation why I can not get my money back without going through my credit card company or starting legal proceedings?
It’s no wonder Registerfly lost accreditation when support treat customers this way!
Do not close this ticket after you respond as it will mean I’ll have to open a new one and again paste all this into it until the matter is resolved.
David Law
==============================================
Responses from Customer Support
[2008-02-12]
==============================================
David Law
Thank you for contacting our support department. Please write to robert.oneill@registerfly.com to request adding funds to your account using paypal. Please include your userid, the product you are trying to purchase within your email. It normally may take 24 hours to process your request.
Thank you
RegisterFly.com
Client Care
RegFly Client Care
==============================================
What the hell is that person going on about!
David
Logged into the account today to start pulling together information for a chargeback request and find a $0.00 balance, my money has gone from the Registerfly (now RegFly) account!
I finally find this info in the payment history section-
1. 2008-03-03 BALANCE TRANSFER AS PER AGREEMENT $-319.11 ###########
I think maybe they did the right thing and made the refund, so checked my credit card statements, but unfortunately no refund from RegFly or RegisterFly. Also check other accounts just in case and nothing!
So just sent another ticket and waiting on a response-
I have been requesting a refund of $-319.11 for months and the last response (see last ticket) was confusing.
Log into my account today and find no balance, check payment history and find-
1. 2008-03-03 BALANCE TRANSFER AS PER AGREEMENT $-319.11 ##########
I wanted this money refunded, but it has not been refunded to my credit card (the card I used to make the payment ending in ####) so where did it go?
For simplicity sake please make the refund to my paypal account through ##########
Will then be able to say something positive here
David Law
Will post their response when I get it, fingers crossed they make a refund through PayPal so I don’t have to waste time with a chargeback (been told by my credit card company I should get the money back through a chargeback).
David Law
Not heard anything from RegFly, but my account has been suspended and I’ve not had a refund!
Looks like I’ll have to follow out my threat and go after the RegFly SERPs like-
RegFly
RegFly Domain Name Registration
RegFly Web Hosting
Will also target everything in their home page title with the addition of RegFly-
RegFly.com | – cheap domain names, affordable web hosting, transfer to us, web blogger, lowest ssl certificates, free privacy protection, site builder, email, business solutions
RegFly cheap domain names
RegFly affordable web hosting
RegFly transfer
RegFly web blogger
RegFly lowest ssl certificates
RegFly free privacy protection
RegFly site builder
RegFly email
RegFly business solutions
Will probably come up with 100 more for long tail RegFly SERPs. Will initially spread these SERPs over 10 pages and see how they do in Google.
What I’d like is at least 5 pages in the top 10 for the RegFly SERP, that will take some time (probably 6 months).
If you want to help out please link to this page with anchor text including the word RegFly and choose one of their SERPs so we can damage their SERPs.
This domain name registration company has really pissed me off now.
David Law
I tried to renew a domain name that I’ve had with registerfly since 2002. They couldn’t renew it, and I eventually transferred it from Enom to a new registrar called Rebel.com.
Regfly, in the trouble ticket, indicated that I would receive a refund “within 5-7 business days”. We all know what happened next – it’s now been seven months since that message, and no refund.
Thankfully, it’s only $10.83, but I’m determined to pester them until I get it back. My account has been suspended now, but I’m still bugging them with trouble tickets.
I’ve soliciting help opening trouble tickets on #####. I’d like your opinion on this tactic.
Thanks. Jack
I renewed 3 domains w/ CC then went on vacation in Mexico for 3 months only to return and find my 3 domains were not renewed. I opened a new ticket with RegFly about this problem and did not receive an answer -opened another and another and still no answer from these human crud – opened another ticket to demand my account balance of just $29.81, they sent me their usual reply;
Thank you for contacting our support department. Unfortunately we cannot assist with this request. We do not refund quick checkout balances. You may use the balance in your account on any product or service that we offer. This policy is without exception. Thank you
At this moment I do not even know how much money RegFly has stolen from me. They are THIEVES!
They need a Class Action Law Suit brought upon them.
I know what I would like to do to them but I can’t say it here.
They are scum and should be dealt with accordantly.
I feel sorry for the all the people that do not know they will become victims to people that should not be allowed to l**e on this earth. Hell is made for miscreants such as these.
Meantime I’m sure they are living ‘The High Life’.
You’re not alone (unfortunately).
I’ve been robbed by godaddy.com, 1and1.com, hostway.com, omnis.com and a couple of other thief registrars, can’t keep track of all the thieves!
One day I’ll take the time to expose these thieves.
I have similar situation. I renewed 2 domains and applied new one. They just got money and did nothing. Tried to create many tickets to resolve the problem. This fuking company just delete the tickets and no any response.
These cheatings have to be stopped.
Hi all, looks like you’ve got a good search engine position for Regfly, lowest ssl certificates, cheap domain name registration. ;) I’ve just had a run in with regfly.com – bought an SSL Certificate and it hasn’t been delivered.
Their support is running me round the houses with excuses and wild goose chases after this cheap SSL certificate from Regfly. Basically they’ve just charged me and not delivered the SSL certificate. So if you’re looking to buy a cheap SSL certificate from Regfly, STEER CLEAR. They will steal your money and not deliver. They are FRAUDSTERS! Don’t do it!
SSL certificates from RegFly are a SCAM. If you’re looking to buy an SSL Certificate from Regfly, look elsewhere.
(shameless -ve S.E plugs for SSL Certificates from Regfly!)
I renewed my domain… three days ahead of its expiration date. yes, Im sad to say its with regfly.
Ive opened three trouble tickets. They’ve all been deleted. The latest one has been sitting there marked ‘assigned’ for three days.
What can I do? Can I transfer the domain or something? When I go to my site, I get a ‘this domain has expired’ notice.
Of course, my credit card was charged for the transaction…
My site has been down for five days. Im losing SO much money, and I need to pay rent. What can I do? Please, I’m pretty ignorant about this stuff, anyone who can help email me!
WARNING!! DO NOT USE REGFLY.COM
I registered for an SSL certificate with Registerfly.com. (AKA regfly.com). I guess I deserve what happened because it was only $30.00 and I went on a 2 year old recommendation from another SSL user.
I got exactly the same run-around as everyone else. The SSL Certificate issuing failed with the error description Not enough credit. Thinking that maybe my credit card had not cleared, (and because I was in a hurry) I tried again with another card. Same result. So now they have $60.00. I have submitted a pile of support tickets which either just get closed, or get the run-around. There is no question, these people are just outright thieves, and robbers. It’s not just the losing of the dollars that hurts. It’s also the feeling that you have let scammers take you for a ride; it’s bad for the pride.
Now I know what people who fell for the Nigerian letter scam felt like. Life’s too short for regrets, and I am about to give up on them, and regard the whole experience as a $60.00 reminder of how careful you need to be with Internet dealings. As a final act I am posting this message everywhere I think it will hurt them. The message is simple:
DO NOT USE REGFLY.COM. THEY ARE LIARS THIEVES AND CHEATS.
Good luck to those people trying to get their money back.
Peter Wilkins Sydney, Australia 19 Feb 2009
REGFLY.COM are thieves, crooks and cheats!! I purchased an .IT domain from them that I didn’t get to work in any way! I tried their URL forward but I kept getting DNS problems that couldn’t be fixed in any way after 2 weeks of work… I got a feeling that something was wrong, so I checked if the .IT domain I purchased was really registered? And guess what? It was still available to anyone…
I created a ticket to REGFLY.COM with the following:
I have purchased (????.it) from regfly.com on the 27 February 2009. I have received the Domain Confirmation E-mail as well is the Online Invoice! But when I contacted the .it Registry www.nic.it there was no record of (????.it)??? it is still available for registration? I would like to know what happened? The money is withdrawn from my visa card but I didn’t get the domain??? Please advice ASAP!
Responses from Customer Support [2009-03-15] :
Thank you for contacting our support department. It seems as if you are using invalid nameservers that are not recognized at the registry. Please check them and try again
Thank you
RegFly.com
Customer Service Department
RegFly.com
[2009-03-16] Closed by automated system
WHAT THE !”#¤%!!! I got an automatic answer. that sucks! BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! When I logged into my RegFly.com account in the morning, MY .IT DOMAIN WAS GONE!!!! They erased the domain I paid money for?
I created a new ticket but I doubt that I´ll ever see my money again from RegFly.com
PEOPLE BE AWARE REGFLY.COM !! NEVER BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM…
Had gotten several SSL Certificates in past without a problem. On 3/5/2009 purchased a wildcard ssl certificate. Attempted to complete cert with CSR and received ‘not enough credit’ error. Same story as many – 8 support tickets, several that disappeared, asking a question then closing the support ticket…on and on. These people are swine and should be treated as such. I am quite ticked as I’m sure many are.
Have tracked the phone number that is listed on my cc statement – cell phone registered to a person in Hollywood, FL (have address, name, relatives, etc), also got recent business address from BBB – Miami Beach, FL along with several phone numbers.
May have to have someone check out these addresses and see about requesting a refund face to face – will be quite interesting…
HOW TO GET REGFLY’S ATTENTION:
Contact the man below with every bit of documentation you have. He is the TuCows compliance officer (the actual registrar) and has the power to put the thumb on RegFly. I did, and got a call from the new RegFly OWNER (Robert) that day. Of course, then I then had his cell phone number as well. ;-)
It wasn’t easy, it took several calls and emails but in the end my expiration dates were extended, I got my auth codes, and I transferred away to GoDaddy as fast as I could.
Paul Karkas
Compliance Officer
OpenSRS – Tucows Inc.
paul@tucows.com
416-535-0123 ext 1625
direct line (416) 538-5458
1-800-37l1-6992
fax 1-416-535-7699