Oh Hell. Did Homeland Security Eat My Domain Names?

[Skip Intro]

Strange thing that just happened to me:

I own a few domain names, some registered thru a company called NameCheap.com

A couple of the domains are set to expire (my ownership is set to expire) at 9-something AM tomorrow morning.

I want to keep these domains, so I went to NameCheap.com to renew for another year. After trying to log in just ONE time, I got a message that, because there had been four consecutive log in attempts, my acct would be frozen for 24 hours if the next log in failed. Evidently, I thought, someone else has been trying to access my acct. At that time, I requested my password be sent to me.

With the log in ID and password sent to my email, I went back to NameCheap.com for my final attempt to log in - with the info they JUST sent me. I was denied.

So there I was with my ownership of my two domain names set to expire before I would be allowed to log in to renew.

Unable to find contact phone numbers (only email addys) on their website, I googled NameCheap.com, and got this, dated about three weeks ago:


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The mystery continues of a terrorist sympathizing Internet Service provider who uses a maze of false addresses and telephone numbers to avoid detection.

...

The Internet Service provider Hosting Anime, which hosts a variety of al Qaeda affiliated sites, is a favorite of the terror community.

.........

When asked what connection there was to Name Cheap.com, a domain name registration company, the "System Administrator" wrote in the same now deleted thread (sic), "After a quick visit to NameCheap.com, its quite ovious."

........

Checking current Internet registration records showed that the current contact information for both Name Cheap.com and Hosting Anime.com is listed as a mail drop at 8939 S. Sepulveda Blvd. in Westchester, CA 90045. Many times it is a common practice for owners of web sites who do not wish to be contacted to use the address of the company with which they registered their name.

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There's more at the article, http://www.americandaily.com/article/4452 - beware popups.

But now I don't know what to think.

I know I can't access my account to renew my domain names, and they will expire before I can - all this because, according to NameCheap.com, failed attempts to access my account (not by me) have exceeded limit. I know that when I searched for a phone number for this company, on google, I found an article about them being, er, associated, with supporting terrorism.

Anybody got any ideas?

wtf is going on here?

How do I keep my claim to my domain names (which, btw, are in no way, by the farthest stretch of imagination, anything other than innocuous)?

[Wickerman]

1. Are they actually expiring or are they jsut going into 90 day hold?

I think they go into a hold before expiration. You have the option to renew - no one else. If they expire, get on 'em first thing in the morning on another site. I suggest http://leftweb.com/ - he is a DUer and a decent guy. He might know more of the skinny, too.

[Philostopher]

2. A little advice.

I ran a 'Whois' search on 'americandaily.com' and found that the owner of that domain's registration is a guy named Justin Heiser. Google him -- he's a right wingnut from Akron, Ohio. I know, I know -- that doesn't necessarily mean he's having paranoid fantasies about somebody with an ambiguous registration listing on Whois ... but it might.

He's right that namecheap.com doesn't list a name, which isn't all that unusual -- the Whois record shows no individual as the registrant -- but who knows where he came up with the idea that they were connected, somehow, with al Quaeda. Maybe he has real information, maybe he knows who actually runs the site -- and maybe he's just paranoid.

Is there a contact or help link on the NameCheap site, or even a tech support link? If so, I'd recommend you send them a 'HELP!' message. Don't know if they'll respond before your registration is up, but they might.

[short bus president]

3. evidently, you don't.

If there's no contact information but the email address (have you tried it?), you'll probably lose the names at the specified hour. Your best bet may be to try to register them again at the designated expiration hour. If you have competition with a similar strategy in mind, you may not get there first. Then your only remedy is to sue for damages, if you can ever track down the NameCheap.com people, who may well be in Gitmo or some other undisclosed location, which you'll violate the Patriot Act if you try to learn, and then maybe get a dogcage next to the NameCheap guys on Cuba to hash it all out over hourly beatings and such.

The possiblities are endless.