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You'll never know who you're dealing with.
With domains there's a process called "back ordering" where you sign up though a service, pay a few (usually $60-$70) and they try to obtain a domain about to be deleted for you (you don't pay if they don't get it).
I rarely do this (some people do several a day, I do maybe 1-2 a year since it is expensive and most of the time worth the risk of trying to register it myself at Moniker or GoDaddy). I did this with a recent drop (H3N8 (canine / equine flu)).
I "won" the domain and normally it takes 24-48 hours for it to appear in my account at the registrar.
48 hours later, no domain. I send an email to support and their policy is 24 hours for a response. Over 24 hours later, no response. Annoyed, I called phone support.
The rep who took my call was very courteous and quickly got my issue resolved (in minutes when something like this can take days). I was quite happy with this result since it was better than I expected.
Why this post?
I help run one of the largest domaining forums out there and I posted my issue just before I called. After a couple of days the owner of the company responded to my post (my post was more about venting my frustration, not looking for a solution). He and I went back and fourth a little (questions and answers - possible reasons etc..) and at the end I asked him to look into my account and find out the phone rep who helped me and buy him a slice of pizza or two (or at least a nice pat on the back and a thank you from me).
The morale of the story is you'll never know who is on the receiving end of your support nor do you know what connections they may have.
With domains there's a process called "back ordering" where you sign up though a service, pay a few (usually $60-$70) and they try to obtain a domain about to be deleted for you (you don't pay if they don't get it).
I rarely do this (some people do several a day, I do maybe 1-2 a year since it is expensive and most of the time worth the risk of trying to register it myself at Moniker or GoDaddy). I did this with a recent drop (H3N8 (canine / equine flu)).
I "won" the domain and normally it takes 24-48 hours for it to appear in my account at the registrar.
48 hours later, no domain. I send an email to support and their policy is 24 hours for a response. Over 24 hours later, no response. Annoyed, I called phone support.
The rep who took my call was very courteous and quickly got my issue resolved (in minutes when something like this can take days). I was quite happy with this result since it was better than I expected.
Why this post?
I help run one of the largest domaining forums out there and I posted my issue just before I called. After a couple of days the owner of the company responded to my post (my post was more about venting my frustration, not looking for a solution). He and I went back and fourth a little (questions and answers - possible reasons etc..) and at the end I asked him to look into my account and find out the phone rep who helped me and buy him a slice of pizza or two (or at least a nice pat on the back and a thank you from me).
The morale of the story is you'll never know who is on the receiving end of your support nor do you know what connections they may have.
