Internic | Domain Names and Domain Name Registration. Internic

08/07/2010 22:45

Internic Security Announcement Regarding Your Domain

Dear Internic Customer,

This email message contains important information about the security and billing for your .uk domain name (.co.uk, .org.uk etc) held at www.internic.co.uk. A subsequent announcement will be sent out shortly to non .uk domain customers (.com, .org etc).

On the 17^th May, we wrote to all .uk customers to advise that Interservers Technology INC were no longer contracted to undertake billing and registration for Internic customers and that a new management team and system had been put in place. At that point, we had agreed a transition plan with Interservers and didn’t envisage any issues with executing it. Unfortunately, it now appears that Interservers have broken this transition agreement and the original contract drawn up between us by actively and illegally continuing to take payment from our customers where they are not authorised to do so. Given that they are not in a position to renew the domain as the IPS tag is with us, this activity is most likely a criminal activity on a large scale – or theft. Moreover, they are also now attempting to undermine our position with you our customers by advising that .uk domains coming up for renewal can only be renewed if the domain is moved away from us to their control at ENOM.

We believe it right and proper that we make you aware of the seriousness of their activity and exactly what they are doing and what both Internic and you should do to prevent further abuse.

1. Interservers have been illegally taking money from Internic customers for domain renewals which they are not contracted to take and not in a position to fulfil. Internic is an authorised Registrar of Nominet and you can check the validity of this claim by finding us on this link http://www.nic.uk/registrars/becomeregistrar/taglist/. All .uk domains should have an IPS tag of INTERNIC proving that you are a customer of Internic and not Interservers and your domains are registered through us. Additionally, Interservers have purposely not updated their invoicing and are still displaying Internic branding in order to confuse or fool you into thinking they are still an authorised agent – they most definitely are not.
Your Action: if your .uk domain expired after 31^st May 2010 and you have received an invoice from Interservers and they have taken money from you, you need to contact your Credit / Debit card company and ask for a refund on the grounds that it is an unauthorised transaction as they are not your service provider in this respect.
Internic Action: We will invoice you accordingly and take payment with invoices generated from our new system. Where requested, we will provide any evidence requested to us by your Credit Card company to support your claim.

2. Interservers are advising our customers to change their IPS tag from INTERNIC to ENOM for a variety of reasons. We deem this poaching activity to be highly immoral and underhand as the customer is being led to believe that this is somehow necessary or required in order to maintain their domain registration. Quite clearly this is not the case and there is absolutely no need to change the tag at all, even if they have already billed you directly for a domain renewal (see above)
Your Action: Ignore any and all requests by Interservers to ask us to change your IPS tag. At this point and to safeguard the security of all of our customers, we will not submit to any request to change the IPS Tag until the situation between ourselves and Interservers is fully resolved. If you get such a request from Interservers, please forward this on to us and we will add this to the growing mountain of evidence we hold against them.
Internic Action: We will safely store all emails you send to us regarding this and may possibly use it if we have to take legal action against Interservers in the future. We will also use this evidence in support of any claim you have to make to your Credit Card company where you ask for our support.

3. In a small number of cases, Interservers have not renewed some domains that were due for renewal in the months leading up to the transition. We have only just become aware of this and are actively reviewing all domains to ensure we advise you accordingly and renew where needed.
Your Action: Please review your .uk domains to check to make sure that they have been renewed and contact us immediately if any have expired. Please note that there is a 90 day redemption period where domains are held before they are released so there is some margin of safety. Please review this article in our knowledgebase for further information http://www.internic.co.uk/knowledgebase/39/My-domain-name-has-not-been-renewed.html
Internic Action: We will act swiftly on any expired domains that you advise us about but you do need to act NOW to ensure we give ourselves the best possible chance of recovery on these domains.

4. Interservers are not providing support to .uk domain customers that have hosting plans with them leaving some customers without their valuable websites, impacting people and businesses. Not only is this immoral but we suspect illegal in some way and we know of several customers currently considering taking legal action against Interservers directly.
Your Action: if you have taken a hosting plan out with Interservers we urge you to do two things. Firstly, take a copy of your website NOW – given what we are seeing at Interservers it is likely that they are either closing down this part of their business or will be selling it off leaving all hosting customers without their websites and completely unsupported. Secondly, consider moving your hosting away from Interservers to another host ASAP to safeguard your website investment.
Internic Action: We are so incensed by what we are seeing at Interservers and to help these customers out, we are offering all .uk domain customers 1 years free hosting and support on a like for like plan – no questions asked. Subsequent years will be attract a further 25% discount on our advertised prices as further evidence of commitment to supporting you during this difficult period.

5. Finally, despite agreements made between us, Interservers are not handing over control of the necessary ENOM reseller accounts in order that we might gain control of our customers non .uk domains. We will issue a separate email to customers covering this issue as there are specific actions non .uk domain customers need to take ASAP.
Your Action: If you hold non .uk domains with us such as .com, .org, .net etc please watch out for another email from us on this matter which gives clear instruction on how the current actions on Interservers affects you. If you hold such a domain and have concerns now, please feel free to contact us using this form http://www.internic.co.uk/contact.php . Also, you should check these domains to ensure they are still renewed and advise us urgently if you have any concerns.
Internic Action: we will be emailing non .uk domain customers soon with further guidance but will act swiftly on any requests to transfer these domains to us in the interim period.

We sincerely regret the position that we are in which is being caused directly by Interservers and apologise for any inconvenience and disruption this may cause. We know that right now, we are not clearing support tickets down as quickly as we would like and this is entirely down to the unexpected volume caused by the current situation. We ask you to support us a UK based company serving predominately UK based customers by way of patience and understanding and we promise that we are working hard to rectify any and all issues raised to us regarding your domain registration enquiries.

As previously advised, we suggest you confirm the validity of this email by navigating to the Internic website and locating this email in our announcements section.

We will be contacting you again very shortly with an update but in the meantime, we strongly urge you not to fall for any Interservers communication requests and to check all of your domains to ensure they are within contract.

Internic Management Team

« Back

View RSS Feed