BrettDomains posted a thread on DNForum describing some really negative points about Network Solutions’ Certified Offers Service.
If you don’t already know what Network Solutions’ Certified Offers Service is, they help you buy registered domains. It’s not that the service is a bad idea — Sedo and GoDaddy already offer it — but true to their habit, Network Solutions has screwed it up!
And how did they accomplish this? Here are two reasons for starters —
1. They Hold Your Funds. The moment you make a certified offer, NS puts a pre-authorization hold on your credit card for the full amount of your offer and their fees. Even if the buyer rejects it, your funds are blocked for atleast 15 days, along with another 5-7 days that it would take to release the hold on your funds.
2. The System is Dumb. It doesn’t matter if the domain owner has an invalid email address or domain has surpassed its redemption period — they will still accept your offer and keep your funds without paying you any interest on it!
Brett is promising to spill more juicy details in few days on the dirty-games that Network Solution is playing. We are holding our breath!
February 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Agree, Certified Offer Service sucks in several ways, including not making much of an attempt to remind the owner during the time period. I had that happen a few times with either 1 or 2 emails in total sent, never more than 2 in my experience.
Another major way it sucks (in addition to the major credit card hold issue) is the fact they do not refund your money if the admin email address is bad. Been there and done that with losing the fee after I discovered the email Whois address was not valid. That meant in effect I paid the fee and all I got in exchange were bounced emails.