End Run.

One of the first things I did today is purchase another domain at Network Solutions as a backup for the one that’s expired through MongoHosting and BulkRegister. It’s not going to help too much as our our sci-fi organization flyers and publications have the old .ORG domain but if I can get the DNS entries changed and the new information out to the search engines we won’t be completely down.

The second thing I tried was contacting MongoHosting by telephone. As I mentioned before, the WHOIS information for Robert Dunbar of MongoHosting and Silvercities is incorrect. In one place it’s an outright lie. In another it’s merely disconnected. I tried calling directory assistance and searched on a few things and the one entry I found turned out not to be the person I was looking for.

Next, I called Network Solutions to see if there was anything they could do. Indeed, there was. Since my name is the Administrator of the domain, it should be an easy thing to transfer to myself. They looked at the entry and said that even though it was expired, the domain wasn’t locked (BulkRegister said it was) and they should be able to do the transfer. It couldn’t be done on-line, however. I needed to sign forms, provide proof of identity and fax the documents. It could take ten days, however.

One of the things on the form was something called an Authcode. This is apparently required for transfers of .ORG domains. I called BulkRegister directly and was able to get the Authcode from them. They also said that the domain WAS locked and that they would enter the work order to have that listed. Interesting, because in all their e-mails of the past two weeks they were saying that only MongoHosting could lift the lock. The discrepancies between what they say via e-mail and what they say when cornered on the phone are all the more reason to get the hell out of there.