We noted at the time that we believed the domains were no longer owned by Frank and he was somehow allowed to simply not complete the purchase or was able to hand them back.
Many of you doubted this theory and claimed he just placed the domains under privacy.
If you look at the whois on these domains today, its clear that Frank no longer owns these domains as they are now in redemption:
Domain Name: CAYMAN.TV
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS2.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS3.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS4.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS5.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Status: REDEMPTION-PERIOD
Updated Date: 07-apr-2010
Creation Date: 17-mar-2010
Expiration Date: 17-mar-2011
So apart from a few of the commentators now owe me on a “bet” they made (all such can be paid with a drink next time I see you) the issue is that Enom allowed these domains to be acquired without advanced payment, certainly not an option I have ever been offered and I doubt many of you have every been offered either.
For the list of some of the domains Frank gave back see the original blog post.
Hmm, It seems potentially possible that…….We were…..Wrong.
Still trying to come to terms with this.
iBroker
I understand why its hard to get your head around this because registrars are not suppose to give special treatment to some of its customers like allowing them to register domains without paying for them first.
But then again that’s what the whole post was about
Enom …… “Setting the standard for sleaze in the domain industry!”
This should be their slogan.
MHB, arent you now glad I upped the ante from $1 to $5 ? We’re sitting fat now! Send payments to…
The story is not Frank Schilling. The story is enom’s ONGOING & CONTINUING selective treatment of different people.
This registrar is to all intense and purposes a domainer, not a registrar – thus doing deals that give them the bottom line that they think will best suit them.
Undoubtedly in the long term this will surely hurt them, as those with an interest with .TV move their entire portfolios away from Enom.
In the meantime those of us paying premium renewals are still paying premium renewals.
Ot has been said that Eno/Verisign take baby steps and those who have been shafted for their loyalty should be patient……
Yet Frank gets “diplomatic immunity” granted in the space of a few days. ENOM/ENRON. Sounds soooooo similar.
James
Exactly
Attila
Yes thanks, now I get Goose instead of well Vodka
How do they figure this furthers .tv though?
Granting special treatment to an organization that isn’t going to develop the names anyway, but most likely park and sit on them.
I could understand special treatment if there is a big development plan… in order to further the extention.
– Aron
Aron
I’m not going to try to explain Enom’s thinking, just calling them out.
Enom are a shady bunch,thats for sure,
Aquire this name .com
domains owned by there founder/owner / ceo or whatever his title is. , (expired domains at that.) That should have gone to the public.
The list goes on,
not to be trusted IMHO!
Nothing new here …
this is sort of like Hollywood stars getting free meals at expensive restaurants
while the poor and homeless get nothing. It can be argued from a business
viewpoint that they should of developed Cayman.TV for Frank and let him
keep it and all the profits 🙂
@MHB
Glad I did not bet you on this one. However, I will be you your Florida Gators will not win the SEC next year:)
Thanks, Jim
I just started investing in .TV’s on a limited basis. I think there is some potential on these in the long term.
Jim
Everyone’s in the draft, not liking their chances next year either
@MHB,
Every year, I have a so called “bucket list” with my buddies that must be done in our life regarding sports. Living in San Diego, don’t have the sports passion, like other places.
Last year, I went NotreDame to see a game, next year I am going to an SEC game.
What is the best game, best venue? Sorry to be off-topic here but need to make my plans ASAP and I know your a Florida season ticket holder so you have all the “scoop”
Thanks, Jim
Guilty, i got it wrong!.lucky i didn’t bet!.
Agree with James post, but at least now we have an alternative in the shape of Dynadot and the particualry impressive Name.com ( i have no connection to name.com) i have been very impressed with how they have conducted themselves through all this.
TV
I agree with you comments regarding Name.com.
I will be transferring all my names to Name.Com when the names come up for renewal – thats the least I can do as a measure of protest against all the shenanigans (wow, have not used that word in years!!) from ENROM.
Enom is a disgusting, crooked company that should be avoided at all cost. Just recently, they stole a domain of mine and pushed it to their best customer’s account, another known crook, offering zero help. I make it a weekly habit to send Enom a 1 word email reminding them what they are…Scum.
I have .tv names with name but something seemed “fishy” the other day:
Here is my concerned with Name.com and here is the e-mail I sent them last week and I have not heard back. It’s regarding the following:
“I have some questions first regarding things I have noticed when names that were expired have been released:
1)Pricing is not reflected correct amount at time of release. For example,
many names show over 1 Million
2) Due to pricing error the name is being release and being registered at
that price? How is that possible? For example, SouthCarolina.tv and
House.tv was registered according to your system at $1,009,000?
3) Is there advance notification of premium names to certain people ahead of
time that they get the expired names first or is on hold to them? Something does not seem right.
Thanks, Jim
Has anyone actually asked Frank?
Its quite possible that he was not really the one that registered these and someone else did something crooked, got caught, had the domains stripped because of it….
Seriously, that is actually the most plausible way for this all to have happened.
Think about it… whatever these cost, do you really think the real Frank would sweat it?
If you sign with name, you agree:
“Further, you understand and acknowledge that we may also delete the registration of any domain name which we have registered, at any time for any reason.”
Name.com absolves itself – it has the power!
At least eNom gives you 30 days, if termination is for other than cause, and offers a pro-rata refund, if termination is for other than cause:
“# At any time and for any reason, we may terminate the Services thirty (30) days after we send notice of termination via mail or email, at our option, to the WHOIS contact information provided in association with your domain name registration. Following notice of termination other than for cause, you must transfer your domain name within such thirty (30) day notice period or risk that we may delete your domain name, transfer the registration services associated with your domain name to ourselves or a third party, or suspend or modify Services related to your domain name. If we terminate Services for a reason other than cause, we will provide a pro-rata refund of your fees.”
“Has anyone actually asked Frank?”
That sounds like the best option to clear the air.
Strange though…the plot thickens 🙂
“The story is not Frank Schilling. The story is enom’s ONGOING & CONTINUING selective treatment of different people.”
////////////////////////
What is wrong with that? Enom is expected to treat big spenders the same as those with 5 domains? In business people are treated “selectively”, that is life.
Hey Jim,
First, let me apologize if you haven’t received a response from us. I’ll personally track down the email you sent on Monday and figure out why you didn’t get that response. If you have a case number that was sent in the auto-response I can find it very quickly.
To answer you questions: I promise there is nothing “fishy” going on. What you are seeing is a product of how our system handles pricing, the fact that we are getting pricing from VeriSign once every twenty-four hours through an updated pricing file, and the fact that we only take one order per domain through our Domain Nabber (backorder) service.
1. VeriSign changed pricing for legacy premium domains to $1 million dollars early last week to prevent registrars from showing pricing on these names before they drop. As I mentioned we get an updated pricing file once every twenty-four hours. Sometimes there is a delay between when the domain actually drops and when the pricing for that domain is updated. So depending on when you look at a domain, you may see it as available, but for a price of $1 million dollars. A few hours later you may see it available for a much lower price, because the pricing file has been updated. We’ve been informed that VeriSign has a fix for this problem, which should be implemented early next week.
2. We do not provide any special treatment for customers looking to use our Domain Nabber service to pick up domains on the drop. We have a loyal following of .TV customers who watch our system constantly to see when a .TV domain enters pending delete and the updated pricing is shown so they can place a backorder. Anyone using our Domain Nabber service can see this. Once a backorder is placed however, we no longer show the domain in our Domain Nabber search because we only take one order per domain at present. We are evaluating if this is how we should continue handling Nabber orders, but for the moment this is the process.
I am happy to speak to *anyone* at anytime, about any of our services. We do make mistakes like any company, but we are dedicated to working with our customers as best we can when we do. We are always looking for feedback on how we can make our service even better, and any of our staff, including myself, is happy to speak to anyone about those suggestions. I hope this information was able to answer a few of the questions you had.
Paul
Name.com
Paul,
It’s too bad that Name.com got dragged into the latest conspiracy theory as you all have tried to help bring more transparency to the .TV premium market. Thanks for taking the time to post and explain everything. You & Name.com have delivered great customer service time & time again and have been winning my business plus many domainers in my circle.
re: domain drop
Jim, there is nothing fishy about the premium drops for SouthCarolina or House. I catch drops for myself, but I just began to use name.com’s backorder service as a backup. I saw both premium domains dropping and called one of my associates. Knowing that Name.com only takes one order per domain, I rushed to place the backorder for SouthCarolina, my associate placed a backorder for House. When the drop time came, Name.com caught the names for us. No conspiracy theory whatsoever.
But there’s Good News & Bad News…
The good news is: Name.com’s service worked for me.
The bad news is: now the whole world knows about it. 😉
A few days ago, while discussing Name.com’s drop service, I asked Paul to offer an auction format vs exclusive backorder because I foresaw problems with gossip, rumors, conspiracy theories, etc. – now he knows what I mean. 🙂 Even though it may cost me more now, it will even out over time and it’s better for the marketplace overall.
Get some sleep Paul, you deserve it.
And Mike, keep on keeping on. Nice Sedo auction pickups. 😉
Talk with you next week.
.
@Paul, and that is exactly why i have been impressed with Name.com, upfront,honest and taking the time to go on blogs and forums to tell us what is going on,something we never got with enom or even Verisign regarding .tv names.
I suspected it would have been Versign removing the pricing and putting in a temporary and ridiculous $1,000,000 price tag on them.
When will they learn that the extension requires complete transparency.
Paul thanks for clearing that up,particulary at a weekend.
What the hell is wrong with showing what these names will cost if they are dropped back into the system.
Thanks again Paul.
@Paul,
I love name.com. I know Bill the founder/Ceo personally and spent time with him at DomainFest. He is a great guy and straight up. You will see me very loyal to you guys and I am a big .tv investor and been so since July, 2000. I plan on transfering many in not all my .tv names that I can to you guys. In fact, what impressed me the most is that you came to the forum and addressed this.
My frustration was probally lack to reponse to my e-mail after I e-mail a couple of times and never heard back. My Case #00171066
However, you just answered everything here.
I never excused Name.com of anything, all this confusion has causes me some concerns and I know I could get the truth through you guys, something that I can’t count on through Enom. Again, thanks for addressing these things, and I am so impressed you cleared things up.
Thanks, Jim
Thanks Paul.
.tv domains are picking up as far as popularity as well as .co’s
On 4/10/10, Tim wrote: “Enom …… ‘Setting the standard for sleaze in the domain industry!’ This should be their slogan.” Right on. However, they’re not just “setting the standard”, they HAVE been the standard for MANY years. Well… there’s godaddy, too 🙁
Mike Berkens said:
In CNN’s what can now be considered groud-breaking 2007 profile of Kevin Ham, Frank Schilling is also quoted, and Paul Sloan, the author, notes:
Frank Schilling figured out what Ham had done, and “sealed similar deals . . . with several . . . registrars . . . to ensure that they captured the names [Schilling] wanted to buy during the drops.” That is the grammatical meaning of the point.
Therefore, Schilling has relationships with the Registrars. What they have evolved to, we don’t know, because he won’t be forthcoming on the details. But it should be no surprise, when this post was authored in 2010, that Verisign might have extended the premium dot tv names to see what DomainNameSales could do with them, before they were returned.
Verisign is a registry not a registrar, your mixing your apples and oranges.
Registries especially the new G’s are giving special deals out to those with money to spend
Verisign calls the shots with dot tv. The Registrar layer is superfluous with dot tv, and with dot com/dot net, for all intents and purposes. That is why I expressed the change in whosis as initiating from Verisign. Esecially with dot tv, there is less of a layer of separation, like with your new gTLDs.
Louise
Like My new gTLD’s?
I don’t have any
“Your new gTLD” i s a figure of speech, because theDomains blog posts news about the new gTLDs, you hand-registered a few, and your company, RightoftheDot consults about the new gTLDs, much the same way, “your Spinoza” might be a favorite philosopher of someone who quotes him all the time, but he doesn’t belong to anyone.
It’s safe to say, you are affiliated with the new gTLDs, more so than other people, because you:
1) broke news about new gTLDs
2) your company, RightoftheDot, consults in new gTLDs
3) shared your hand registrations in the new gTLD space
So, when I refer, to YOUR new gTLDs, I mean the ones you broke the news on, and created a company over, the ones which debuted recently.
As opposed to gTLDs which are new in compariison to the original gTLDs: .com, .net, and .org, such as aero and pro. But, I’ll drop the, “your,” from now on, and refer to the new gTLDs as THE new gTLDs. Point noted.