Re: domain admin (was Unscrupulous Webmasters)

Hi all...

Out of lurk mode to send one of my 12 posts a year, lol...

We have had the same problems with moving sites registered by other
"Webmasters" (never liked that term, sounds rather pompous if you ask me but
I am entitled to my opinion).  The fax solution suggested by Steve Clark
(fax on client's company letterhead) has worked for us in every case.

On the registration subject... we too are a reseller for a major hosting
provider in addition to the design end of things.  This is how I register
domain names:

Owner - client's company name/address
Admin Contact - client rep (can be a title instead of a person)
Tech Contact - us
Billing Contact - client rep again

This way, the client has control down the road if they want to move the site
etc.  but since we are listed as the tech contact we (1) can make any
changes the client requests (saving the client a lot of headaches) and (2)
are kept informed if the client chooses to make a change.

The client paid for the domain name.... it does belong to the client.  Read
the NetSol, Register.com, etc. rules and regs to get the legal poop.

Michael Schultz (not a Webmaster, just an administrator) lol
Vice President of Operations
Virtualtech Web Site Design and Promotion http://www.virtualtech.com
(800) 474-7001
"We Put The Pieces Together"

----- Original Message -----
From: Marty Landman <marty(at)face2interface.com>
To: <hwg-business(at)mail.hwg.org>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 10:00 AM
Subject: domain admin (was Unscrupulous Webmasters)


> Ben Ocean <lists(at)TheWebsons.com> wrote:
>
>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> I am continually amazed and disgusted with so-called webmasters that take
> clients' money to register domains on *the clients'* behalf, who in turn
> register those domains in their *own* names so that they can control the
> clients' Web site. This, of course, is illegal and unethical. But it's a
> pain in the a@# to work out. Does anyone have an easy solution to this
problem?
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> I generally register myself as the admin contact for domains I'm either
> transferring to my own hosting or registering for the first time. Since
I'm
> a hosting reseller, the hosting company is the technical contact. Only one
> client of mine has declined having me be the admin contact. And when
> transferring domains it's always been the case that the previous developer
> was the admin contact.
>
> Therefore I've always felt that I was doing this the right way. This is a
> part of my service; i.e. most of my clients wouldn't know how to deal with
> NetSol forms etc... as highly usable as they are :)
>
> So far I've only had a problem with transferring over once, where it
looked
> like the previous webmaster didn't want to approve the change. As it
turned
> out, my client was unlucky enough to talk to someone in their office who
> just didn't know what they were doing but pretended that they did.
>
> So I suggested she speak to the boss of the first person. The domain
change
> got approved one hour later. One of Murphy's Laws, Hanlon's Razor comes to
> mind "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
> stupidity".
>
> Another recent experience of mine argues for the rightness of making
myself
> admin contact for clients, at least IMHO. Recently I got a change request
> from another hosting company, but no corresponding communication from the
> client. I contacted him to try and verify that was what he wanted.
>
> He said that was his wish. It turned out this other company sold him on
> redoing his website, and also sold him on the .net domain corresponding to
> his .com; for which btw they've registered themselves as tech, admin, and
> billing contacts. Which I never do, I'll always list the client as the
> billing at least.
>
> Anyway, I looked at the .net domain and saw a "Coming Soon" page. So I
> pointed out to the client that while I'd be happy to approve the change if
> that's his wish, within a few days of my approving it his site will
> transfer, and if they don't have a site up and running people clicking to
> his domain will get nothing. And why they didn't at least copy his current
> site to the .net site which he's paying for hosting is beyond me... my
> hosting clients always have full ftp and telnet access to their sites so
> they could have easily done this.
>
> Even though he's generally unwilling to listen to anything even remotely
> technical from me, he did understand this. He said I should hold off until
> he gets back to me. That was about two weeks ago and I haven't heard back
> from him yet.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> Marty Landman
> http://face2interface.com/
>
>
>

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