I have transferred dozens of domains to OpenSRS from NSI too and I still
(months later) get *all* of the about-to-expire, overdue, deactivation, and
collection notices from them, and happily trash them without second thought.
But if you'll all recall, in the pre-competition days of NSI, we frequently got
overdue and deactivation notices for domains that were paid, and seldom
received credit for payments made until long after we made them. Conversely,
if we neglected to pay registration fees at *all*, we frequently enjoyed the
use of our domain name anyway for months (in some cases forever, i understand)
due to NSI's brain-dead billing department.
It stands to reason that a company that recently had zero competition and sold
a service so mission-critical to many businesses that they'd have operations
and procedures in place that were slow to become of aware of customers
*leaving*, or simply did not take into account the phenomena at all :-) It
also stands to reason that they are likely experiencing a decreased revenue
stream of late.
SO is this fraud, or merely incompetence, racketeering or simple arrogance?
"Tony" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote...
> ... there are probably HUGE amounts of people who are paying these invoices.
> This is a problem in the United States as companies can be successfully
> prosecuted by the US Attorney General under the RICO laws for this type of
> screwup. They are using the United States Postal Service to send fraudulent
> invoices to their ex-customers. This is called mail fraud. Their actions are
> also harming and endangering the trust, good-will and reputation
> of OUR business and Tucows.
to prove NSI is in violation of RICO laws or mail fraud, the government would
have to prove that these late and errant invoices are intentional. um, i don't
think that would be an easy case to prove.
> I think that a class-action lawsuit or an official complaint to State and
> Federal authorities is in order.
> Verisign and Network Solutions need to IMMEDIATELY stop mailing invoices
> until they get a process in place to remove
> the invalid invoices.
I find all of the group-think that i often see on this list quite amusing.
Does NSI suck? sure. are they a slow-to-respond top-heavy, arrogant
institution whose responded to competition by implementing new products and
policies seemingly designed to screw over the consumer? of course they are. are
they destined for bankruptcy? probably.
but are they evil? no. this blind hatred is like the demonification of Bill
Gates, simply a nerdy programmer whose simply done what all us nerdy
programmers aspire to do: make a million dollars off of our nerdy endeavors.
and a few years ago, who among us didn't respect and revere the almighty
InterNic, a mild mannered small tech company (much as we see ourselves) who
apparently had the cluefullness and the wherewithal to land a great big fat
contract with the U.S.Government, that eventually earned them fame, power and
incredible business clout in what (few might've guess) would soon become the
most important and lucrative arena of business and finance in the world: the
.com(mercial) zone of the internet.
so NSI's billing procedures suck. so do the billing procedures of the *vast*
majority of dialup ISP's, web-hosts and other internet-only businesses that
I've ever dealt with (including my own, unhappily, though i do try :-)
i wouldn't, uh make a federal case out of it. isn't it possible that customers
(especially companies) who pay bills just because they arrive in the mail,
without knowing (or caring or checking) if they are accurate, might just have
deeper problems than even another five year multimillion dollar Department of
Justice class action lawsuit can solve?
nonlitigiously yours,
-dave
