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Problems at domaincentral.com.au

Computer Aid Posted on by

As some of you have noticed (particularly customers trying to email me), computer-aid.com.au has been totally disabled for about one day.

Nobody hacked my site, and there was nothing wrong with my hosting company (netfirms.com).

It turns out my domain registrar (domaincentral.com.au) had decided to suspend computer-aid.com.au … apparently because it hadn’t been renewed.

Well, I check through my past emails, and I see they sent me a domain renewal notice on the 30th of April, 2009.

Mandy dutifully paid it the next day (1st May 2009)… about 3 months before it was actually due to be renewed.

We thought: ah, good, we now won’t need to worry about it expiring for a long time.

As soon as we noticed a problem, Mandy logged into domaincentral.com.au, and she could see that the computer-aid domain would expire sometime in 2011, so it wasn’t immediately clear that there was a DNS problem… but since the domain servers field would sometimes show strange names, and since my other domains (computer-aid.net.au & computeraid.net.au) worked well, then it had to be a DNS issue.

It took about an hour, but DomainCentral did find the problem “a billing problem”… yeah, right, and after a few hours for the usual DNS propagation delay, computer aid is finally back on the air.

And something similar happened a few months earlier: I registered 3 new domains with domain central… 2 were approved within an hour… but the third remained pending for about 2 weeks… only after contacting domain central, did they “fix” the problem (another “billing problem”)

But it did make me wonder: with “friends” like domain central, who need “enemies” (like website hackers)…

It also made me wonder: this problem could easily have gone on for months, if I hadn’t been paying attention.

I must say, up until about 3 months ago, domaincentral.com.au have been fantastic quality and value… but then how difficult can it be to maintain domain pointers?

Anyway, I’ll be keeping any eye on them… any more stuffups, and I’ll go elsewhere.

Comments

Problems at domaincentral.com.au — 9 Comments

  1. I’m glad you got this problem straightened out. I tried several times to visit. I have problems with my hosting sometimes also.

  2. HELLO friend. I enjoy pouring through your post here. Keep up with the good work of making relevant information.

  3. I have hosted several sites and domains with Domain Central for many years. never had a problem.

  4. Yes there seems to be a lot of delays to get domain names registered with them. Today 10 Aug 2009 at 9:45am I went to visit their site to do dns maintenance on our sites and checkup on delays for some domain names we wanted and the site domaincentral.com.au no longer exists! No DNS or HTTP error message, just plain nothing.
    I also went in via google search to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me – its gone ! This is a real worry. Tried to find their phone number in the yellow pages and they dont even come up.
    Have they gone broke and closed up shop?
    Still trying their site… What a joke.

  6. I had a similar problem with my domain http://www.omochi.com.au. I found out i was using the wrong password to login. I emailed them and got resolution within 3 hrs. Wouldn’t write this company off just yet.

  7. I have 1200 domain name registered with Domain Central GoDaddy and Netregistry … I have had so many issues with Domain Central I am about to explode … I believe there is some insider trading when it comes to premium domains … this is why they make it so hard to contact for their support issues. I have 240 domains with Domain Central and I am now trying to transfer them to Netregistry, Netereg have improved greatly with their service in the past couple of years. Domain Central are losing much business and credibility due to their corrupt standards as did their sister company which was recently closed from trading by the AUDA for similar corrupt activities. ‘Do not use Domain Central’ and save yourself some stress, money and time. I am going to report their actions to the AUDA.

  8. The sister company was Bottle Domains … Google it for more details re their corrupt trading activities. (Bottle Domains owns Domain Central so BEWARE)

  9. Steer well away from domaincentral. They are nothing but nonesense.

    They fail to provide support for the most simplest of tasks; and they fail to provide answers, reasons to downtime etc.

    Dont waste your time or money on this company. Find a better solution, such as netregistry as Gary D said.

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