Thread by @nixcraft

Long thread: What happens when your domain registrar close down biz and goes bankrupted:

NET4 India is in insolvency case, and it went out of business. The director is in jail for fraud. Over 3,75,000 domains stuck with them. Their phone lines are off, & email bounces.

I have 15 years old domain stuck with them, and getting transfer out of it seems like a nightmare. Thank god I moved all my domains a long time ago from NET4 to @Godaddy and later moved to @Namecheap.

To transfer your own domain to 3rd party like Namecheap, you need an unlocked domain and auth code. NET4 is out of biz, and their control panel is locked too. Hence no way to get the auth code.

I contacted Namecheap and asked them what to do, and here is what they told me:

Armed with this information, I finally contacted the highest authority using [e-mail]. However, these NET4 assholes scrambled and changed whois data, including the address and email IDs of all domains. So it is now next to impossible to verify ownership—such evilness.

After tons of communication with [e-mail] (the highest authority that can help give me auth code), they asked me to submit a government-issued photo ID and address proof that needs to be matched with whois, which NET4 completely messed up.

It took me more than a week to get the correct person to help, yet there is no guarantee I will get my domain back. However, @inregistry support team seems helpful, and this was their last reply.

The horror show is real and stressful. Currently, there are no laws in place when such shit happens. I appreciate guideline so far provided by @inregistry & @Namecheap, but @ICANN need to create simple procedure when domain registrar dies down.

Here is news paper article business-standard.com/article/curren…

I have an email ID tied with this domain, and losing it to someone else means disaster for sure. My fingers are crossed, and I hope I will hear good news soon so that I can move my domain to safe place. /The END.

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