More NetSol (WorldNIC) fiascos (fwd)

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 12:19:05 -0700
From: Adrian Goins <monachus@dimensional.com>
To: INET-ACCESS
Subject: More NetSol (WorldNIC) fiascos

one of our customers registered his domains incorrectly with Network
Solutions (aka WorldNIC), and in my efforts to repair them, i've run into
more problems...

i was able to get in with the ISP password from his registration sheet,
but upon trying to switch the tech contact to our NIC Handle, it wanted a
password.  obviously, the handles were imported from the Internic
registry, so there isn't a password on it (we use mail-from).  i called
NetSol and wound up with a tech (Mike) who told me, "Network Solutions is
not yet releasing the tech contact passwords.  That is scheduled for
sometime in the future, so for the time being you have to contact us and
we'll make the changes for you."

this wouldn't be that big of a deal if i hadn't already waited 45 minutes
in their hold queue just to get to mike.  i started clawing my way up the
chain of supervisors and got to Sonya Hussain, Tech II, who told me the
same thing.  when i asked to go to her supervisor, she told me that she
"doesn't transfer calls to her supervisor."  she wouldn't give a reason
why, but offered to take my name/number for a callback.

uh huh...sure.  i'm still waiting for Vance B., Team Lead (that's all she
would tell me about him), to contact me.

i did find a temporary solution, which seems to be to register a new
contact in the NetSol database with the same information as the Internic
database (blah), and at that point it will be assigned a password and can
be used.  i did this last week, but when trying to use it today, it seems
to be broken (the password was no longer working - go figure). 

upon trying to troubleshoot this from within their bungled website (what
was the message they sent out?  something about bringing all of their
services together into an 'easy to use web site' ...), the HTML output
from their servlets suddenly skipped a closing " and rendered a huge blank
white screen.  quite easy to use.

subsequent attempts to reload the page or get to a place where i can do my
job for my customers gave the all-too-familiar "Our System Is Temporarily
Unavailable" screen.

wonderful.  so i'm left with the following:

1.  Network Solutions can register their own domains for their own clients
    without a problem
2.  my customers can register stuff under NetSol's control, but not
    pointing at us.
3.  NetSol is deliberately interfering with my ability to modify domain 
    information on behalf of the people who pay me money to do so, thereby
    willingly interfering with my ability to do business.
4.  the only way around #3 is to spend an eternity in the land of tense
    hold music (which i'm convinced is designed to make people hang up),
    and then handhold some tech through fixing/changing whatever it is
    that _should_ have only taken a few minutes by normal means.  i don't
    have the staff to do that, nor the time to do so myself.

NetSol indicates that they are not releasing tech passwords until such
time as they finish testing their 'new and improved' software to make sure
that it holds up under stress (which it doesn't) and only allows
modifications by appropriate parties (which it did).  hmmm...when i wrote
software for MCI and others, we always followed the development procedure
of testing _before_ putting it into production.  anyone disagree?

maybe they should have thought of all of this before they hijacked
rs.internic.net.

final rant:

NetSol's nifty little templates do not allow more than two name servers to
be entered for a given domain.  all of our customers should have all four
of our nameservers listed.  does networksolutions.com adhere to this?
hell no - they have three nameservers for their own domain.

this is not acceptable.  i'm about to lose customers because NetSol can't
code java servlets to save their lives, and because they jumped the gun on
trying to make an improvement.

something _really_ needs to be done about this, and soon.


-- 
Adrian Goins
NetOps Director

---
Adrian Goins           | D i m e n s i o n a l   C o m m u n i c a t i o n s |
adrian@dim.com         | DSL/V90/K56flex/V34/ISDN/Frame/T1/T3 starts @$25/mo |
303.285.INET voice     |  http://www.dimensional.com/  info@dimensional.com  |
888.3.DIMCOM tollfree  |  Denver * Boulder * Longmont * Bailey * CO Springs  |

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Adrian Goins
NetOps Director

---
Adrian Goins           | D i m e n s i o n a l   C o m m u n i c a t i o n s |
monachus@dim.com       | DSL/V90/K56flex/V34/ISDN/Frame/T1/T3 starts @$25/mo |
303.285.INET voice     |  http://www.dimensional.com/  info@dimensional.com  |
888.3.DIMCOM tollfree  |  Denver * Boulder * Longmont * Bailey * CO Springs  |
-
Send 'unsubscribe' in the body to 'list-request@inet-access.net' to leave.
Eat sushi frequently.   inet@inet-access.net is the human contact address.