[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: Registerfly-specked?

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Posted by The Night Writer:
Registerfly-specked?
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1172763978.shtml


   I need some help or information here because I'm afraid The Night
   Writer might get stolen away -- well, in the night.
   When I started blogging I registered my domain name with Registerfly
   for a nominal fee. I renewed the registration a year later with no
   problem. Again this year I received emails from Registerfly warning
   that my annual renewal was coming up. I renewed the domain name one
   day before the expiration and paid through PayPal which sent me a
   confirmation.
   I then received an email from Registerfly that it wasn't able to renew
   my domain. I figured it must have been a glitch in the ordering
   process, and went back to their site to try it again. This time I got
   an on-screen message saying that they couldn't renew the domain name
   because their records show it belongs to someone other than my User
   ID! Naturally I've tried to contact Registerfly to try and figure out
   what's going on and can't get through. The several emails I've sent
   have so far gone unanswered and when I called in during business hours
   last week I was on hold for 35 minutes (with a helpful message
   repeating itself every minute telling me how many people were still
   ahead of me and how many minutes I'd already been waiting) and when I
   finally got to the head of the line I was suddenly put into voicemail
   - with a message that the Voice Mailbox was full!
   Right now, I don't know where things stand or even if Registerfly is
   still a going concern or not. Supposedly I have a month's grace period
   to renew my domain after it expires, but right now I'm not feeling too
   confident about anything. I don't want to see this blog overnight turn
   into a site selling foot creams or discount medications (not that
   there's anything wrong with that), and I don't want to move my domain
   registration business to GoDaddy because of their advertising.
   Here are my questions; I'd appreciate comments from anyone who has any
   information or advice:
    1. How do I go about moving my domain registration from one vendor to
       another, and are there other companies out there other than
       Registerfly or GoDaddy that anyone can recommend?
    2. If my domain name should truly be lost, can I still preserve my
       URL and, especially, my on-line archives? (I'm in the process of
       manually transferring these to my hard-drive, which takes up time
       that I have precious little of right now).
    3. If I end up changing my domain name and URL, is there a simple way
       to leave a "forwarding address"?

   Thanks, folks.