Unless it is clearly spelled out in the agreements on your
web site.
I would consult a good attorney if the amount involved is
worth the hassle.
Opinions of non-attorneys, even mine, are worthless in this
issue.
Frankly, I am awaiting such a situation to arise, as I will
enjoy see if OpenSRS can maintain the dual role they now try
to claim in a court.
Either the end user is their client or the reseller is their
client, but not both. Real estates agents deal with this
issue all the time and are often sued if they forget that
their client is the one that pays them the money, not the
end buyer of the property. (Pays them the money==RSP, end
buyer of property==end user or Registrant, for those on this
list who have problems understanding such concepts.)
Other Registrars deal with this issue and recognize that the
reseller is their client and has control over the domain
name.
And before you pipe up William, we no longer use OpenSRS to
register new domains. We are only using OpenSRS to service
the domains we have already registered with them until such
time as they are not renewed by OUR clients or OUR clients
transfer the domains to another registrar.
The difference between us and this individual is that we do
not maintain control of the domain names, but give control
to OUR clients by providing them the username and password.
It is our decision to give such control to OUR clients.
Quite frankly, we are not interested in keeping the domain
names unless OUR client hits us with a chargeback. With
billing disputes, we simply turn them over to a collection
agency, as we keep the amounts small by limiting how long we
will allow a client to be in an unpaid status for any fee
owed us.
With chargebacks, we take the domain name and turn them over
to a collection agency. But first we invoice them for the
cost of the chargeback and our time and expense in
responding to the chargeback. And yes, it is legal to do
this. Our attorney wrote our agreements and contracts.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
> Of Hostroute.com
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 4:41 AM
> To: Stewart Boutcher; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Legal/Ethical question for the list
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Stewart Boutcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: OpenSRS Discuss List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: Jonathan Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 9:36 AM
> Subject: Legal/Ethical question for the list
>
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > We have a customer who is one of those pain in
> the ass customers who is
> > continually complaining about this & that
> related to his service, and is
> > never keen to pay any money for anything.
> >
> > We have 8 domains registered for this customer,
> including 3 or 4 through
> OpenSRS.
> >
> > Over the past year, the data transfer used by
> this customer's web site has
> gone
> > through the roof. Our Virtual Server packages
> allow 2gb per month, and
> for the
> > past 6 months, he has increasingly exceeded
> this, up to a predicted 10gb
> this month,
> > with 8.5gb last month.
> >
> > Rather than just shut him off, we attempted to
> negotiate with him about
> moving to
> > a managed server with more data transfer. To
> cut a long story short, he
> was not
> > playing, so we said "fair enough, here's a bill
> for excess data transfer
> as per
> > our T&C".
>
> I think you have little, or no, right to prevent the move.
> The domain i sin his name and if you try he will
> just go to OpenSRS
> compliance.
> I am not convinced that the Nominet system is right.
> Why should someone owing us money for web hosting
> give su the right to
> impound their domain?
> Even in cases where we have been abiused by
> serial spammers we have
> continued as their registrar and collected the
> domain renewal fees even
> though we no longer host them.
>
> Even if you can bill his card he will probably
> just do a chargeback (the
> voice of experience speaks!).
>
> You need to separate the domain and hosting
> issues as they are really quite
> seperate.
>
> Gordon Hudson
> Hostroute.com
> Hostroute.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
