>We have encountered a situation where names that were >transferred to Tucows prior to April 19, 2001 have had >a registration year, originally applied in error, >revoked by the Registry. The names affected had been >originally transferred to Tucows in the 45 days >following the domains expiry date. > >The names were erroneously granted an extra year by >Verisign in the transfer. > >On October 10th, 2001, Verisign ran a 'fix' to remove >the extra domain year from domains in this situation.
I have been looking into this for a few of the effected domains... basically Verisign Registry found a way to help their friends down the hall keep some money (probably a lot of money) that they are not entitled to. Here is how the scam works: 1) Domain registrant pays for a one year renewal and one year is added to the domain. 2) Registrant then submits a transfer request within 45 days of the renewal date. 3) Verisign Registrar (aka Netsol Registrar at the time) approves the transfer. 4) One domain year is added via the transfer process paid for by the registrant to the gaining registrar. 5) The registry credits a year back to Netsol Registrar (because of the 45 day rule), however Verisign Registrar DOES NOT refund the renewal fee paid by the registrant. Here the bug comes into play... the year was not actually removed. 6) Allow just over a year to pass (which makes it nearly impossible for the registrant to charge back on Netsol Registrar), Verisign Registry removes the year that the registrant paid for but Netsol registrar got a credit for. 7) Now the registrant is out $35 that they paid to Verisign/Netsol Registrar for something that was taken away over one year after they paid their credit card bill. I really can't wait to see what type of scam Verisign plans to pull next...
