In case anyone gets bitten by this, the process for transfering your domain away from joker.com has now been changed. You have to initiate the transfer at joker.com, then you can initiate the transfer at the gaining registrar.
What a pain! See the bottom half of the transfer FAQ, posted below for your convenience. https://joker.com/static/faq_w3/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Change from joker.com to another Registrar Please go to Servicezone to transfer domains from joker to another registrar. New procedure for transfers of domains from joker.com to another ICANN accredited registrar Law in Germany is oriented to protect the consumer. Joker.com is obligated to ask the owner and/or the admin-c for explicit agreement in the case a domain should be transferred from joker.com to another ICANN accredited registrar. Starting 24.04.2002 joker.com introduces a new process for those requests : 1. Step : Opening a time slot of 10 calender days for transfers of domains at joker.com 1a. Joker.com will only accept transfer-request from other registrars if advised before such request arrives at joker.com . 1b. Advising joker.com can be done by the owner or admin-c or billing-c of the domain by opening a time slot for transfer of the domain. Please go to Servicezone to initiate the opening. 1c. As soon as joker.com gets the demand to open the time slot the owner and the admin-c are notified by email. 1d. If none of them objects, but at least one of them agrees explicitly within 5 calendar days, an additional time slot of 10 calender days is opened during which joker.com accepts transfer-request from other registrars. 1e. The owner and the admin-c will be notified of the result of that first step, i.e. after 5 days. 1f. If the time slot was opened, the owner and admin-c will be informed at the end of the time slot if no transfer-request was received by joker.com . 1g. If the TLD is .info or .biz you need a so called auth-id from joker.com. That auth-id must be submitted to the registry by the new registrar. If the 10 days time slot is opened you will be able to get the auth-id by using the status request of transfer at the servicezone. 1h. During the whole time (5+10 days), but only if the domains is not already transferred, the owner and/or admin-c has the possibility to reject the transfer. 2. Step : Initiating the transfer-request at another registrar 2a. In addition and after getting the notification from joker.com that the time slot of 10 days is open, the new registrar has to initiate the transfer-request at the registry. 2b. If such transfer-request arrives within the time slot at joker.com the domain will be transferred to the new registrar without additional request of agreement from the owner and/or admin-c. 2c. Owner and admin-c will be notified of the result. 2d. Transfer-request arriving outside the time slot will be refused. 2e. Transfer-request arriving when a domain is expired will be refused. Be aware that the registry for com - net - org has a process of auto-renew, i.e. the domain is temporarily prolonged at the cost of joker.com even if it was not paid by the customer. That domain is considered as expired and will be deleted if the customer does not pay.
