What do I do now???

Ok, so I've waited 24 hours and got no reply.

Dreamhost permanently disables my account and now I can't transfer my domains away because they are all locked and under private proxy's registered to dreamhost.

If they don't answer my emails how on earth do I proceed with this and get the domain unlocked?

There's nothing you can do but wait.

Offering support to ex-customers that broke the TOS isn't going to be a priority.

Abuse Office hours are not 24/7, and 24 hour response time does not apply.

How did they notify you of account closure? Did they say what to expect?

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They sent me an email at 22.58 GMT Friday night.

They didn't say anything other than the fact that I had been running a blog which they considered to be an SEO link farm (I'm not even sure I know what that is).

That is it. No major dramas. I haven't been emailing millions of people or anything daft like that.

I run a small record label so its nothing to do with anything dodgy or "not work safe".

All I want is for them to unlock the domains and give me the auth codes. Surely that isn't too much to ask?

And, with one of the domains expiring on Sunday morning I'm very concerned - will it go into a 30 day grace period or will it just vanish and be snapped up by some domain vulture?

If abuse support isn't 24/7 then is it just Monday to Friday? If so, why not tell me not to expect a reply.

I know they can cancel my account whenever they like but those domains are legally registered to me. Its not right that they hold them hostage like this. With this sort of behaviour its no wonder they have such a bad reputation with the BBB.

Edited by Brass Revolver on 07/28/07 08:50 AM (server time).

In reply to:

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They didn't say anything other than the fact that I had been running a blog which they considered to be an SEO link farm (I'm not even sure I know what that is).

---

If you really don't know what an "SEO linkfarm" is, I'm wondering you you have gotten bitten by the scourge of a "sponsored link" spammish "free" wordpress template.

This has been a real problem of late for many WordPress users, as certain providers of "free" templates have been notorious for embedding *many* hidden links within their templates.

An unsuspecting, or overly trusting, user might like the "look" of the template, and use it on their blog without even realizing they have just shot themselves in the foot.

Were you using WordPress, and what template were you using?

On the subject of your real issue, which is your domain name renewal/transfer, while I understand your concern, I think you may be over-reacting. It's been less than 48 hours, and it *is* a weekend. DreamHost has no interest in holding your domain name "hostage", and the fact they have not yet answered does not mean they wont.

--rlparker

BTW to the OP. Yes, you'll have the standard 30 day grace period to re-register the expired domain.

"BTW to the OP. Yes, you'll have the standard 30 day grace period to re-register the expired domain."

That puts my mind at rest. And I presume that all the other domains I have with dreamhost will be unlocked eventually.

I have no idea how I will re-register it if I don't have any access to dreamhosts control panel though. They really do like to make things difficult.

As for the wordpress thing here is what I had done...

I had one domain for the record label and then several other domains, one for each artist. They would interlink each other (which seemed a perfectly natural thing to do) and each artist would have a wordpress blog.

Each artists blog would also have news taken from the main record label wordpress blog syndicated into its news page. And, the main blog would have a syndicated feed from each artists page, just as headlines.

No google ads or any of that rubbish, just real original content from real artists who had signed to my label. And, lets not forget that currently ALL of these artists have their websites offline all because of Dreamhosts shoot first policy.

How this can be not allowed is just beyond me. I feel like I am being treated like some sort of internet fraudster when in fact I am just running a record label which links to and from its artists websites!

I'm so fed up with the whole thing that I just want the auth codes and to pack up and leave for a host that has proper (in other words telephone) support and a more intelligent TOC. I'm all for taking down the spammers but deleting my account for linking all my sites together and sharing content (my content and that of the artists signed to me) between them is just madness. Absolute madness.

Did you allow comments on the blogs? If so, hidden links in comments could bite you.

Good thing our standard site statistics are password protected, or we'd all get shut down for referral link spam.

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Yes, the blogs allowed comments, but they were all moderated and where nothing to cause any concern. Just the usual thing you would expect to see on a musicians blog.

Going back to another point, when do you think they might reply? 24 hours is up (well, very nearly). It only needs a support guy to give me the codes, thats all it will take. How difficult can that be?


Edited by Brass Revolver on 07/28/07 11:50 AM (server time).

My crystal ball says no sooner than Monday, probably mid-week, Pacific time. If you asked them to look at it, then they will. There have been cases where temporarily disabled sites were re-activated.

It's not a question of difficulty. Try to see it from their perspective. When they closed your account, they wrote you off as a future revenue stream. Where do you think that puts you versus regular Support priority?

tor.eff.org
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If this isn't sorted on Monday then I'll get ICAAN to force them to release the domains. This sort of nonsense just won't be tolerated and nor should it be. In fact, I'm going to email ICAAN now just so they have the facts.