Legally, a domain name can be registered to another entity if the current registrant transfers it, or it is allowed to expire, and only then after a grace period and notifications sent to the original registrant.

That being said, there is lots of slamming still going one, despite efforts to curb it. If you suspect your domain name was transferred before it had expired, contact interNic, not the registrar, with proper credentials, and tell them what you think happened. If you are still sure an active domain was transferred without proper authorization, a letter to your state's attorney general's office would seem to be the next logical step.

The "black hole" in the registrar renewal notice system, is that the reminders and right to cure notices are often sent by email, so if the email address for your church has changed, they may not receive the notices at all. In the case of my ISP, they sold their domain name and never notified icann of the change in my email address, so my site went dark for two days while I struggled to resurrect it.

It's dog-eat-dog with speculators, and you are incredibly lucky that your church's domain was not sold to a gambling, adult entertainment, or spam outfit.

Thanks for the info musicvid.
Jay, thank you too for replying. The domain had NOT lapsed, it was autorenewed every year, the last renewal happened just days before the bad stuff happened.
The church was completely unaware of any "transfers".
The old domain was marshallroadbaptist.org

Whois has changed quit a bit, but it still shows expiration is sept. 2010.

Bottom line, stick with well-known domain folks, like register.com, I've done business with them for years, great support, EASY to reach a person 24/7.

... but it still shows expiration is sept. 2010."

Yes, I see that, according to InterNIC.

That being the case, I would contact the church's legal counsel and see what he thinks might be done. It could get expensive!

It looks like you've been slammed.

I think interNic should be your first point of contact.

Depending on how specific the domain name was, it may be possible to have the name revert to the original owner, on the basis that the name when used by the new owners infringes on the church's trademark (which can be implicit, it doesn't have to be registered).

If it's important, get a lawyer who specializes in this.

And register with GoDaddy next time, using their automatic renewal. I think they are the best company for domain registration, and everything just works the way you'd want it to work (I'm not impressed by their hosting, they seem to live in the past).

Slamming is alive and well in the landline business. I have always had a "PIC Freeze" on my business lines, so that any long distance company wanting to claim my lines would have to show my written approval first.

In spite of this, my fax line was slammed two weeks ago. I called the phone company's "Valued Business Customer" extra special customer service line, and after 30 minutes of shooting myself out of the maze (because they didn't have an option in any menu for this, and they made it very hard to access anything but androids) and waiting on hold, I finally got connected with a warm body that fixed the problem, and promised to investigate how the long distance company had been able to bypass the PIC freeze.

Needless to say, they never called back about the PIC freeze, and now two weeks later I have been slammed again.

Remember when landlines were ironclad and customer service was sacred?

If you will go here and type in your domain name, you will find all the relevant information. The registrant appears to be your church.
http://www.internic.net/whois.html

Also, enom.com whois gives the same information, updated 9-27-09.

If eNom is refusing to give you the password, or is disallowing you to transfer the domain to a new registrar, they are likely in violation of their icann agreement. Talk to interNic, tell them what you think happened, and open a dispute if eNom still doesn't comply.

If eNom...is disallowing you to transfer the domain to a new registrar, they are likely in violation of their icann agreement.

That happened to me with Network Solutions many years ago. I wanted to transfer my domain registration to GoDaddy, they wouldn't let me out of their $35.00/year clutches (vs. $7.95 at GoDaddy).

Phone calls to every number I could find did nothing. Finally I wrote a fax to their legal department, stating the consequences of their refusal. Only 30 minutes later I got a call from their chief corporate counsel saying the problem would be taken care of immediately, and it was.

Gotta play hardball with these (*)s.

enom is in violation of sooooooooooo many ICANN rules it's amazing they're still allowed to operate. Generally anyone who wants to host something illegal or underhanded registers a name with enom because enom won't cooperate with any official agencies to resolve the issues.

That being said, ICANN does have a dispute resolution service. If you can show that the name uniquely identifies your organization you should be able to file a grievance and ICANN may intercede and assist you in obtaining the name again. This is true even if you didn't own the domain name originally. For example, if i registered "ibmsoftware.com", IBM could file a grievance and have that name transferred to them because my ownership of it would tread on their trademark. I don't know how much pull a church will have in this respect but it's worth visiting icann.org and filling out the "uniform domain name dispute resolution" form and starting the process.

Every domain registrar offers a "lock" feature. With this feature activated the registrar will refuse any transfer requests for the domain. With the feature off, transfer requests from other registrars are sometimes accepted with no verification whatsoever, especially if the requesting registrar claims they already have authorization. All domain owners should always activate this switch. If your domain registrar doesn't offer this feature, move to another registrar ... now!

register.com is usually very good. I haven't used them personally but i know many who do and they are all happy. I use godaddy.com and have had no problems with them either.

One last bit of advice ... registering a domain is so simple and easy to do these days that no one should ever let someone else register for them. Do it yourself, make sure all the contact information (except technical) is valid for yourself, keep the email addresses and phone numbers current. This way you always have control over your domain and always receive notifications. Your hosting company will tell you what DNS and technical contact information needs to be set up and it only takes a minute to enter that too.

godaddy sends me an e-mail every year saying that if my info isn't correct then I can loose my registration. I know for a FACT that TV stations purpously go searching for other stations mistakes @ FCC renewal time just to tattle them to the FCC. Is it possible something wasn't right & they got you for that?

Thanks to everyone for their input. I knew with the vast amount of knowledge on this forum there would be good help.
Y'all have a great day!
daryl

It seems like that your church bought web hosting *and* domain registration from Avid Hosting. When you do this, the web host may make it a pain in the ass for you to switch your domain registration to another company. This makes it easier for them to retain your web hosting business.

It seems like Avid Hosting has gone out of business(?) and therefore they aren't really replying to you about your domain? It doesn't seem like anything nefarious is going on to me.

2- It's generally a good idea to get domain registration and web hosting from different companies.

3- You may be able to get some help on webhostingtalk.com

4- Did you try transferring your domain to another domain registrar? That would let you rescue your domain.
*I'm not sure how you'd get the EFP code though in your case. Your current domain registrar is supposed to give it to you. (In practice things may get lost.) Avid Hosting could be reselling eNom's domain registration. Normally you'd get the EFP code from them.

Try contacting both Avid Hosting and eNom... ask for the EFP code. You will also need to be able to read jwilkerson's email or have him forward you relevant emails. When you transfer domains, a email will be sent with a confirmation code that you need.

EDIT: sorry, I didn't read your original post carefully. It seems like you have tried this??

I got into something similar some years ago. I purchased one of those hosting packages that offers domain name registration with the hosting. After a year, I found cheaper/better hosting elsewhere. However, since the hosting company did the original registration of the domain name, they claimed they owned it and wouldn't allow me to transfer it. Since NetSol would only recognize them as the domain owner, I could not redirect it to the new host. Luckily, that hosting company died a long horrible death during the dotcom bubble burst.

Like was said earlier, it is easy to register your own domains. I always keep my hosting and registration accounts seperate now. I use dotster for the 'disposable' domain names and Network Solutions for the ones I want to keep locked up.

Have you read the site avidhosting.org by the way?

LOST YOUR DOMAIN TO AVIDHOSTING?

Contact Enom! They SHOULD be helping with this nightmare! Try contacting ICAAN!!! See if they will help with this nightmare! See my UPDATES page for more information. There may be something there that will help you get started.

Received this information from one of the Avid customers and she gave me permission to post it. We hope it will help the rest of you reclaim your domains. Contact Elida Flores at Enom. Email her at customercare /at/ enom.com. Enom WILL HELP! Create an Enom account at www.eNomCentral.com and email them verification of domain ownership through an invoice showing payment made to AvidHosting. Enom will then transfer the domains to your Enom account. They will also provide a transfer key to do this.

Watch this discussion thread at Web Hosting Talk about Avidhosting. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=652705

"It's generally a good idea to get domain registration and web hosting from different companies."

I disagree completely. The problem comes in when you have a third party handling everything for you. Do a Whois search on your domain. The Admin contact is the owner of the domain - not the Registrant.

I suspect that this may have been a case of snooze/lose.