Last week I decided on a new domain name and purchased it at www.enomcentral.com.  I had chosen the company after browsing through the internet, reading about people’s experiences, and speaking with people about their experiences; the company sounded impressive.  I registered www.makingthishome.com, and I never suspected that anything could go wrong.  From there, nothing went right.

I guess my account was placed on fraud alert and my domain purchase was canceled.  The problem was that Enomcentral never contacted me about any of this.  All I had was a confirmation email about my successful purchase and a locked enom account.  As far as I knew, I owned the domain name.  When I called enom to see why my account was locked, the representative I spoke with said I had to email their risk management team.  I asked to speak to the risk management team instead (we all know how well emails to big businesses go).  The representative said e-mail was the only option.  

I emailed risk management immediately.  At the end of the day, they sent me a generic letter requesting a list of three documents to verify my identity.  They would accept this information by fax or email, and no other information was provided to me.

Faxing stuff like that isn’t really an option for me right now–I’m in Germany, so I emailed the requested information.  But I wasn’t totally dumb.  I sent the information Friday morning in an encrypted message.  To open the document, they would have to call me for the password.  I never heard back.

I kept calling their customer help line.  The representatives kept promising that the risk management team was working on my paperwork.  That’s one thing about Americans that drives me crazy–when we don’t know the answer, we make one up.  Wouldn’t you say that’s true?  We’re afraid of saying, “I don’t know.”  In this case, I knew the answers I was getting were wrong.  There was no one working on my documents because no one had the password to open them.

LOSING MY DOMAIN NAME

When I typed in www.makingthishome.com into the webhost, it said it was in process–meaning someone had bought the address and it was being established.  Naturally, I assumed that someone was me.  I’m not a techy person, and I’d been given no reason to believe otherwise.  (I suppose domain name savvy people would know something is up, that it shouldn’t take several days, etc.  But I am not a domain name savvy person.  This was my first time buying a domain name.)

On Sunday, I went to look at www.makingthishome.com and saw an advertisement.  It was clear that someone had bought my domain name.  Someone who wasn’t me.  My husband showed me how to look up the owner–someone named Chad in California.  It was pretty obvious that he didn’t buy the website for the same pretty-picture and girly reason that I had in mind.

The weekend enom representative told me to call back on Monday and ask for customer service.  So I did.  But then the new representative said that she could not forward me to them because my account was locked.  I asked her how to get my account unlocked so that I could speak to someone.  Anyone!  Risk management was being completely unresponsive.  Again, I was told that I should relax.  Risk management was “working on it.”  I resolved to stay on the phone until I was certain things were being handled.

GETTING OFF THE FRAUD LIST

Maybe an hour later, I received an email from risk management.  They requested the same information that was asked of me before.  But now they would only accept a fax of it.  Like I said, faxing wasn’t an option for me.  I wrote back and said I had already sent the information via email on Friday.  As with every email I wrote, I included my phone number, so it wasn’t a matter of risk management being able to reach me; it was a matter of whether they wanted to.

I have to say that putting a password on a document is the PERFECT way to get a real person on the phone with you.  When a risk management team member called for the password, I was absolutely shocked.  I gave it to him, and not even a moment later, he had the document open and said okay–my account was unlocked.

But what about my lost domain name, I asked.  He didn’t seem to care, and he didn’t seem interested in revealing any information about why I was placed on their fraud alert.  

It turns out that anyone using a US credit card outside of the US is automatically placed on fraud alert.  They don’t contact you about anything because then it alerts frauds.  What about the people who aren’t frauds?  Well I guess they haven’t thought about that part.

NOW WHAT?

It’s great to know that I had chosen a company that takes such detailed measures to monitor fraud.  Except if you land in the fraud pile, it’s near impossible to swim back to shore.  They need to work on that.

And they need to work on it fast.  Now I’ve been trying to think of a new domain name ever since.