So you know, I build websites and along with that service, assist my customers with managing their domain names. I end up dealing with a lot of different registrars and web hosting as well as web developers and I’m here to tell ya, what a mess ICANN has allowed the industry has become.
Before I get into much more, I have currently been on hold and in live chat for over an hour and been oh hold for exactly 58 minutes with iPower.com. I have a client who had originally purchase his domain and hosting at IPOWER.com or iPower web. This is a company that resells domains to it’s customers from Tucows, commonly known as OpenSRS. My client wants the domain name transferred into his DomainPar.com account so we can set up hosting there as well.
Generally, the process should be very simple. Here’s the order in which this would take place in a perfect world:
Typical Domain Transfer Procedure:
- Login to your current registrar
- Go into the domain control panel and unlock the domain name
- Retrieve the EPP Code, also known as the domain transfer authorization Code.
- Login to your new registrar and request a transfer by entering both the domain name and the Authorization or EPP code and proceed through the process of requesting a transfer.
- The Administration contact email on the domain name would be contacted by the receiving Registrar usually with a link to approve the requesting transfer.
- Transfer is approved and unless denied by the losing registrar or locked, the domain name transfers in 5 days and then you are notified of the incoming transfer via email.
Sounds easy enough, right? Well, not at IPOWER Web and many other registrars out there. First, I was able to login to my client’s iPower web account but then couldn’t proceed with step two because their interface or API doesn’t provide a link to unlock your domain name. So I did a search they tell you everything about locking a domain name but nothing on how to unlock your domain name. Their site sends you to all kinds articles with links and information on how to transfer into IPOWER.com but nothing on how to unlock your domain and get the auth code to transfer away. This is not only costly but time consuming.
So, I proceed to contact support. Still logged in so it must go into some sort of support ticket system. I took some time and requested that they unlock the domain name and send the auth code to the administrative contact on the domain name… Pushed Send… the next page says this:
I’m sorry, but there has been a problem submitting your inquiry to IPOWER Support.
Please try submitting your request again. If you continue to have trouble with this form, you can always contact us directly by email, chat with a live agent, or call us at 888-511-4678.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Note: If you are experiencing service issues, please check the Support Center for Important System notices.
Is the above supposed to be some sort of dry humor? Now, I’ve currently been on hold for exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes listening to “You may find the information that you need by visiting support section of our website.” Of course still in live chat… oops, just missed them. No worries, their phone must work at some point during my blog writing… It took IPOWER almost an hour and 30 minutes to respond via live chat support:
Albert Lewis: Hi XXXX, I apologize for the wait time. My name is Albert, how are you today?
Albert Lewis: Did you receive my last message?
Albert Lewis: I’m sorry, it appears that we may have been disconnected. I am going to close this chat, please feel free to chat with us again.
So, I’ve emailed support and that failed. Tried to get the information myself on behalf of my client, that failed. Have nearly 2 hours tied up in this one simple domain name already and I cannot contact iPower in any way shape or form.. and have now missed Albert in Live Support. So, let’s go to the Support Section.
Here’s what I found in the Support Section ‘Search’ of IPOWER web:
Items found matching keywords ‘unlock’:
| Troubleshooting: Why is my domain locked? | |
| Configuring: Completing the Registrar Transfer Request for an automated registrar transfer | |
| Unlocking the value of your customers |
A search for “EPP” gave me this: We’re sorry, no items containing this phrase were found.
Items found matching keywords ‘Authorization Code’:
Now, after an hour and a half I finally had a live person on the phone. The operator, to IPOWER’s credit, was a very nice gentleman named Troy. I explained to him exactly what I was trying to do with my client’s domain name and he was very helpful. Almost instantly, Troy told me that what I had to do was:
How to Transfer you Domain Name from IPower
- Go to manage.opensrs.net and enter your Domain Name, Username and Password to your iPower web account.
- Go down to Domain Locking and disable locking
- Then click on Domain Extras and you will be presented with the EPP or authorization code.
That was exactly it too. So I spent over 2 hours trying to find out how to unlock and transfer a domain name out of iPower web while both on hold and in live chat support, when this is something that they could have just put on their website for their customers. I continued to explain to Troy the difficulty in obtaining this information from the iPower.com website and although he was very helpful and understood my complaint, it still took 2 hours to accomplish this. He was extremely polite and professional and should be given a raise but overall, iPower makes it extremely difficult to get the information you need to transfer your domain to another registrar.
IPOWER makes it difficult to transfer
This is not uncommon with Domain Resellers and often time ICANN Accredited Domain Registrars. Although they are supposed to make this information readily available, very few actually do it because the controlling organization doesn’t enforce or cannot enforce the policies that they write. Below it the toothless ICANN written policy:
Registrars may not employ any mechanism for complying with a Registered Name Holder’s request to obtain the applicable “AuthInfo Code” that is more restrictive than the mechanisms used for changing any aspect of the Registered Name Holder’s contact or name server information. – ICANN.org
Now, while the above may be Policy according to ICANN, this policy is broken by most domain registration companies including GoDaddy. Most of them have mechanisms in place that are meant to confuse or detour the domain registrant from transferring their domain to another registrar and this is the case with Ipower.com.
My Recommendation
Do business with companies you trust that will provide you with the information you need to manage your domain name when you need it without all the hassle. One of my favorite registrars, (due to the ease of domain management) is Fabulous.com. For my customers, I’ve developed an all in one solution called DomainPar.com which isn’t as friendly as Fabulous.com however, I personally take care of much of the set-up of their accounts and hosting and provide a more personalized support level.
Lots of Complaints about IPOWER Web
- America Bad Business List – 3 pages of complaints about Ipower Web.
- Avoid IPower at all costs – Cnet Forums say Stay Away!
- Ipower 191 negative reviews 31 positive – Webhosting Unleashed basically says it all.
- Ipower Bad Hosting – The Geeks say: “They used to be rated very highly, but not anymore”
- Ipower is a Disease – Webmasters don’t like IPOWER and say avoid Ipower at all costs.
- Digital Point says Ipower Sucks too – “About 24 hours after I registered the domain I got my login details. When I tried loggin in this didn’t work. The domain name still shows as not registered when I check it using internic. I sent an email to support and am still waiting for a reply after 4 days.”
Look before you leap! Do a search on Google before you do business with any company and then see what others are saying before getting into a trap.
you just saved another hour on hold. thanks!
Glad I could offer the information. Just to update, the domain did finally transfer and everything worked out. Next step will be to check my iPower account and see if the ghost of the domain still remains and if they are going to bill my client for it.
I’ll update!
Thank you for your solution. I did figure out one thing about this though. For some reason, some people’s ipower passwords don’t work on this service. If yours doesn’t, try using the default password “domain”
Thanks for this man. You just saved me a lot of time.
You would think businesses in the world today would have learned that if you don’t run your business honestly people are going to rip you on the internet. Sounds like someone at Ipower needs to be fired!!!
Thanks again!!!
IPowerWeb’s new vDeck is not an improvement, in my opinion, and they have also been allowing consistent hacking of some sites by Eastern European organized crime without doing anything about it. Their technical communication is bizzare, to say the least.
Thanks to your info, I successfully unlocked my domain today and am in the process of transferring out.
Thanks,
Chris
Thanks for your post. I’m a web developer helping a state agency transfer their hosting away from iPower. Thanks to my interaction with tech support on this very issue today, I’m also getting them off of iPower’s domain registration.
iPower’s tech support is horrible!
Ipower.com is really bad serivce. Be careful! Yes, they are cheap if you can be patient of their bad service. Please go ahead! Honestly, really be careful of this company.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I spent almost 2 hours surfing through their interface for a client, myself. I did a search for “EPP” (also found nothing) and finally searched for “code.” It came back with a transfer out procedure. I Power recommends to wait for the receiving registrar to submit the transfer request. (Because without an EPP code, that’s going to go very well.)
Justin,
This is Bryan from PayPal. Well, formally from PayPal (long story), but I have a question. My domain is up for renewal, and on the phone (when you called me at PayPal), you told me about Fabulous.com and how Tucows, my current registrar, isn’t so good. Can you get back to me and let me know the benefits of switching over to Fabulous?
Thanks!
jbh
Bryan, good to hear from you. Sorry I did not catch this sooner and respond… I’m actually doing a blog related to just that.
Anyway, Fabulous.com is absolutely splendid as a registrar. Not only in their security but in their level of support… Not to mention the absolute cleanest and easy to navigate registrar website around. So for me to try to be a reseller for a company I wouldn’t use myself… well, you know where I’m going.
I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about Tucows but I did send them a public letter that was never responded to. I’ve taken a look at their website and their reseller plans and they we’re just more than I wanted to get involved in. Their prices are also a bit steeper than what I want to pay to resell domain names to my customers.
Thanks so much! I have been slowly moving all my services away from IpowerWeb and this helped a lot!
Thanks for this post. Basically confirmed what I have been researching the past 24 hours on and off while transfering my site away.
Lesson Learned: Spend the $10 and buy the domain at a company other than your register.
How do you get the login credentials of manage.opensrs.net?
I tried with the same combination of my ipower account and it doesn’t work.
I submitted a ticket and I am awaiting, but if you know other way that would help.
Alex – wish I could be of some assistance however, I no longer have accounts at IPOWER. They could have changed their system login or something. Remember, your domain name isn’t owned by IPOWER, they simply set up an API as a reseller of Tucows, (OpenSRS). I’d imagine their system has been updated and evolved with php5 and reseller APIs. Best of luck to you! If you get into a bind, call opensrs or email their support team explaining the issue and let us know how it goes.
With regard getting the EPP code out of Ipower, nothing works better than a polite two-line email to support@ipower.com. Send it from the account that is listed for the Adminstration Contact. I also included a paste of the whois info for the account in question. Got the EPP for four domains inside of an hour.
I was able to login to only one of my four domains. It used the password that I used to originally set up the iPower account several years ago. I haven’t been able to figure out what the passwords are for the other accounts. I tried all the passwords I remember and also ‘domain’ but haven’t had any luck. This is terrible!
Trying to transfer a domain away from iPower and am getting the runaround. They keep sending me an Authorization Code to transfer my domain and the transfer keeps getting rejected b/c the code is wrong. When I ask iPower about it they just send me the same code again and again. Yeah thanks geniuses, it didn’t work the first 4 times, it’s not going to work now. They are making it impossible to transfer away from them. What a pain.
Also, if you do go with iPower (obviously I strongly recommend against that!) or if you’re already with them, never ever agree to the autobill feature. Once on, they will not turn it off. You may think you’ve turned it off in your console or after talking to a rep on the phone but it will magically come back on and your card will be charged. I learned this the hard way.
Great post – stumbled across it just when I’m trying to transfer a domain away from iPower.
I also stumbled across the UNLOCK DOMAIN feature quite by accident on this page about turning off auto renewal – http://members.ipower.com/knowledgebase/read_article.bml?kbid=1247
Here is how I did it:
– Log into DomainCentral.
– Select the check box next to the domain name that you would like to modify.
– More than one domain can be selected.
– Click Modify Selected Domains.
– The Edit Multiple Domains page is displayed.
– Notice that the selected domains are listed in the Selected Domains sections.
1. Verify that all the domains you wish to change are listed in the Selected Domains section.
2. If you wish to go back and select more domains, or different domains, click choose other domains… .
– In the Please Choose an Action section, select the UNLOCK option .
– Click the button to continue
– msg says “Domains Unlocked”
Note: once this has been done, I couldn’t find anything on the screen to show the UNLOCKED status, even by going through the same steps, so I can only hope it actually worked.
Now for the EPP CODE. I’ve just followed Del’s advice above and gone straigth to support@ Fingers’ crossed this works 🙂
From Spain to Ipower: hijos de puta.
I have a domain in ipower and it´s imposible to change the registrer.
I go to http://manage.opensrs.net/ and the login fail….
HIJOS DE PUTA SACACUARTOS!!
When looking to establish yourself as a domain reseller you should look to work with ICANN accredited registrars. This is one of the most fundamental aspects that can contribute to the success of your reseller business
the worst email service I have ever experienced. very frequent down times, my initial inquiry always returns someone telling me that everything is fine. severe limitations of the amount of email i can keep, the last to receive, forget their spam filter. Now that I complained, they are arbitrarily removing spam although I specifically asked them not to, as a result i am not able to verify my email account on certain sites which send emails to verify my account. People tell me that they don’t get my mail, and that I don’t get theirs. Stay away period. Now they started some new thing, I can’t even upload the address book which gmail accepts perfectly. the worst ever
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Avoid this bad company! ipower is one of the worst hosting companies I’ve ever dealt with. Their legal department are paranoid and mean jerks. They permanently suspended my website, even though I complied by removing the image they asked me to remove. Then they said even my quotes were infringing, which is protected by Fair Use Law, but I still removed them to comply the second time. They never gave me a third time. My website was terminated for nothing more than expressing my religious opinion. I would have gladly removed the article completely had I known they were going to terminate my account. What jerks! Your First Amendment rights mean nothing at I-power, because their thuggish terms of service agreement basically says they can do whatever they feel like doing to your website.
I e-mailed their customer support, twice, after they suspended my website and they totally blew me off, ignoring me, like I was garbage. That’s so childish! I wouldn’t give I-Power even one out of a possible five stars for customer service or working with their customers. I-power’s legal department has a real arrogant, careless, attitude problem! They’ll suspend your website and never re-enable it, without giving you a chance to remedy the problem. If anybody, and I mean anybody, complains about a page on your website, i-power will tell you to do something about it, but they don’t tell you what to do. Then when you remove the mentioned item by the complainant, they’ll still suspend your account if the person is not satisfied and lock you out of the sevrer so you cannot access your files. They are shady and take things personal at i-power. AVOID I-POWER UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE TREATED LIKE GARBAGE AND LOSE YOUR WEBSITE! Thank you for reading this.