My mother called to tell me that people were complaining that mail sent
to her address at one of my domains (menon-sen.com) was bouncing. Here's
an excerpt from the bounce message she sent me:
DNS Error: 27622840 DNS type 'mx' lookup of menon-sen.com responded
with code SERVFAIL
I thought it was just a temporary DNS failure, but just for completeness
I tried to look up the MX for the domain, and got a SERVFAIL response. I
checked WHOIS for the domain and was horrified to find this:
Name Server: FAILED-WHOIS-VERIFICATION.NAMECHEAP.COM
Name Server: VERIFY-CONTACT-DETAILS.NAMECHEAP.COM
In a near-panic (because this meant email to one of my work addresses
was also being bounced), I checked a bunch of stuff: No, the whois
details for the domain were not incorrect (nor had they been changed
recently). No, Namecheap had not sent me any whois verification mail
about the domain. No, Namecheap had not sent me any notification that it
was going to suspend the domain. No, the Namecheap admin page didn't say
anything about the domain having been suspended.
I couldn't find any relevant articles in the support knowledgebase, so I
opened an emergency ticket with Namecheap support. They responded in an
hour, and helped to resolve the problem immediately. They did admit that
I didn't receive a notification because of an error on their part:
We have double-checked contact details on the domain in question and
registrant details appeared to be missing on the domain due to a
one-time glitch at our end. That is the reason you have not received
verification email. Please accept our most genuine apologies for the
inconvenience caused you.
I have always found Namecheap support to be responsive and helpful. I do
appreciate their candour and the prompt response in this case as well,
but I am deeply shaken that their system has no controls in place to
prevent a domain from being suspended without any sort of notification
(especially since they were sending me notifications about other domains
registered under the same account in the same time period).
I don't know when exactly the domain was suspended. I have actually lost
mail because of this incident—and at least one of them was an important
response to some mail I sent. But thanks to my mother's correspondents,
I think the problem was discovered before very long. I cannot afford to
worry about this happening for my other domains that are up for renewal
in the near future. If the same thing had happened to toroid.org, it
would have been catastrophic.
I have been a happy customer of Namecheap for more than five years, and
recommended it to any number of friends during that time. Along with
EasyDNS
(which is much more expensive), it's by far the best of the dozen or so
registrars I've used over the past two decades. I have no idea where to
move my domains, but I'll start keeping an eye out for an alternative.
Update, moments after writing the above: my friend Steve points
out that there's something to be said for having a vendor who admits to
their errors honestly; and only a pattern of errors rather than a single
incident would justify moving my domains away to an unknown registrar.
A few days from now, I hope to be able to properly appreciate Steve's
wisdom in this matter. Meanwhile, I'm saved from precipitous actions by
the fact that I haven't the faintest idea where to migrate anyway.