registrat kaput. how to rescue a domain?

sneakyimp

One of my prospective clients called in a panic. His registrar/hosting company has gone under and everything has been shut down so using dig on his domain only reports the verisign root server:

jaith@sansebastian:~$ dig domain.com all

; <<>> DiG 9.5.1-P3 <<>> domain.com all
;; global options:  printcmd
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 36811
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;all.                           IN      A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
.                       10800   IN      SOA     a.root-servers.net. nstld.verisign-grs.com. 2010041301 1800 900 604800 86400

;; Query time: 128 msec
;; SERVER: 11.22.33.44#53(11.22.33.44)
;; WHEN: Tue Apr 13 18:36:51 2010
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 96

I'd like to help this guy salvage his domain. What can be done? At the moment, I've encouraged him to get an account with a new registrar like godaddy and try to initiate a domain transfer from there.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

bradgrafelman

What's the actual domain name?

sneakyimp

smallwoodandstewart.com

bradgrafelman

If you (or your client) can not initiate a domain transfer, you might want to take a look at this page from Tucows Inc. (the entity that the domain was registered with).

sneakyimp

Thanks brad!

I've encouraged the client to try the domain transfer thing. I have no idea who the admin contact might be as whois is not really working now. DNS doesn't seem to be either. Hopefully it's a gmail account or something.

The client has been on the phone with Tucows and "they say they can do nothing--as they are not really the registrar as it indicates on WHOIS".

I suggested that contacting verisign would be a possibility. This is kinda crazy. Never seen it happen before.

bradgrafelman

Doing a WHOIS worked just fine for me:

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[whois.verisign-grs.com]

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: SMALLWOODANDSTEWART.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net
Name Server: NS1.PWHDNET.NET
Name Server: NS2.PWHDNET.NET
Status: ok
Updated Date: 23-dec-2009
Creation Date: 27-nov-2002
Expiration Date: 27-nov-2011

Tucows' website also said this:

Provider Information
The provider information for smallwoodandstewart.com:

Visual Perspectives Internet, Inc., dns@vpi.net
949-679-2000
This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords,
DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions.

If your client calls back, I would suggest they reference the link I pointed to above, as the website seems to contradict the statement made by what is most likely a low-level customer service representative reading from electronic cue cards. :p

EDIT: Just read this:

as they are not really the registrar as it indicates on WHOIS

Curious... they claim that they aren't the registrar, despite the fact that their own website was able to display "Provider" information as if the reseller had indeed bought the domain via Tucows.