HELP! DOMAINMONGER POSSIBLY DEAD - NEED ADVISE HOW TO SOLV..

My client's domainname expired yesterday, August 2nd. It was/is
registered with http://www.domainmonger.com
My client own the domainname, and was notified last week that the
domain was about to expire, upon which he attempted to immediately
renew using his credit card using their online renewal form. The form
didn't provide any confirmation so my client wasn't sure that it went
through. 2 days later (about 4 days ago), he kept getting emails that
the domain is still about to expire.
So he emailed and phoned them, to no avail, no response emails, and
none of his phone were returned.
I told him to fill out the form again, and to pay close attention for
any receipt and invoice numbers, or anything that provides some sort
of confirmation.
He filled out all his creditcard and contact info, clicks submit, and
it promptly jumps back to the front page, no confirmation whatsoever.

I looks like DomainMonger is either dead or is completely neglected.
They are icann acredited btw. I'm getting other errors on their
website, things like 'socket connection failure or refused or
something' - some internal error, presumable their front end failing
to talk to their backend or something.

So, having seen how some leeches steal domainnames for immediate
bribery left and right, I told my client to sign up with godaddy for a
backorder, costing a little more - but with no guarantees - a leech
can still drop in and swipe it away right from underneath us, after
which you have to activate a dispute mechanism and get stuck in a hole
slew of nasty and exhausting emails, letter, and phonecalls... anyone
have any experience in this?

The domain expired, and the internet caches expired, the domain
lookups now fail, and my client's website is now inaccessible by his
customers. I or my client can't sign up because it "is already
taken", even though the expiry was yesterday, preventing us from
reregistering elsewhere.

What to do? Any advise or recommendations are very greatly
appreciated. This is very frustrating, my client has been nice to me
so far, but now that the website isn't reachable by his customers, he
might get upset.

I'm learning one lesson here: ALWAYS renew at least 1-2 months before
it expires.


=Mike=

Mike wrote in message ...
 >My client's domainname expired yesterday, August 2nd. It was/is
<font color=purple> >registered with <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.domainmonger.com</font" target="_blank">http://www.domainmonger.com</font</a>>
 >My client own the domainname, and was notified last week that the
 >domain was about to expire, upon which he attempted to immediately
 >renew using his credit card using their online renewal form. The form
 >didn't provide any confirmation so my client wasn't sure that it went
 >through. 2 days later (about 4 days ago), he kept getting emails that
 >the domain is still about to expire.
 >So he emailed and phoned them, to no avail, no response emails, and
 >none of his phone were returned.
 >I told him to fill out the form again, and to pay close attention for
 >any receipt and invoice numbers, or anything that provides some sort
 >of confirmation.
 >He filled out all his creditcard and contact info, clicks submit, and
 >it promptly jumps back to the front page, no confirmation whatsoever.

I've had problems like this with domainmonger.com. The renewal form
defaults to two years. The first time I selected one year, the form was
posted without confirmation, just like your client. Every time I selected
one year, I was popped back to the first page, just like your client. The
one time I forgot to change the default on that field, the form went
through, but I'd purchased two years instead of the one I wanted. This
hasn't happened on all my domains with them, only the most recently renewed.
I almost posted a warning here, but I didn't know if it was deliberate or
accidental - it just seemed fishy to me. He might try again with a longer
renewal term.

HTH,
* TL *<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->