I just want to access my domain dammit!
Sep. 26th, 2003 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slycatI own a .name domain. In fact, I preregistered it in late 2000 when they were announced to ensure that I would get my name with .name. The domain was duely issued mid January 2001 for two years. This privilage cost me a whopping £70. However, that was back in a time when I was much more wreckless with my money than I am today.
There wasn't much choice as far as which domain registrant I could go with to register my .name domain and so ended up with NetNames. Unfortunately, they have a less than user friendly domain management site and when I found it nigh on impossible to simply change my registered email address from one address to another, rather than contact support, I just gave up. Why I did this I'm not too sure considering what I paid for the domain but never the less, I forgot about it.
However, I have recently remembered about the domain and decided to give it a new lease of life and actually use it for what I intended it for - a non furry website to showcase my web skillz and probably pop a CV up on there and stuff. Also the email address looks pretty fancy and would be much appreciated considering the lack of a decent, permanent, non-furry email address which isn't Hotmail. To accomplish this, I would need to get hold of the login details for my account.
I checked my folder in Outlook where I keep all my useful emails and stuff and couldn't find it there. I looked around my room but couldn't find details of it on paper. I checked my backups of emails and again, could not find a trace. I tried the web site's email me my username/password page but that failed to produce anything. I then checked the whois.name database and remembered that my old obselete NTL address was stil the registered address. I thought, no problem, the account is still active, I just need to find my username and password for my old NTL email account. This was easier said than done.
I searched high and low, through every stack of paper, knowing exactly what I was looking for and it would stick out like a sore thumb when I did find it but absolutely nowhere was my NTL signup leaflet thing where I had written the username and password on all that time ago (I stopped using NTL when I moved out on the 31st Dec 2001). alas, it was not to be, it wasn't anywhere. Then I had a flash of inspiration, I put all my username settings in a text file once when I was reinstalling my PC ages ago and backed it up to a CD. I searched through my backups and again, turned up with nothing.
So I took the last resort, I decided to call NTL and see if they could give me my password. I hate NTL helpdesk more than any other helpdesk in the world. Why? Because the hold music loops every 5 seconds and they take over an hour just to answer the call. The dial-up internet support line was 50p a minute so I called the local rate cable support line. I thought this would be OK anyway as I was a former cable customer and probably still have me on their records. So I make my way through the automated system pushing 1 or 2 when the lady asks me to and finally I get into the queue. "At least they've changed the music" I thought. However, they did take it upon themselves to tell me that I was in a queue and my call was important so frequently that it kept on overlapping itself on the announcement.
After 30+mins I finally get through to someone who isnt even tech support who has been plonked on the line to intercept calls to ensure they have the Windows Update patch for blaster installed. I thought such actions were perposterous considering that IT support is my profession and I certainly knwo how to protect myself from viruses. however, rather than argue, I let the guy do what he wanted, read out the numbers of the "hotfix" pateches that were installed and he was happy. He said "I'll put you through to technical support now" and then promptly cut me off. Now I don't know if I pissed him off or it was an accident but to say the least I wasn't happy.
I had no choice to call them back as I had no other way of getting this password. At first I had every intention of giving them a piece of my mind considering the lengthy wait times but as a friend rightly said, they won't give a crap anyway. So after half an hour I explained that I had already done the check and was cut off, in a calm voice and he passed me through to the technical support queue (I thought that's what I was on anyway?). so I'm on hold for another 20mins until I'm finally through to someone with a clue. However, as I'm after a password I have to answer various security related questions. He asked the make and MAC address of my ADSL modem which I sent back around 15 months ago so he then asked for my phone number which turned out to be differnet to that that of the one in his record and so he finally asked me for an account number. As I recently had a bill I could give him this information. considering anyone could have taken that bill out my rubbish and called them up with the same information, I think the tech support guy was a good sport and revealed my password to me. Phew!
I sign in to my NTL web mail and see that there was 467 new messages waiting for me. It was really making the web mail client struggle and was very hard to manage so I just put the POP settings into Outlook and received them all. After scanning through them, all but one email was spam as far as I could make out so I dumped the rest. I went back to NetNames and requested my username again but alas, I got no email! Considering how reliable NetNames' web site has been in the past, I believe that even after all this time, it still didn't work and so after all this palaver, I have resorted to emailing NetNames' support in an effort to get my domain back in control.
Christ! I hope I never have to go through all that again!
There wasn't much choice as far as which domain registrant I could go with to register my .name domain and so ended up with NetNames. Unfortunately, they have a less than user friendly domain management site and when I found it nigh on impossible to simply change my registered email address from one address to another, rather than contact support, I just gave up. Why I did this I'm not too sure considering what I paid for the domain but never the less, I forgot about it.
However, I have recently remembered about the domain and decided to give it a new lease of life and actually use it for what I intended it for - a non furry website to showcase my web skillz and probably pop a CV up on there and stuff. Also the email address looks pretty fancy and would be much appreciated considering the lack of a decent, permanent, non-furry email address which isn't Hotmail. To accomplish this, I would need to get hold of the login details for my account.
I checked my folder in Outlook where I keep all my useful emails and stuff and couldn't find it there. I looked around my room but couldn't find details of it on paper. I checked my backups of emails and again, could not find a trace. I tried the web site's email me my username/password page but that failed to produce anything. I then checked the whois.name database and remembered that my old obselete NTL address was stil the registered address. I thought, no problem, the account is still active, I just need to find my username and password for my old NTL email account. This was easier said than done.
I searched high and low, through every stack of paper, knowing exactly what I was looking for and it would stick out like a sore thumb when I did find it but absolutely nowhere was my NTL signup leaflet thing where I had written the username and password on all that time ago (I stopped using NTL when I moved out on the 31st Dec 2001). alas, it was not to be, it wasn't anywhere. Then I had a flash of inspiration, I put all my username settings in a text file once when I was reinstalling my PC ages ago and backed it up to a CD. I searched through my backups and again, turned up with nothing.
So I took the last resort, I decided to call NTL and see if they could give me my password. I hate NTL helpdesk more than any other helpdesk in the world. Why? Because the hold music loops every 5 seconds and they take over an hour just to answer the call. The dial-up internet support line was 50p a minute so I called the local rate cable support line. I thought this would be OK anyway as I was a former cable customer and probably still have me on their records. So I make my way through the automated system pushing 1 or 2 when the lady asks me to and finally I get into the queue. "At least they've changed the music" I thought. However, they did take it upon themselves to tell me that I was in a queue and my call was important so frequently that it kept on overlapping itself on the announcement.
After 30+mins I finally get through to someone who isnt even tech support who has been plonked on the line to intercept calls to ensure they have the Windows Update patch for blaster installed. I thought such actions were perposterous considering that IT support is my profession and I certainly knwo how to protect myself from viruses. however, rather than argue, I let the guy do what he wanted, read out the numbers of the "hotfix" pateches that were installed and he was happy. He said "I'll put you through to technical support now" and then promptly cut me off. Now I don't know if I pissed him off or it was an accident but to say the least I wasn't happy.
I had no choice to call them back as I had no other way of getting this password. At first I had every intention of giving them a piece of my mind considering the lengthy wait times but as a friend rightly said, they won't give a crap anyway. So after half an hour I explained that I had already done the check and was cut off, in a calm voice and he passed me through to the technical support queue (I thought that's what I was on anyway?). so I'm on hold for another 20mins until I'm finally through to someone with a clue. However, as I'm after a password I have to answer various security related questions. He asked the make and MAC address of my ADSL modem which I sent back around 15 months ago so he then asked for my phone number which turned out to be differnet to that that of the one in his record and so he finally asked me for an account number. As I recently had a bill I could give him this information. considering anyone could have taken that bill out my rubbish and called them up with the same information, I think the tech support guy was a good sport and revealed my password to me. Phew!
I sign in to my NTL web mail and see that there was 467 new messages waiting for me. It was really making the web mail client struggle and was very hard to manage so I just put the POP settings into Outlook and received them all. After scanning through them, all but one email was spam as far as I could make out so I dumped the rest. I went back to NetNames and requested my username again but alas, I got no email! Considering how reliable NetNames' web site has been in the past, I believe that even after all this time, it still didn't work and so after all this palaver, I have resorted to emailing NetNames' support in an effort to get my domain back in control.
Christ! I hope I never have to go through all that again!
