The Registerfly scandal. Missing funds, escort services, liposuction and a Miami penthouse.

A registrar that goes by the name of RegisterFly is in trouble.

The lawsuit spells out the problems.
A lawsuit has been filed by one shareholder against the other. The lawsuit requests that Mr. Kevin Medina, who is allegedly the problematic shareholder and key employee, be barred from access to Registerfly's servers and bank accounts. To see the text of the lawsuit, please click here.

There's lots of dicey allegations.
The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Medina has misappropriated substantial funds from Registerfly to pay for such things as personal escort services and liposuction. The suit also states the misappropriation of funds has virtually brought Registerfly to its knees -- leaving it with insufficient funds to pay VeriSign and other registries, for new domain name registrations and renewals.

And system problems to boot.
As if all of the above isn't bad enough, Registerfly customers aren't able to maintain their accounts and the remaining management may not have full access to Registerfly's servers. The following message was posted on a Web site (www.registerflies.com) put up by frustrated Registerfly customers:

"Attention everyone. I just received confirmation that the Registerfly site has currently been hacked into and taken over by Kevin Medina in the Florida office. I was asked to put this up here due to the amount of customers that are sending money. At this moment, they are trying to get police in Florida to arrest Kevin immediately.

I'm relaying a message that they have asked me to put up on here. They have lost control of even the site and are locked out of the system. The data has been corrupted but they do have a back up and are scrambling to get this situation resolved."

So if the above is to be believed, Mr. Medina -- who managed Registerfly's servers and information systems -- may have locked down certain key Registerfly servers leaving the remaining management unable to access their own systems. As a result, hundreds of thousands of customers could also have been left high and dry.

There is even a tell all video.
One frustrated Registerfly customer even went so far as to produce a special video describing his trials and tribulations at Registerfly. The video is well done and certainly gets his point across.

ICANN will resolve this situation.
ICANN has been working hard trying to resolve this knotty situation. On February 21st they gave Registerfly 15 working days to resolve their problems but things seem to have only gotten worse. So there is more than a good possibility that Registerfly will be de-credited. De-creditation would be the final nail in Registerfly's coffin. To see the Notice of Breach ICANN sent to Registerfly please click here.

In the event Registerfly loses its accreditation, ICANN will work to migrate those customers -- who have remained with Registerfly through this disaster -- to other registrars.

Go Daddy has been asked to help.
For our part, we have been approached by a number of Registerfly customers asking if we can help in some way. The answer is YES!

A special transfer program for Registerfly customers.
Go Daddy is providing a special transfer program for Registerfly customers who want to move their domains over to Go Daddy. To take advantage of this special program, please click here on the following link: https://www.godaddy.com/registerfly

Very special transfer rates.
Go Daddy will be providing special low transfer rates to Registerfly customers who want to move their domain names. In many instances, when a transfer is requested it can only be done after the customer's account on Registerfly has been unlocked.

Go Daddy will help customers who have their transfers denied.
Since Registerfly's servers may be largely inaccessible, most, if not all, transfer requests could be denied. Go Daddy will keep track of these transfer denials and will then petition ICANN and the registries on behalf of all customers who have had denied transfers. Eventually we will get them approved.

Registerfly customers who transfer will retain whatever unexpired term they had in place with Registerfly, plus they will get an extra year added to the term of the registration after the transfer takes place.

An example.
For example: Assume a customer has a registration with Registerfly that has four (4) years and two (2) months left before it expires. If this customer transfers their registration over to Go Daddy, after the transfer successfully takes place, that customer will then have five (5) years and two (2) months before their domain name expires.

There's also a special deal for SSL certificates.
After I posted this article I was asked to also provide a special deal for Registerfly customers who purchased SSL certificates from Registerfly. After looking at the issue, we decided to offer Registerfly SSL customers a special deal for GoDaddy's SSL certificates. We will be providing those Registerfly customers both discounted SSL rates and an extra year for our SSL certificates. To take advantage of this offer, please click here.

About Go Daddy.
Go Daddy is the world's largest domain name registrar. We are more than twice the size of our closest competitor. We earned this by providing great prices, an outstanding product offering and the world's best customer service - all of which is located in the USA. With a few minor exceptions, all of the technology we provide our customers was developed and is maintained right here at Go Daddy. That means when our customers have questions about any of the products they purchased from Go Daddy, they get to call one phone number that rings into the best customer service operation in the world. Our support departments are open 24 hours a day, everyday.

A warm welcome.
A special GoDaddy.com welcome to all those Registerfly customers who choose to move over to Go Daddy - I think you'll like it here.

Until next time.