Jump to content

Notice To All Clients


Head Guru

Recommended Posts

Updated September 06, 2011 at 11:47 AM

 

Dear TotalChoice Domain Clients,

 

Like many of you, I awoke to a strange email from a 3rd party that appeared to be a phishing email from another domain registration company. This email appeared to be targeted at all of our domain registration clients. If you did not receive this email you may disregard this communication.

 

As you may be aware, there are only a few domain registrars that actually handle the registration and renewal of domain names. TotalChoice has contracted with one of the largest registrars to handle our domain business for the past ten years. It appears that this company failed to renew our contract and that resulted in our domain portfolio being placed into a temporary hold status. The email that was sent out was a very large mistake and should have never been sent to our clients.

 

We have contacted the registrar and our domain portfolio is secure and they are in the process of unlocking it and all will be back to normal very shortly. They are informing us that this should take no longer than 24 hours. Please refrain from logging into the links provided to you in the email that was sent out to you and our regular domain page will be active again in the next 24 hours.

 

This issue does not effect your web hosting accounts and only is directed at domain registration clients.

 

I am very sorry for this issue and the stress it may have caused to our domain clients.

 

Yours in Hosting!

 

Bill Kish

 

 

Hello TCH Family,

 

It appears that some our domain clients have been receiving emails from another register of domains in an attempt to steal away our client base. Please be advised that TotalChoice Hosting has been in the hosting and domain business for over 10 years and we have no plans of going anywhere. TotalChoice owns and operates all its own hardware and is a cash based company with zero debt.

 

We ask that all our domain clients please refrain from clicking on the links in the phishing emails. We are working to determine where and how these emails are being sent out.

 

Once we determine the cause and have corrected this issue we will again reach out to you and give you a status update.

Thank you for being such a valued client of TCH.

 

Thank you again for your business and for the trust you place in us!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I received the same sort of email. The email stated:

 

This notification is to let you know that some or all of the products you purchased from TotalChoice Hosting will now be managed through Domains Priced Right®. Domains Priced Right offers the same great domain and service management tools, as well as friendly, 24/7, expert service.

 

Luckily, I checked the forum prior to clicking on any link.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Holy Crap! what a nightmare. Bill, I'm glad that you put the word out so quickly that it is a scam.

 

I got two emails this morning, and if you want them forwarded to TCH, please let me know.

 

and we have no plans of going anywhere

 

Neither do I. :yes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did click on one of the links and ended up with domains priced right.... Tried to login and it worked!

 

Before I did so, I checked with wwww.totalchoicehosting.com website and clicked on menu services -> domains. That link ( www.securepaynet.net/default.aspx?prog_id=simple ) didn't work anymore which was a reason for me to trust the email, stupid of course....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is just a wild guess from me now but the "problem" with that link on the TCH site may have have been some sort of safety step from TCH side in the investigation of this.

 

However, Bill and the gang will see your post regarding it and probably tell us why the link was down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bill,

 

I'm quite confident it's not a phishing attempt. I got three emails from them this morning about the same thing with the domains I registered with TCH.

 

I believe the answer is more simple.

 

You let your Domain Reseller account expire. I tried to notify your support team that this was likely the case, but instead I just got a canned response to please visit this forum post.

 

Domains Priced Right is the generic reseller account for the company you use as your domain registration processor. I won't mention the company name here, but if you need to know the reseller, just let me know.

 

When a reseller account with them expires, all of the domains from your reseller account get moved to this generic reseller account, and the customers get an email saying that is now where they'll go to update their domains.

 

I know because this happened to me a couple years ago to my reseller account with them.

 

Hope that helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have not let my domain reseller account expire, and I got an email...

 

Bill,

 

I'm quite confident it's not a phishing attempt. I got three emails from them this morning about the same thing with the domains I registered with TCH.

 

I believe the answer is more simple.

 

You let your Domain Reseller account expire. I tried to notify your support team that this was likely the case, but instead I just got a canned response to please visit this forum post.

 

Domains Priced Right is the generic reseller account for the company you use as your domain registration processor. I won't mention the company name here, but if you need to know the reseller, just let me know.

 

When a reseller account with them expires, all of the domains from your reseller account get moved to this generic reseller account, and the customers get an email saying that is now where they'll go to update their domains.

 

I know because this happened to me a couple years ago to my reseller account with them.

 

Hope that helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have not let my domain reseller account expire, and I got an email...

 

It has nothing to do with your Hosting accounts (reseller or otherwise) with TCH, only the domain registrations which is completely separate from hosting.

 

TCH used a service to process their Domain Registrations (ie: not hosting stuff, just domain registrations) and I'd venture to guess that something happened to that account. Likely it was accidentally let to expire.

 

It's hard to explain without mentioning who TCH used to sell their domain registrations (again, registrations, not hosting) which I'm not sure they want mentioned yet.

 

Just know it's a large reputable company, just like TCH, and that in my opinion you have no reason security wise to be concerned with TCH or Domains Priced Right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't use TCH to get my domain registration. I use another company...

 

My daughter got one of these, and she hasn't had an account with TCH for years.

 

It has nothing to do with your Hosting accounts (reseller or otherwise) with TCH, only the domain registrations which is completely separate from hosting.

 

TCH used a service to process their Domain Registrations (ie: not hosting stuff, just domain registrations) and I'd venture to guess that something happened to that account. Likely it was accidentally let to expire.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wait a minute....

 

The e-mail that I got did not have any account number.

 

They only found out my e-mail address(that's why I got the message).

 

They were asking me to enter my account username and password, which I did not (of course).

 

So, are there different e-mails floating around?

 

Thanks,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't use TCH to get my domain registration. I use another company...

 

My daughter got one of these, and she hasn't had an account with TCH for years.

 

I'd guess that the reason you (and your daughter) got this email was that you/her had a something (Domain name, SSL Cert, etc) registered with them at some point. They probably sent the email to all customer records, regardless of if the domain name or other product was still registered there or not. Meaning your customer record still existed, and as such, they probably sent the email to all customers as the entire customer record would have gotten moved to Domains Priced Right.

 

I'm still confident it's not a hack as I've gone through this same thing previously myself.

 

Domains Priced Right is run off the same database as the TCH Domain registration system. There is a reason all of the screens look very similar except for the name across the top. It's just the same website with a different skin/name on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is the official latest news. We will get thru this, and once we do we will be offering a coupon code to any client effected by this mess.

 

Dear TotalChoice Domain Clients,

 

Like many of you, I awoke to a strange email from a 3rd party that appeared to be a phishing email from another domain registration company. This email appeared to be targeted at all of our domain registration clients. If you did not receive this email you may disregard this communication.

 

As you may be aware, there are only a few domain registrars that actually handle the registration and renewal of domain names. TotalChoice has contracted with one of the largest registrars to handle our domain business for the past ten years. It appears that this company failed to renew our contract and that resulted in our domain portfolio being placed into a temporary hold status. The email that was sent out was a very large mistake and should have never been sent to our clients.

 

We have contacted the registrar and our domain portfolio is secure and they are in the process of unlocking it and all will be back to normal very shortly. They are informing us that this should take no longer than 24 hours. Please refrain from logging into the links provided to you in the email that was sent out to you and our regular domain page will be active again in the next 24 hours.

 

This issue does not effect your web hosting accounts and only is directed at domain registration clients.

 

I am very sorry for this issue and the stress it may have caused to our domain clients.

 

Yours in Hosting!

 

Bill Kish

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also received a few of these emails, mainly for my client that have TotalChoice Hosting. Thanks for the quick follow-up Bill.

However, I only have one client that uses TCH for the domain registrar. The others are just using the hosting product and those were sent emails also.

------------------

Posted this while Bill was making his last post. Thanks for the update.

Edited by jberg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am confused. I have a reseller account through TCH, but I get my domain registration through another company. My daughter has neither domain registration nor web hosting through TCH, and she got one of the emails. Years ago she had web hosting but never domain registration through TCH. It seems that this problem is somehow tied to web hosting...

 

 

This issue does not effect your web hosting accounts and only is directed at domain registration clients.

 

Bill Kish

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The changes for this issue are still being processed and will take some time to complete. Therefore, if you have received your notice email but still can not log, then please give it 30-60 minutes and try again.

 

I have my personal account there as well and it took about 40 minutes after receiving the email before I could log in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello, huuuuh what an ordeal... like others I got caught by the issue after receiving 2 contradictory email notifications since yesterday.

 

As I couldn't login to my account today, I decided to call UK tech support via: 020 3027 4996 (phone number displayed on the TCH securepay.net page) which for some reason seems to have landed me @ DomainsPricedRight support).

 

After giving all security details and explaining that I received 2 emails, one yesterday saying that all my domains were transferred to DomainsPricedRight and one today saying the exact opposite (that all my domains were transferred to TCH) and because I wasn't able to connect to my account via TCH securepay.net URL, the person I spoke to told me that from now on I should use the DomainsPricedRight's URL which indeed accepted all my login details. At this point I could login fine.

 

Well as 4 of my domains were close to expiration, tech support asked me if I would like him to renew them for me and although I hesitated, I went ahead with the idea.

I am now very concerned that, although I believe the transaction was genuine (status of these domains now marked as renewed in my account), I would hate to see all my domains transferred for good to DomainsPricedRight (which I have never heard of before) especially when TCH domains management service has always been second to none and very professional.

 

Please advise on the procedure to follow (if any) to ensure that my domains are returned to TCH in due course.

 

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

Montty

 

Edit: Worst still, I have now noticed that the renewal was more expensive (by $4.16)

Although not a big difference I am not very happy - especially when considering the 2 hours I have lost chasing all this and the nasty feeling of having been stitched:

 

2 .com domain @ $10.17

2 .net domains @ $15.17

Total (USD): $50.68

 

Edit 2: Login is now possible again via the TCH page.

Edited by Montty
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...