MelbourneIT & MSOL

[xPETEZx]

rant

 

Hi all,

 

About 3 years ago I signed up for Microsoft Office Live Samll Buisness, with a "forever" free domain name.

Last year I was e-mailed to say it would no longer be free and that I would have to pay £7.99 per year for the domain. It went on to say that I had 1 more free year, and that I would be able to re-new 45-days before expiry, and would be emailed once I was in this window.

Fine I thought to myself, ill await the mail.

 

Well, last weekend I try to log into my e-mails and get a message "your live ID is no longer valid. Please pick a new one". After much google-ing, apparetnly what happens is that if you do not renew your domain, Microsoft hand it over to Melbourne IT.

I had recieved no e-mail watsoever regarding my expiriry. From my searches, there was many other people who also had this problem.

These searches revealed that appreantly as soon as your domain is within 8 days of expiry it is turned over to Melbourne IT, if you want to renew it, you must do it through them. Now here comes the kicker, as soon as this happens Microsoft delete ALL e-mails & accounts ascoaited with this domain. (not a problem for me, I use Outlook so have a local copy of everything)

 

Now, onto Melbourne IT. Not only do they charge significantly more for the renewal ($35 for 1 year), but you CANNOT get through to them. Monday I renewed at the extortionate price. I was told that the information for the renewal would be sent to my domain name e-mail account and another I would specify.

So I put my secondary email, and sure enough got a note saying my domain was renewed.

 

Now in order for the renewal to go through, I need to have the name servers changed to MS office live ones.

Seeing as my account was auto-created with Melbourne IT when my domain expired, it was created with my domain mail address! GREAT! So when I do a "send me the password" it sends it to the expired domain e-mail..... wtf

 

So I e-mail there support simply asking that they change the name servers back. No response. Its now been a full week and I have not got my domain back! I have sent about 5 e-mails, and just had automated responses.

 

Last straw, I just purchased £10 of skype credit to call there Australian phone number, and it the first 2 I found on there site lead no where. (no answer dispite a 24/7 policy...)

Found a number that picks up, and been on hold for 25 minutes now. Dispite being "next in the que" from the word go!

 

Anyone else had to suffer through this process?

 

Anyone have a good experiance with Melbourne IT? Know a number I can call?

 

/rant