Parava alleged to have kept renewal fees instead of paying them to VeriSign.
What’s a warning sign that your domain name registrar is about to leave you in a lurch? You pay it to renew your domain many years in advance, but it only renews it for one year at a time. Apparently a lot of Parava customers have experienced that.
This week Tucows (Hover.com) took over the domain names that were at Parava, which was de-accredited by ICANN. It didn’t take long for people to notice that their domains had different expiration dates than they expected. On Hover.com’s web site, the company wrote:
We have received reports that Parava was accepting money for renewals and not forwarding those fees to the registry or renewing the domain. It is alleged that they would then update their whois to make it appear that the domain name had been in fact renewed.
When your domain name was transferred to Tucows and your account was created with Hover, we synchronized your expiration date in Hover with the data on file with the registry. It is possible that your name may be set to expire before you think it will because of an unpaid renewal. To prevent this, please sign in to your Hover account and provide us with updated billing information so that we can renew your name automatically for you prior to its expiration.
It turns out that over a year ago Jamie Zoch of DotWeekly reported this problem on a post at DNForum.
If you charged multiple years of registration on a credit card, you may be able to get that reversed by the credit card company. If you want to complain to Parava, good luck getting in touch with them. But here’s a bit of information to get you started:
Franchise Tax certificate at Texas Comptroller stating Parava owner name and address
And here’s the address on ICANN’s termination letter to Parava:
Mr. Patricio Valdes
Parava Networks, Inc. dba 10-Domains.com
1800 Bering Dr., Suite 420
Houston, TX 77057
United States
If you Google either of these addresses you might be able to track down Mr. Valdes — or someone who knows him.
Greg says
I lost a $xx,xxx domain after paying them for a renewal that they never did.
Steve M says
Would be surprising if Tucows would have been allowed to take over these Parava names w/out ICANN requiring their concurrent assumption of the liability for whatever time extensions Parava clients had actually paid for; regardless of any incorrect data Parava was entering in their own whois database.
However; even if not legally required they do so; the right and just thing is for Tucows to pay for any extensions the Parava customers can reasonably prove that they paid for.
Andrew Allemann says
“However; even if not legally required they do so; the right and just thing is for Tucows to pay for any extensions the Parava customers can reasonably prove that they paid for.”
I disagree. Keep in mind Tucows would then have to foot the bill for up to $70 or so a domain. My guess is they aren’t making out like bandits on this deal. There are a lot of headaches when dealing with an uncooperative de-accredited registrar.
People who lost money should go after Parava.
Patrick McDermott says
Patricio Valdes of Parava Networks is probably vacationing with Kevin Medina of RegisterFly fame.
They seem to have a lot in common.
Ian says
I just renewed two domains last week with them. Guess what, they kept the money and never renewed the domains. Whoever owns Parava should have the appropriate charges brought up against them.
Andrew Allemann says
@Ian – do a credit card chargeback
Mansour says
Wait a minute. If you make a chargeback for your credit card for those years that were not added to the renewal, Tucows will not only lose the chargeback money, but also the banking fees which could amount up to $25 per chargeback. Under these circumstances, Tucows will have the right to take the domain name and will charge you $250 for you to get the domain back. Those who are using companies like Barava Blik, which charges customers less than their cost, should question the solvency of those companies and avoid using them. I don’t believe that Tucows is making any profit on this deal. It takes a lot of money and programming to transfer such a small number of domain names from one registrar to another. It is advisable to follow Tucow’s (Hover’s) instructions in order to keep your domain name in a good status, and not lose it due to being hasty .
Andrew Allemann says
Mansour – You would be doing the chargeback against Parava, not Tucows. Tucows will not be affected. In fact, Tucows is suggesting that people consider doing a chargeback against Parava for any renewals that weren’t properly credited.
You’re right, Tucows isn’t making much money out of this deal. It gets more customers an domains, which it hopes are renewed. But given the headaches they’ve encountered from an uncooperative registrar, it may end up costing more than it’s worth.
Cris says
be careful in choosing a domain name servicing site.
Johnny says
I’d say Tucows does need to take responsibility.
If I buy a piece of property and I later find out that they owner had been dumping industrial waste on the property previously, I’m responsible for the cleanup.
If I buy a company then I am responsible for their debts, liens, previous actions,……everything. That’s how it works.
Steve M says
Johnny,
While I believe Tucows should make good on any extensions (whether legally required or not); since they (apparently) didn’t buy Parava itself; they wouldn’t be liable under the laws governing the assumption of debt when a company is purchased.
Ross Rader says
@johnny –
we never bought the company. I agree with you if this was the case, but we didn’t buy the company.
All we’ve done is completed a bulk transfer of domain names from another (former) registrar. The same problems would have come into play for any registrants transferring out of Parava 3 months ago of their own free will. The only difference in this case is that the transfer was coordinated and non-optional.
We are recommending to registrants that feel that they haven’t received the service they’ve paid Parava for to contact via and file a chargeback request. This will definitely be the quickest way to recoup your losses in entirety.
We’d love to help more than we already have, but we haven’t received any financial records from Parava, so we wouldn’t even know where to start in sorting this out.
I hope this helps clarify,
/ross
Hover
Mansour says
This must be the first domain Ponzi scheme to surface, and I am sure it’s not going to be the last one we hear about. I must put a lot of blame on the registrants who went to this company. If you find a registrar that only charges $6.69 per domain name, you have to ask yourself, is it safe to do business with this company, since the .com domain names in general cost the registrars approximately $9.00 including fixed costs and expenses. I know many domain name owners transfer their domain names from one registrar to another on a yearly basis in order to get the cheapest deal.
There are many other considerations before transferring a domain name to another registrar. The most important one is the solvency of the company, so I would always trust a public company like Tucows or Network Solutions since they must report their financial statements indicating their stability every three months. Other privately owned companies are not obligated to show their books and they can create the same Ponzi scheme. A few months back, I questioned one company’s solvency and I sent my inquiry to ICANN. Unfortunately, ICANN’s response to me was that they do not engage in this part of the business. It’s too bad they don’t, and this case may convince them that it is essential to protect domain owners in every facet. Let’s not forget what happened with RegisterFly.com and the 800,000 domains they had under management and what happened to those customers and their domain names when register fly went out of business they use to charge $6.50 per domain.
Andrew Allemann says
In case my hints above were not enough, here’s some more info. There’s a company called KWIK DOLLAR LLC at the same address. Valdes owns it. Their web site matches up with http://dinexenvios.com/. Whois record [email protected]. You might try [email protected] or [email protected]
Monkey says
WHY HAS ICANN NOT DELETED THE parava.net and 10-domains.com domains yet?!!!
This guy is still running “business as usual” looking for new victims!!
Monkey says
Another legal issue… from our dear Patricio from paravda networks…
Seems that him and his wife was also into housing business:
http://www.hadd.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=925
Brett says
1) Chargeback option is not available for all
Ross —
The Hover team has been really professional with me so far — kudos — but many of us have still been robbed over this process and I don’t understand why ICANN is not stepping into address.
BTW your posit about chargeback is not a viable solution when the charge happen several months ago for prepay of credits (eg., Wells Fargo has told me unlikely even though legit)
2) Greg with 5 figure loss, how are you handling?
3) “We should of known argument” – I knew that they were ICANN accredited, I didn’t and don’t know the “real costs” of registering a domain.
4) PARAVA was accredited for years years
and saw this prepay thing for years
The general public relies on the fact that registrar is an ICANN accredited before buying domains.
A portion of the fees we pay to license a domain goes to pay ICANN in the form a registrars annual dues to ICANN
You cannot have a stamp of approval; make all registrars (and domain owners) pay for that approval and then when it really matters pretend it is non-(low priority) issue and wash your hands.
ICANN can do many things here meaningfully help — like waive the future cost of registering domains for those affected. And/Or waive Hovers accreditation fees to help rectify. And/or apply fees earned from Parava for the several prior to this incident.
Whom at the US commerce is responsible for ICANN?
Brett says
So the chargeback although legit may still not be honored by Visa..
How long do I have to file a claim?
You have sixty (60) days from the date of failure or theft to report the claim to Visa.
https://portal.newcorp.com/visaclaims/servlet/VisaClaimsProcessRunner?USER_ACTION=ShowStaticPage&SynchronizerToken=0ac8d20acec0c283a3b979d48e29c3aaa4845f833851242963024611&staticPageToDisplay=FAQView#PurSec
Andrew Allemann says
@ Brett – try it anyway. Most credit card issuers have these deadlines, but are willing to work with their customers. I’ve found the dispute departments at most credit card companies to really work on your behalf.
Brett says
Well not getting thru to US commerce and ICANN washed their hands — which I still don’t understand why.
What recourse do I have cc charge back route doesn’t work? ICANN should step in for all of us in that context. It would be minimal pain and the right thing for ICANN to do any of the things I suggested.
Andrew thx for reply. I don’t if I have done a cc back, what is the longest you have done. Thx for fback and we’ll see.
Monkey says
You can complaint here too:
http://houston.bbb.org/
BBB of Metropolitan Houston (Houston and Weslaco, Texas) 1333 W. Loop South, Ste. 1200 Houston, TX 77027 Phone: (713)868-9500 Fax: (713)867-4947 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.bbbhou.org
The company is located in Houston, despite the fact that the address they provided was fake, google search shows that the owner lives and kicks in Houston, Texas!
Maybe someone should pay him a visit and kick his big ass!
Brett says
Thx Monkey but what does bbb do in these situations?
Leroy Nimka says
I had four domain names that were supposedly paid for the next ten years. Do you guys know of any other web forums that are discussing this issue? What would be the best way for all the people who were victimized by Parava to get together and share notes?
Monky says
Leroy: should we start a website for Patricio?
How about http://www.sueparava.com ? I can host it for free on my server and install a CMS on it.
Otherwise, I placed a frontpage article concerning what happened on a 6 pagerank site here: http://www.web-app.net/ in order to inform everyone about it. And voted on it on digg.com so far…it did not get many votes. It is possible to discuss it both on digg.com and on the web-app.net site.
Brett: it is possible to forward an official request his local consumer office. Patricio Valdes did fake his address, but all signs point out that he lives in Houston.
Ross Rader says
We were quite shocked by the number of complaints that we saw indicating that Parava had taken money for renewals that they did not process with the registries. We’ve talked to some customers that have indicated that they have been taken for thousands of dollars in renewals. We have been encouraging our new customers to immediately call their credit card company and work on filing a chargeback. There are any number of consumer protection mechanisms that the credit card companies, and others, can bring to bear, to minimize some of the losses that may have been concurred. It might be helpful if someone developed a clearinghouse for this kind of information. My team is working on collecting a list of phone numbers for organizations (such as VIsa) that might be able to help you all get some or all of your money back.
Ross Rader
General Manager
Hover, a service of Tucows Inc.
Andrew Allemann says
Ross, when you pull that list of organizations together I will publicize it here. If anyone is pursuing legal action please let me know. I would think it would need to be some sort of class lawsuit or small claims court given the $$ involved.
On says
I would like once again to thanks Ross and the rest of Hover and Tucows Inc for the fantastic work they do.
At start I was very sceptic… and even thought that Rose was a member of some Piratic group… that has decided to take over my domains! LOL
Renewed my important domains with hover services for 5 years each.. at the last second.
THANKS ALOT FOR YOUR PATIENCE!
On Elpeleg
Leroy Nimka says
Ross Rader wrote:
“It might be helpful if someone developed a clearinghouse for this kind of information.”
It seems to me that nobody is in a better position to do that than you are. You could host the forum and provide a link to it on your hover.com home page, or at least provide the link if someone else is willing to host it. If you do that, I’m sure it will do wonders for your public relations situation. As it stands, there’s no hint on your website about why everyone lost all of those years they paid for, and without that information people have every reason to blame Hover itself.
Phill says
This situation is flat out ridiculous.
ICANN is 100% to blame for this situation.
ICANN should be sued and Parava should be sued. Preferably ICANN because there job is to regulate registrars and they fail to do so. Also they should have some type of insurance policy to deal wiith this sort of situation. There is a simple solution.
There should be an insurance policy in place to compensate registries for fees lost. If I paid for a renewal and parava did not pay the registry the insurance should cover it. The registries should settle for half the amount they usually get. The problem is that ICANN or registries or not trying to deal with the situation. We should come together and file a class action lawsuit against ICANN. How can you regulate a billion dollar industry with no insurance policy in place. I have contacted ICANN and their response is the registries and HOVER is handling the situation. The registries are not helping. Hover is a big help but they are limited with option. The companies in charge are screwing up so they should be sued point blank !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lets get together and file a suit. My email is [email protected].