A client's client has a high profile website. He's a platinum country music artist and his store is offline. The domain expired. Dumb? Yep! So, just renew it! Nope, no can do. They're using a registration company that uses the last six digits of the credit card number used to pay the last bill as a security identifier. So, all you have to do to hijack a domain is pay for its renewal. So, here's the glitch. We just need to pay to renew the domain. But, big registration company won't allow us to do that unless we can provide evidence we are the person who rightfully owns the domain. This is compounded by the fact that the person who actually registered the domain no longer works for the company. Dumber, dumber and compound that by bad policy.

Disclaimer: I consult other tech firms, this is not my tech firm handling the domain and my company was not involved in registering the domain originally. I have a strict policy against leaving domains orphaned. It virtually always ends badly.

This problem can be sorted out in a few days. Some executives at company A talk to client B and all is settled with a few email back and forth. It could take a day, or it could take a month. But, that means the website is down until its handled.

Important note: if you have someone register your domain with this reigistration company, and they quit or go incommunicado, these guys shut the site down without contacting you even if you're the admin. But, if you are the admin, the notification (you never receive) is of no use because as the administrative contact you can not renew the domain!

They have a very high profile website down because the person who registered the domain left the company and they no longer have access. That's profoundly stupid. All they need is the registration company to accept the $10 so the site can go back online and we can sort this whole access and ownership problem out later. Big registration company won't budge. It's dumb (client's side) multiplied by bad (their policy) and it's a really terrible and embarassing situation.