As an existing customer of Webmania I have had huge problems over the past 6 months with their billing mistakes, domain registration failures and inability to reply to any second level enquiries. The live chat and helpdesk are still operational (supplied by a third party), but the UK side of the company seems to have disappeared.
I can only assume the owner has either gone bust or something unfortunate has happened to them.
After a lot of work I have finally managed to get my domains released from Webmania and transferred over to a reputable host.
If you are in a similar position, read on.
How to transfer your domains and hosting away from Webmania
Webmania is a reseller of OnlineNIC. If you have tried and failed to resolve your problem with Webmania directly, go to OnlineNIC.com and register within their support section before opening a new ticket, explaining the issue. They are getting pretty sympathetic to Webmania customers now, and usually help.
You need to specifically ask them to do the following:
- UNLOCK each domain. This is a setting Webmania enabled to stop unauthorised transfer of domains away from them.
- Change the administrator email address to your own email. Without this, all domain transfer requests will go to Webmania, they wont respond and your transfers will fail. Can you tell I tried this several times before realising?
- Provide the EPP codes. Your new host will ask for these to initiate transfer.
Note: for .co.uk domains, you should bypass OnlineNIC and go straight to nominet.org.uk who will help you out in a similar way.
Now, register with a new host. I highly recommend Netmotivated. They now host all of my sites (this blog is about to transfer as I write this), and I know the operator so can vouch for their business standards. All support request are dealt with quickly and by UK staff.
Had a similar experience? Or do you know where the Webmania owner has gone?!
Drop a comment and let me know
Dan
Update 15th May 2011
Webmania have been appointed a liquidator (source). More interestingly, the owner Nathan Barnes set up a new hosting company the very next day – http://www.yorhost.net/ Needless to say I wouldn’t recommend rushing to sign up to this one
About the author: Dan Huddart is a web analytics professional, specialising in obtaining business insight from Google and Adobe/Omniture analytics solutions. Read more from this author
Guys I do not recomend any one to go to webmania. I registered with them on December 2010 and still I can’t manage my website I tried every thing. They registred the site after a month of payment after long debate, live chat anad 0870 telephone conversation that I paid almost
Yep, shocking service from these guys. I’ve been with them for a few years – have lived with *niggles* over the years [sites hijacked, index pages cannibalised that sort of thing] but of late its all gone really pete tong. Trying to get my domain back up and running for the last few weeks, still no joy despite my having paid the renewal invoice on time. Thanks for the info re OnlineNIC – am raising a ticket right now….
Web-mania appear to have locked my site, changed the password so I can’t access it.
Anyone else had this?
I have raised a ticket with OnlineNIC and have been asked for proof, i.e. “scanned driver license,passport, scanned business invoice related to this domain name, scanned receipt related to this domain name purchasing and renewal are all useful proof documents”.
I’ll keep you posted.
Hi Julian, they didn’t lock my account but OnlineNIC asking for proof of ID is normal. Good luck
Apologies, it transpires that web-mania hadn’t locked my account just changed the password. They had emailed me to let me know, I just missed it.
Anyway, the good news is that after reminding OnlineNIC to change the email address as well as send an Auth code, my transfer is under way.
Many thanks Dan for your help.
Dan,
This is exactly the situation I’m in at the moment, I’ve just raised a ticket with onlineNIC. Slightly complicated by the fact that the cowboys at webmania didn’t renew my domain (in spite of full payment of all invoices) which now means the domain is in it’s ‘RedemptionPeriod’ which will no doubt cause another layer of problems getting it transferred out. The site’s been down for 3 days now and web mania appear to have vanished entirely, appalling service from an appalling company.
Excellent blog post, very, very helpful!
Fingers crossed for the transfer!
Have been dealing with onlinenic for two dot com siutes, they are fairly efficient and without saying so I believe are well aware of the problems, I created an account with them and am transferring my sites as and when they come to renewal. My two sites so far are still off line, but onlinenic have changed the dns pointers so the problem seems to be with my new hosters….
Good luck to all in the “merde” with web-mania
i recently tried buying a domain in December they took the money and the domain was never purchased, the person on live chat come up with excuses so after a week i went to 123-reg and purchased the same domain there and had the confirmation within hours and i still have not got my money back after 2 months and about 6 e-mails to all of there departments and hours on there live chat even though it is in their terms and conditions that they will refund the money if the domain is not available, i did receive 6 e-mails back two weeks later and they all arrived together saying they were dealing with it but haven’t heard anything since. Last night i checked my e-mail and found that another Domain name i own has nearly expired despite paying in full for the renewal in December i sat on live chat for half an hour last night waiting for someone to answer until 10.45pm and eventually went to bed. How can this company continue to take peoples money with no intention of supplying the service, that’s fraud isn’t it ? don’t touch them looks like ive got a battle getting my money and domain name back
I had the nightmare similar to all the above with Web Mania and am almost finished clearing it up. I had two occasions in the last couple of years where their servers became compromised (externally or internally…?) and was requested to change all my passwords. Also, a Tronan somehow got on to one of my web pages and viewers ended up with it… I’ve been moving my stuff to TSO Hosting and have found them incredibly obliging and response-wise it’s almost supersonic.
I dealt with OnlineNIC to move a .com domain and found them extremely helpful and I now have a direct account with them. I’m down about
I’ve just come off the phone to West Midlands Trading Standards (you have to start with the office in your own are) having filed a complaint with them a few weeks ago. They talked me through stuff I already know about how I should write a letter to Web Mania’s offices in York (address on WM’s web site) citing breach of contract which I could ultimately sue for. I’m familiar with using the small claims court in my business but it isn’t worth it for
Just heard back from OnlineNIC and they want $134 to take the domain out of its redemption period. I don’t see that I have much choice but to pay otherwise I’ll lose the domain.
I certainly intend to pursue web-mania for the money but if they are going bust I don’t expect much success.
Nathan Barnes has a lot to answer for!
Can you prove that the domain expired due to a fault of Webmania? If so I would advise reminding them of that, or contacting icann.org who can resolve disputes.
It may be quicker just to pay up in the meantime
I’ve copies of my paid invoices and onlinenic have confirmed that it expired because web mania didn’t renew it.
‘Shawn’ on live support has assured me the issue will be fixed today so I’m giving them until 6.30. I’ve also informed their billing department (or rather their billing email address, lets be honest, it’s pretty much a one man band) that unless its fixed by 6.30 I’ll be renewing it myself and pursuing them for the costs incurred.
Time for a recorded delivery letter threatening the small claims court I believe!
Ah poor old Shawn, he seems to do the evening shift most nights, must be taking some abuse at the moment! The agents appear to be employed by Liveperson not Webmania so I think powerless to resolve these issues
Didn’t stop him trying though, he responded to my expired domain issue with the dogmatic insistence that everything would be fine in 12 hours after he reset my DNS.
Poor bloke.
I’m in the same situation as Matt here – a bill for $134 to take the .com domain out of redemption. There’s no way I’m paying another bill for something I’ve technically already paid for so I’m saying goodbye to my .com.
“Luckily” Web Mania had processed the .co.uk domain so I’m just going to use that now and force the transfer of it to a new hosting through Nominet for a tenner.
I’m glad I’m not a small business reliant upon my domain name and just use my site for personal stuff!
Going through the process now – went straight to Nominet for an urgent transfer.
Got in touch with OnlineNic for two .co.uk domains and one .com domain that I registered through webmaniac.
They only need some basic ID to help with the .com, but they say they have no connection to the .co.uk domains – is it the case that the WM-ON relationship only applies to .com domains?
I should have gotten away from WM when the first warning signs appeared, but at that point I was just happy to get DNS changed to a different host and didn’t give so much thought to getting domain names away from them.
Hi Bobs, no they wont be able to help you with .co.uk. As mentioned above you need to get in touch with Nominet again, explain that you can’t get a response from Webmania and ask them to change the change the IPSTAG to your new host. You will need to prove to them who you are.
Can anyone tell me what to do to get my son’s school PTA page repointed to our school server from Webmania, I have asked Webmania repeatedly to do this but absolutely nothing is happening.
Help! I haven’t got a clue what to do next.
Rachel
Hi Rachel – have you read the article at the top of this page? It explains how you can contact OnlinceNIC who will help you with the transfer
Hi Dan
Yes I did sorry – I am getting confused about domain names and web page hosting I think. Will contact Online NIC to see if they can help.
Thanks.
Rachel
Hi,
I have used web-mania for 8 years!!
…and am now having the same problems, so a thank you for posting this help.
Hi, another Web-Mania victim here.
Did you use the EU & Africa support option when you raised the ticket?
I got a response today but it seems rather “standard issue” (we will send a request to our partner etc.), in dodgy English and they didn’t answer my question about ID.
Thanks for posting this info anyway, I’ll keep trying.
Yes I did, keep trying – I always got a response within 24 hours. I would mention that you’ve already tried to contact Webmania otherwise they’ll push you down that path
Yep been bitten here too and just spend the best part of a bank weekend trying to rebuild 2 wordpress websites and retrieve my URLs through onlinenic.com – all looks like it has (more or less) recovered, still waiting on the last few redirects to kick in
I’m lucky in that I know a thing or two about IT and websites but this has stretched my technical abilities and I feel for those who are dumbfounded by a lot of the terminology and technicalities – all huge problem sources and all squarely the fault of Mr Nathan Barnes. I did read that he stated to trading standards that it was due to ‘server issues’ – cobblers ! As a Data Center Manager myself you don’t suddenly become crap by moving your locations
As its a pain for Trading Standards and difficult for us all to get our money back, if you want at least some self-satisfaction (especially when you are a long way away like I am) I suggest dropping a line to Watchdog at the BBC – get Anne Robinson to go postal on Mr Barnes – might do some good – go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/ and drop them a line – especially UK residents who will no doubt get more response than expats like me who don’t have to pay our license fees any more.
The more letters to them, the bigger chance of them getting on the case
My .com domain suddenly started working again – looks like Web Mania registered it 3 months late as it’s now due to expire in March, not December as before. Glad I didn’t shell out the $134 Online NIC wanted off me.
Needless to say I shall be moving the domain when it comes up for renewal away from Web Mania (who are now called YorHost.net by the way).
Glad I found this blog post – thanks for posting those details.
I’ve had a .com domain registered with web-mania for 7 years – I’d transferred my .co.uk’s away years ago as the Nominet process is really easy, but .com’s are a bit more difficult so had just left it with web-mania and got them to point the nameservers to my hosting elsewhere.
Wishing I’d made the effort to transfer it away now, as I got an email from my hosting provider (not web-mania) saying the nameservers had now changed to onlinenic’s. Baffled, I checked my whois records, and it had changed – as web-mania/yorhost had let the domain expire 4 days ago! Even though I paid the invoice in April!
I managed to still log into my control panel on web-mania and change the nameservers back and unlock the domain (both new features since I last visited their site), but can’t do much else in terms of renewing or transferring, so have opened a ticket with OnlineNIC. Hopefully will hear back soon, as my domain is an important asset to me.
So frustrating.
To me, onlinenic fairly efficient and without saying so I believe are well aware of the problems, I created an account with them and am transferring my sites as and when they come to renewal. My two sites so far are still off line, but onlinenic have changed the dns pointers so the problem seems to be with my new hosters. Best of luck for you.
After I let the automatic repayment go through for another year at the beginning of November my website hosted with YorHost mysteriously disappeared. The help page was broken, no form to fill in, I sent increasingly angry e-mails with no reply, I tried phoning them, no answer… After googling I found this web page – THANK YOU for the info!
OnLineNIC were very helpful and the process was straightforward.
I now have my three domain names transferred elsewhere, and they actually have a proper PLESK interface and things, plus everything uploads and works much more quickly – for half the price!
I tell as many people as I can to avoid YorHost/Webmania, I’m gutted that I lost the money for the year renewal as times are tight right now, but at least I have my site back.
Thanks for the help, most useful Blog post I’ve ever read!
Hi I am dealing with the same problems, I have raised a ticket with OnlineNIC and am waiting for a reply. Any idea on how long they take to reply?
Also when I raised a ticket I was ask which departmet
Sales Division
Support – Partner Channel
Support – End User Portal
Which one is best
Thanks for the help
Hi Boyd,
They always got back to me within 24 hours, usually overnight. I’d suggest Support – End user.
Best of luck