There are many website design and development companies who will do anything and everything to keep you as a customer. You’re fed up with their lack of services. They’re not responsive. And they don’t meet their deliverables. But you’re stuck with them as your web hosting company. This is what is commonly referred to as handcuffing and you should do everything you can to avoid this situation.
The most common form of handcuffing we see is the domain transfer.
When you first sign up to work with these scammers they will ask that you transfer your domain to their GoDaddy account. They’ll tell you this is to ensure they have access and can service your account as needed. Once you’ve done this, control and ownership of your domain’s URL is in the hands of these scammers. From there, get ready to see a premium charged for your annual renewal fees, SSL certificates, and hosting accounts.
One you are finally fed up with their lack of service and call CleverLight to rescue you, these scammers will hold hostage your domain.
They’ll not release it back to you without charging additional fees and hassling you one final time; and unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. We worked with a customer who had been hooked by a scammer, came to us when their website went down, and spent 3 months to get the scammer to transfer the domain back so CleverLight could launch their new website.
Think about this situation for a moment—a company went 3 months with no web traffic, no leads, no calls, a ruined digital brand, and thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars of lost revenue.
The takeaway here is simple—never transfer your domain name to anyone for any reason. Period.
And, if a web design or hosting company purchases a domain name on your behalf—either for your convenience or your benefit—ensure that they are immediately transferring the domain to a GoDaddy or Namecheap account that is in your name. And when we host your website, that’s exactly what we do.
