RegisterFly
 | |
| Industry: | Registrar (Terminated) |
| Founded: | 2003 |
| Country: | USA |
| Key People | |
| John Naruszewicz Kevin Medina | |
RegisterFly was a domain name registrar. Its accreditation was terminated by ICANN in 2007 due to violations of several provisions in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement RAA. It was formerly operated by co-owners Kevin Medina and John Naruszewicz.[1]
History
RegisterFly was originally doing business as a reseller for eNom, an ICANN accredited registrar. The company became an ICANN accredited registrar through a "back-door accreditation" after acquiring Top Class Names, a registrar accredited by ICANN in 2004. The new management changed the name of Top Class Names to RegisterFly and assumed the ICANN accreditation and role of its predecessor in 2006.[2] At the time of operation, the company was based in New Jersey. There were more than 2 million registered domain names owned by approximately 900,000 consumers under its management. Some of its registrants include the government of Thailand, the Easter Seals charity and late pop star icon Michael Jackson.[3]
Massive Customer Complaint
ICANN started to received multitude of complaints from users regarding RegisterFly' poor service in 2005. Some of the customers complaint include the company's failure to respond to e-mails and support tickets, more than 30 minutes call hold time, domain name deletion, over charging of credit cards two times or more per transaction and denial of customer access to all their registered domain names once the credit card companies reversed the overcharges. The company also withheld the authorization codes to prevent customers from transferring their domain names to other registrars. Seventy five thousand customers was reported to have lost their domain names. [4]
Internal Conflict
According to reports, the company started to crumble after the personal and professional relationship of RegisterFly co-owners Kevin Medina and John Naruszewicz went sour. The two men fought for control of the company in court. Naruszewicz accused Medina of corruption and took over the control of the company.According to him Medina stole money from the company since the middle of 2006 to pay for two Cadillac Escalades, a penthouse apartment in Miami's South Beach, an escort service, and a liposuction. On the other hand, Medina accused Nariszewicz of using fraud to be able to take control of the company. [5]
On March 2007, Medina was able to proved to the court that he is the only rightful owner of the company bec ause Naruszewicz never paid for his stock. New Jersey District Judge Peter Sheridan ordered Medina's reinstatement as CEO of RegisterFly.[6]