Register.com: Remove the “Security Lock” Before Transfer

I just went through a frustrating time suck dealing with two outbound transfers at Register.com, and now that it has been resolved, I want to share it with you in case you come across the same issue.

I won two domain names at NameJet – SmartSpread.com and LegalVentures.com. The domain names were provisioned to my Register.com account. I generally try to consolidate my domain names at one registrar, so I unlocked these domain names and received the EPP authorization codes for transfers. I then initiated transfers to GoDaddy, which were denied due to the vague reason of “Unable to Verify Registrant Identity.

I exchanged multiple emails with Register.com, had a 30 minute phone call with technical support, and exchanged several tweets with the Register.com Twitter account. There were a couple of times I was told the domain names were all set to be transferred, and when I retried the transfers, they failed again. Frustrating and a waste of time.

After appealing to the support team once more and requesting escalation, I received an email from Register.com informing me that the domain names were okay to transfer. According to the email I received, “there was a security lock in place (separate from the normal transfer lock).” I am not exactly sure why there was a security lock on the names, but the lock was removed. The domain names then transferred to GoDaddy successfully.

Based on this experience, I now know to request that customer support at Register.com remove the extra security lock on domain names prior to attempting to transfer them. This does not appear to be something I can control. I don’t think I have run into this issue before, so perhaps the necessity of an additional security lock can be reviewed by the Web.com team to remove friction from the transfer process.

I appreciate that Register.com support was responsive to me and answered my emails fairly quickly. I wish the issue was more clear to the front line technical support staff so the security lock could have been removed when I first submitted my ticket.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

8 COMMENTS

    • It was described to me as a “security lock,” but I had never encountered it before at Register.com or Network Solutions. I have always been able to transfer domain names won at NameJet over to GoDaddy shortly after provisioning.

  1. Extra layer is for their VIPs. You should be honored.

    The employees call it…”Our Double Super Super Secret Security Lock” or ODSSSSL for short.

    Glad I don’t have it.

    • I think you are wrong.

      I am definitely not a VIP there. Now that those 2 names have been transferred, I have zero names in my Register.com account. I don’t even have a credit card on file.

      If I was a VIP, they would have removed the lock the first time I emailed and not made me try the transfers 3 times to get them out.

  2. Thanks for this info – Network Solutions, and Register.com are by far the worst registrars on this planet. They will do anything to make transfers extremely difficult and painful.

  3. I had a similar experience with Netsol last Fall. Customer service kept saying – it is not locked. It took a number of phone calls but I was eventually able to transfer the domain. It was very frustrating and time consuming. And, still not sure why this particular domain was ‘security locked’ and others were not.

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