Transferring Domain

I’m transferring my domain from GoDaddy to NameCheap, so there might be some downtime.

What Grinds My Gears: Many of today’s service companies are whacked. New customers are getting better rates and discounts than old customers. Whatever happened to company loyalty? What many of today’s companies are forcing us to do is swtich, switch, SWITCH! Easiest one to think of are cell phone services. New customers get free or cheap new phones and great plans. Old customers, you have to threaten to cancel before they start wagging their tail, and even then, the deal you’re getting won’t be as good as what new customers would. This is all backwards. Now isntead of trying to keep the customers they already have, they’re trying to steal customers from others while others steal from them. I personally think it’d be a lot easier to keep customers, and if I had a company, that’d be my priority over getting new customers. Contracts help, but after a year, they’re gone.

I’d like to point out another such company, INGDirect, an online savings bank. Just 2 months ago, I had all my savings money in there, despite there being higher interest rates at EmigrantDirect and HSBCDirect (I just realized all these online savings bank has the word Direct in them). Anyway, I got so pissed at their latest promotion, I finally switched out. If it wasn’t for this promo, my money would’ve still been at INGDirect. The promotion was, any new accounts or balance over a certain date would get a higher interest rate of 4.75% while the old balance would get 3.75%. Being a loyal customer, I already had all my savings in INGDirect, and the few extra salary payments I was receiving for the 3 month promo would only amount to a few dollars difference vs $50 difference if all my money would’ve gotten the higher interest rate. So I transferred to HSBCDirect when they started their promo of 4.80% for ALL FUNDS, not just new funds after a certain date. I agree, INGDirect support is fast and quick and money actually transfers from ING to my checking account in Bank of America in only 2 days, I hope by transferring all my money out would make a statement on how they treat their current customers. HSBCDirect isn’t that bad either. The interface does need some work and it only takes 3 days to get my mony from and to my checking account.

I don’t really mind promotions that treat both new and existing customers equally, but whe promotions start treating new customers better than existing customers, especially customers that’s been loyal to you for many years, it breaks my heart when all they see are new customers in their eyes.

So why is this on a transferring domain blog? The reason once again for transferring my domain from GoDaddy to NameCheap is the fact that GoDaddy treats new customers better than old. I had wanted to renew my domain registration for 10 years. I even called them to ask if I could get the promo rate for new transfers and registrations. The difference wasn’t big either. It was $85 vs $89.50. Guess what, the guy on the phone even talked to his supervisor and they said this rate was only for new registrations and transfers and couldn’t give me that $4.50 discount. Welp, guess what. They lost a customer. I was first going to switch over to Yahoo! Domains because they were having a deal for $2.95/yr registrations, but at that time, my domain still had another 2 months before it expired, so I thought I’d wait to maximize. Opportunity lost when I tried a few weeks ago to transfer my domain and the promo had ended and it returned back to the regular $9.95 pricing. I already owned krunk4ever.org on NameCheap (don’t bother spamming that domain, because all email gets bounced), so I went to check what deals they were having. $8.88/yr + there was a coupon for $7.99/yr for the 1st 2 years. I thought I’d bite. Still can’t believe GoDaddy would rather lose a customer than give me that $4.50 discount. I had even sent subsequent emails regarding this issue and even telling them I’d be switching over to NameCheap, but their reply was the same every time.