Domain Transfers From 123-reg To Cloudflare

Hi guys ... again :rolleyes: ... and sorry for feeling the need to start yet another thread so soon !

I'm in slow process of transferring everything from 123-reg to various places following the recent nameserver issue plus several previous significant issues with the godaddy-style changes being made. Some authoritative nameservers had already been set to Cloudflare a while ago but now they all are and everything is apparently working entirely as expected without interruption.

So I'm now attempting to transfer my domains fully over to Cloudflare Registrar. The first .uk domain transfer happened without too much grief and with no apparent issues afterwards. However, the next .plus domain resulted in an e-mail from 123-reg as below (with my emphasis):

123 Reg received notification on 18 February 2025 that you have requested/pre-approved a transfer to another domain name registrar. If you want to proceed with this transfer, you do not need to respond to this message. If you wish to cancel the transfer, please contact us before 22 February 2025 by going to your account to decline the transfer.

If we do not hear from you by 22 February 2025, the transfer will proceed.

If you plan on going ahead with the transfer, you don't have to do anything else — any products or services associated with your domain will be canceled too. To speed things up, you can approve the transfer right now.

Can 123-reg seriously be suggesting here that they fully intend canceling my paid-for web and email hosting A/Cs at the same time as control of the domain registration is moved elsewhere

I've zero experience with this and nothing at all would now surprise me about 123-reg making life as difficult as possible and trying to screw me over once again ... but surely ( don't call me Shirley and all that ) who's in charge of the domain registration data management is (or should be) completely irrelevant to any existing hosting arrangements ? Assuming that DNS records are being managed appropriately of course.

I've asked the question needless to say but ticket responses typically take days so does anyone have any real-life experience with moving away from 123-reg (or elsewhere) and just how unpleasant and/or totally unprofessional they are about it ? Or is this kind of abuse just normal and par for the course ?

I'm obviously hoping that it's all just threatening looking words with the intention of dissuading customers from moving rather than there actually being a real possibility of hosting plans which have some considerable paid-for periods left to run being switched off at the same time as the domain transfer ! My plan is/was to complete the Registrar changes now followed in due course by starting new hosting contracts elsewhere just before each of the existing hosting contracts expires.

I *really* hate 123-reg already but that hatred seems to be justifiably increasing on a daily basis ...

Edited by ambrougham (Tue 18-Feb-25 09:56:52)

No 123-reg experience, but some providers have a distinction in their systems between "internal" and "external" domains. I would hope if their systems do "cancel" the hosting after migrating the domain, that the domain can be added back in to the existing package for the remainder as an external domain.

The poster said that 123 will cancel that existing package when the domain reg is transferred. So nothing to attach the external domain to.

I've always found web hosts to be quite vague in their wording. They usually say "cancel" so that customers expect the worst.

Of course no-one except 123-reg can say for sure what will happen, so take my comments as pure speculation.

Thanks for the replies guys. I do understand the usual vaguery around what's said as opposed to what happens and 123-reg have form for taking this to the absolute max.

I had a response via chat as below confirming what perhaps most people would believe to be the case. Moving Registrar has no effect on hosting services providing that DNS is looked after appropriately of course after the transfer.

Florin @ 123-reg:
Yes, the cancel part refers to the autorenewal of your other services associated with the domain name will be turned off automatically by the system. If you still want to keep the web hosting package and email package you can turn the autorenewal back on or I can do it from my end for you.

Me:
So when I authorise the transfer, NOTHING ELSE CHANGES, all my site data and emails continue to work and be processed as they currently are ?

Me:
I need a guarantee of zero downtime on website data and email. DNS will not be changing it's already been changed.

Florin @ 123-reg:
The web hosting and email packages should not be affected by the domain transfer. As stated in my previous replied, only the autorenewal of these packages has been turned off. They will not be removed from your account together with the domain name and will remain active on the account as long as they are renewed when due

Unfortunately, like I said earlier, 123-reg have previously been the source of much misinformation and blatant lies (even put in writing to a pre-sales enquiry) that it's still difficult to actually believe a word they say. I'm therefore waiting on a 'second opinion' so to speak via the ticket. A ticket that will probably now just be ignored until the transfer happens by default anyway so they don't actually have to answer 'awkward' questions.

The chat was mostly BS anyway. It was ME who turned off auto-renew and other options ages ago. It didn't happen as a result of the transfer request. Also, they didn't even spot that DNS was already elsewhere so fully set up and working as expected. They started trying to tell me it would be because of DNS settings or lack thereof ! When asked what other possible "produts and services" 123-reg provided other than domain management, web hosting, email hosting and possibly still website building which could be being referred to ... I didn't get any real answer needless to say :rolleyes:

All I can actually think they were trying to say is disabling of DNSSEC and privacy options etc plus potential loss of very relevant DNS related entries ... BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT IS BEING SAID ... 123-reg specifically state "any products and services associated with your domain will be canceled" and I can't think of any relevant product and service they could justifiably be referring to. Just hosting various.

Sadly, the problem of course is that when push comes to shove, absolutely everything with 123-reg always has a US-style Lawyers interpretation rather than what any normal reasonable person would have. e.g. It was free and now we've stopped giving it to you so it's not a problem. It was free and therefore not contractual so now we are charging you lots for it. You don't have to pay though, you can lose half of what we advertised and you thought you were getting for your money for the next several years that you've paid for in advance. We didn't mean that (i.e. the most obvious) we meant, blah, blah, blah. Nightmare along with unexplained service performance issues various on occasions.

123-reg ARE DEFINITELY NOT the reputable and reliable company that they always used to be for donkey's years. Everything started going downhill after godaddy moved in and did so bigtime when they presumably started wielding the big stick to totally dismantle/change they way things always used to be etc. and do everything godaddy-style. A very sad demise of a once very reputable company Ditto TSOhost et al needless to say.

Edited by ambrougham (Wed 19-Feb-25 07:02:50)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

No 123-reg experience, but some providers have a distinction in their systems between "internal" and "external" domains.

I think you could perhaps be on the money with that

I do seem to remember a big old 'button' on an interface somewhere for "connecting to an external website" or words to that effect as opposed to "changing domain/host names" or similar ... however, now I can't seem to find it ! This could all be down to long-outdated info being provided as is very often the case with many 123-reg support responses and formal documents etc. They quite often still refer to how things always used to be rather than how things are now and in some cases have been for a dog's age.

But 123-reg are still specifically stating "any products and services associated with your domain will be canceled" though not simply disconnected or reset to default or words to that effect. The data hosting side of things isn't likely to be a significant problem if a reset to default or similar does happen. It would just be a massive and potentially very time-consuming nuisance. The email hosting side looks like it would be a right old PITA though because apart from anything else it's now a fundamentally different system to how it was when I first set things up.

Just going to have to wait and see exactly what does actually happen when the transfer button gets pushed ... I somehow doubt even 123-reg really know for sure what will happen until it does :lol:

This entire lengthy on-going saga for providing ISP-independent simple light-use personal web/email facilities has been out of a nice cozy old frying pan into several fires almost since day one unfortunately. I'm not so sure that experiencing yet another one will make too much of a difference now other than being yet another unbudgeted hit on the bank balance. On the positive side though, I've just renewed domains for $4.82 (£3.83) and $32.18 (£25.59) per year as opposed to £12.99 and £48.84 (presumably + VAT) per year via 123-reg. That's one h*ll of a 123-reg (et al) mark-up for doing not very much at all apart from playing silly b*ggers often !

Edited by ambrougham (Wed 19-Feb-25 06:57:18)

Sorry, forgot to post the end result just for the record. Well ... I finally decided to push the 'transfer now' button and it all happened in around an hour. Fortunately with no adverse/unwarranted/unexpected effects whatsoever. Everything apparently just carried on exactly as before other than 123-reg totally losing the ability to seriously screw things up and/or hold me to ransom in one way or another yet again at any point in the future needless to say

No apparent issues or any interruption with hosting services arose subsequently on the default transfer date or at the end of the month etc either. So it's now 2 weeks in and all is well ... famous last words and all that !

I still have no real explanation as to exactly what 123-reg were actually meaning to say in that email which appeared to threaten imminent doom for daring to change registrar. Apart from the vague excuses of DNS changes disabling hosting and auto-renew getting turned off, both of which were completely irrelevant, 123-reg even suggested that the offending email may not have even been from them ! They didn't actually seem to know what emails 123-reg send out in relation to a Domain Transfer and to which contact addresses they're sent. Just another demonstration of incompetence and/or somewhat unprofessional conduct to add to the list it seems :rolleyes:

There is no doubt it came from 123-reg. It was the 2nd in a series of 4 messages in relation to the .plus domain transfer which required an Authorisation Code to initiate the transfer. 1st email contained the Authorisation Code. 2nd email confirming "transfer in progress" was apparently sent when the Authorisation Code was used and contained the "any products or services associated with your domain will be canceled too" warning. 3rd email was to say transfer complete when it presumably was. 4th email was a "sorry you've left us" message. All the same style/format. All from the same 123-reg email address. All sent via the same 123-reg server(s). All sent to the Domain admin email address. There was also a separate "Domain Registration removed from your A/C" email sent to the 123-reg A/C email address

The .uk Domain didn't require an Authorisation Code so no such emails or threats/warnings of imminent doom. Everything just happened around an hour after initiating the transfer at Cloudflare. No messages at all from 123-reg other than a "Domain Registration removed from your A/C" email sent to the 123-reg A/C email address some time later.