Author: RESIDUAL DOCTOR

Today, I will be sharing an update about a particular incident which took place last week between myself and a very popular hosting company in Nigeria. Yes, owing to its agressive advertisement budget on Google Adwords and Facebook Ads, the company can be classed as a popular web hosting company in Nigeria, even their website description said so. But looking at the service delivery and customer experience in the past few months, I don’t think they’re anywhere close to popularity in this country where evergreen platforms like WHOGOHOST, Web4Africa and co., are.

I used to rank DomainKing among the best in Nigeria because they’re almost everywhere you click on the computer screen not until I paid to them and discovered that they are just nothing but an unreliable web hosting company from India with no physical entity in this country or proof of tax records – except I’m proven otherwise. But let’s leave that for another days and unravel the event that calls for this write up.

Is DomainKing.ng truly scam?

I’m not going to do too much of talking or writing since I’ve done that in my email to the two banks involved in this case, DomainKing itself, and the Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NiRA), and I was told to wait for them to conduct proper investigation. So, I’m going to copy-paste the email content here  and feed you back with upcoming responses.

I wrote an email to the two banks concerned two days ago regarding my incident with DomainKing.ng and why they needed to reverse my payment and also take note of future reoccurrence as a result of continuous advertising this company is running without making available enough room for people they’re taking money from.

Enjoy the script below….

Good Morning,

Tis is Mr. Olawale Daniel once again. Compliments of the season first of all.

Just to be quick, I need to quickly bring something to your attention and also to inform my bank about my decision to request for a reversal of the fund I transferred to VOGUE WEB SOLUTIONS’s GTB account number: 0121532782 on February 5, 2017 (which happens to be in the early hours of the Sunday morning). Hannu Internet Corp. Pvt. Ltd is the name of the company initially but publicly we know them as DOMAINKING and they use the website www.domainking.ng to conduct this crime.

You can view the invoice here http://clients.domainking.ng/viewinvoice.php?id=16629. It was auto-generated upon my clicking on using Bank Transfer as a means of making the payment. 

HOW IT HAPPENED

On Sunday, I wanted to buy two domain names from this service provider because I saw their advert everywhere online promoting .NG domain name at #9699 and I purchased a hosting plan along with it which goes for #4500 and I was given a domain for free on that hosting plan which is usually the case with first timer. The domain name I picked for that was dascoin.com.ng.

Then I picked BANK TRANSFER as means of Payment in which they autogenerated an invoice for me (I have attached it below) and I immediately did a transfer of #14199 around 07:03 AM (but it was #14299 that was lifted from my account because of #100 interbank transfer fee).

But since that day, the company has not responded to my chat, calls, messages, support tickets. Nothing else, all the social media profiles they are operating on are dormant and no one seems to care to listen or return emails, support tickets and calls. And in the process of my research, i realized that they seems to be having issue with registering some domain extension right now and this has affected them but instead of trying to deal with it, they do not, but instead, they engaged in extensive, aggressive and massive online marketing campaigns to attract more people into paying into their accounts by offering mouth-watering offers using Google Adwords and many other advertising platforms such as Facebook Ads etc., which is illegal.

In the course of my research, I realized that this company does not have any domiciled office here in Nigeria, they are from India and neither do they have a phone support system for one to call and give feedback.

So, I concluded that the account VOGUE WEB SOLUTIONS is mainly used for perpetuation of crimes across the country and I have done a couple more researches and realized that no one could trace them to a point except the bank-to-bank relationship or if NiRA rescind their license to transact business with Nigerians.

I have emailed Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) regarding this, though, I am yet to get a response but I trust they are going to do something about it to curb this incident from happening once again, hence more people would fell victim of this while trying to register domains or host using them (in fact, they are copied with this email as well). And one thing about Nigerians is, especially the lazy type, they’d rather keep silence about incident like this but I won’t until justice is served because if I do, somebody somewhere might get hurt really bad as a result of my inaction and inadequacies and irresponsibility as a good citizen of this great nation.

I have attached some proofs in form of an attachment and this link here https://hostadvice.com/hosting-company/domainking-nigeria-reviews/ to show that nobody seems to care about customer experience in this company and I would not want to associate myself with such a brand knowing fully well that I am not going to be listened to or well-attended to in times of need should in case I continued to host my web properties with them.

I am hereby requesting that ACCESS BANK commence a reversal of my money back to my account with immediate effect using due process, and that NIRA take note of this incident to prevent it from reoccurring, and that GTBank should be aware of this and future transaction coming into the above account (or if possible, they should call the people behind this particular account in order and let them know that they’re threading a dangerous path). 

In conclusion

As at this minute, I have made an order for this same service from another reliable company that has accredited registrar license with NIRA. So, there’s no need for me to have my money locked in DOMAIN KING’s third-party bank account since I no longer need their services and nobody seems to care to know how the customer feels in the company.

So, all parties involved should attend to this case as a matter of an urgency.

Thanks for understanding.
 – OLAWALE DANIEL

Screenshots of payment to DomainKing and customer support tickets unanswered after five days.

Now I strongly believe you’ll agree with me that customer service experience in the country hasn’t been great from the past and foreign based companies are coming here to capitalize on that by defrauding many Nigerians silently. I know I’m not the only one who could’ve fallen victim of this incident but the fact is, I can stand up against it knowing that if I fail to do that, someone else, somewhere might get hurt as a result of this negligence and irresponsibility.

I hereby call on all stakeholders and necessary department that has a anything to do with licensing of .ng domain registration in the country to always cross check existing accredited domain registrars on regular basis against foul play.

I am able to voice out because I have the voice but what about those who do not have voice, or whose  voice had been silenced?

I think it is time for our country to wake up and let’s take the country to the next level. Enough of low standard. Enough of allowing unprepared and unserious businessmen milking from the purse of this nation in an illegal manner.

– Olawale Daniel