Issues for Australian Domains - renewal and transfer

[ozace]

To renew an Australian domain (.com.au for example) the domain needs to be within 90 days of expiry. So if a customer orders a renewal and then pays for it and it is outside the renewal period then a refund is required.

 

Similarly transfers of Australian domains are free (and do not effect a renewal) until 90 days from expiry. If the transfer happens during the last 90 days then a renewal takes place and the customer has to pay.

 

Now the registrar module doesnt see the renewal request or transfer request until the system has marked the order paid.

 

I guess there are two scenarios:

 

1. WHMCS calls another function in the registrar module (if present) that checks for renewal or transfer time fence

 

2. I guess some sort of work could be done in the actionhooks - say actionhook_PreShoppingCartCheckout() to do this check and then set price to 0 for the transfer if outside the period or marks an error on the cart for the renewal if outside the period? Can this hook return any information that would allow this to happen ?

 

Hope the explanation makes sense - does anyone have a view/experience with this issue ?

 

cheers

 

jim

[sparky]

The DistributeIT module does check for this.

What registrar are you using?

[ozace]

Enetica - I am writing the registrar module now but cant find anywhere that is triggered before the order is completed and ready to go

 

Jim

[MonkeyMagic]

We use DistributeIT.

 

A customer put in an order to transfer a .com.au domain name that had another 18 months left before expiry.

 

WHMCS did not pick this up and charged the customer a renewal fee - but this should not have happened.

 

As mentioned by the OP in the first post, .au domain name transfers are completely FREE, as long as it is not within 90 days of the expiry date.

 

We ended up refunding the client who should not have been charged in the first place.

 

How is this supposed to work in WHMCS - did we do something wrong?

 

Or is the DistributeIT module lacking something?

[MonkeyMagic]

In addition to my above post, once the transfer was processed and completed, the expiry date was 00/00/0000 - which is a problem.

 

But also, the 'next due date' was simply 2 years from the date of the order - but it should be the same as the expiry date - ie. the real expiry date of the domain?

 

These would mean that we would need to manually update the domain details everytime a transfer is completed?

 

Is this right?

 

There must be something wrong here?

[ozace]

The problem is that unless you have the domain password at the original registrar you cant see the expiry date of the domain - generally protected in .au. So when you come to do the transfer then you cant see whether the domain is within the 90 days or renewal (and thus chargeable) or outside and the transfer is free.

 

Not sure how you could sort this.

 

Jim

[MonkeyMagic]

Well, if you were to do the transfer Manually through DistributeIT - ie. not in WHMCS - then there is no problem.

 

During the transfer process at DIT, it checks the registry and sees if it is within 90 days or not and lets it go Free if not, or charges it if it within 90 days.

 

WHMCS does not seem to do this - unless I have it set up wrong or something???

[Klangaroo]

Solution: Don't use enetica. They're awful. We used them until we bought WHMCS and we switched to DistributeIT and it's fantastic. Don't go back there, man.

[MonkeyMagic]

Klangaroo, if you post is a reply to my post - please re-read my post - we are ALREADY with DistirbuteIT.

[Klangaroo]

Klangaroo, if you post is a reply to my post - please re-read my post - we are ALREADY with DistirbuteIT.

 

No, im talking to the OP, he said he uses Enetica.

[timraines]

So let me clarify what I read above.. we are Distribute I.T customer..

 

If the Transfer is coming from another registar then doing it via WHMCS will cause the customer to get the transfer charge applied.

 

So would it mean if the domain key is provided during the order process .. that the Distribute IT module is smart enough to do the check, as it would then be able to read AU Registry info?

 

MonkeyMagic.. I have same problem as you.. with 00's in the expiry dates.. it's a pain in the ass, been manually setting it at the moment..

 

I was speaking with Distribute IT a few weeks ago.. the word is that they are working on an updated module.. so there's a chance some of these things might be resolved.. maybe it might even come in the v4 of WHMCS when that gets released? ... I found out that they were writing a new version of the module.. after making mention that it doesn't support domain key's with non-standard characters.. a lot of the new domain keys now contain brackets and exclamation marks etc.. which will cause the module to fail anyways. Which I would imagine some people have noticed also?

[MonkeyMagic]

Correct. At the moment, EVERY domain transfer is charged the transfer fee regardless of the expiry date. Meaning it needs to be refunded if the domain is not within the 90 days to expiry.

 

It is a big problem.

 

And having the 00's in the expiry date is just annoying - we're trying to automate as much as possible, yet have to go and do these manually.

[timraines]

Yeah .. that's it .. we try and automate a process.. and lately finding that one component of that process has a problem which is time wasting.. Billing with WHCMS is great.. but because we have PLESK servers.. we had hoped to use the Plesk Billing module .. just because it gas tight integration with the CP.. but found that the issues with how hard it was to make an invoice come out the way we wanted was like near impossible.. So yea.. you get one good thing happening then run into a brick wall somewhere else... lol lifes hard!

Edited April 29, 2009 by timraines

[raaqi]

Can't someone make a simple sync script to sort out all the expiry dates? Most of mine are wrong, and alot are just 00/00/00.

 

I'm not a programmer but i know the DIT API is very good... anyone wanna give it a go?

[sparky]

I have already started a new DIT module.

Andrew from DIT said that their new module should be due very soon as well.

[Zorro67]

hay Sparky,

I spoke with DIT some time ago about others module they are working on- their SMS and SSL modules were planned to be out last year. They are great blokes , but I wouldnt hold my breath on the timing of the module

 

Alos in response to tim's post above , AU domains can't contain special characters except a hypen.

 

http://www.auda.org.au/policies/auda-2008-07/

 

4.3 Registrars must check that the requested domain name:

a) is from 2 to 63 characters long;

b) contains only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) or hyphens (-), or a combination of these;

c) starts and ends with a letter or a number, not a hyphen; and

d) does not contain hyphens in the third and fourth position (eg. ab--cd.com.au).

4.4 In addition, registrars must check that the requested domain name is not on auDA's Reserved List. The Reserved List is available on auDA's website at http://www.auda.org.au/policy.

Edited May 14, 2009 by Zorro67

[ireckonhosting]

I know this is an old post, but I am having this issue with AU domains also, and use V4.3.1

 

Unless I am seeing things here.

If a transfer key is required to find out the expiry date of the domain, then why is the client area not requesting the transfer password during the order process? Or have I missed anything?

 

Anyone else out there still having this issue?

[Damo]

During the order process *when requesting a domain transfer* the user should be prompted to enter the domain password. Have you made any changes to the order templates?

[ireckonhosting]

I haven't personally, but I'll ask the programmers here who put this all together.

 

So if the password field is finally there, will the 90 day expiry rule automatically be applied then by WHMCS?

[Damo]

There is no 90 day expiry rule from auDA. You can transfer a domain at any time prior to the expiry date without the need to renew it. Some registrars (the former Distribute.IT for example) used to impose the renewal.

[ireckonhosting]

There is no 90 day expiry rule from auDA. You can transfer a domain at any time prior to the expiry date without the need to renew it. Some registrars (the former Distribute.IT for example) used to impose the renewal.

 

Yeah I know. But does WHMCS know that if ourside the 90 days, to not charge client when transferring? Or does it still charge it?

[Damo]

It will still charge the fee you set as the price for transfer.

[ireckonhosting]

So WHMCS doesn't care if the domain is within or outside the 90 day expiry period.. it will charge the renewal during the transfer either way.... that just sux...

[Damo]

No, it doesn't charge a renewal during the transfer at all. Transferring an au domain doesn't extend the renewal period so why would it charge?

 

Once transferred a renewal invoice will be generated as per normal schedule.