Hello webmasters,

I will love to know if efcc (nigeria) can handle a domain name dispute or issue.

I need a clarification on this.

Thank you,
Chris!

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

If the dispute has nothing to do with the words above, they may have no say in it.
In my experience I havn't seen EFCC's involvement in any domain issues, even domains related to fraud.

If there's a dispute and you want to lay complaints do a WHOIS on the domain name and get the "abuse" email there and send a mail.

Is the dispute classified or something you can share here?

I registered a domain name with a company here in Nigeria and now I want to transfer it to lagoshost.com and the current registrar refused to unlock it.

I have contacted lagoshost to initiate a transfer and they did still the current registrar refused to do anything about it.

I am planning to report to efcc. Can that help?

Thank you.

In my opinion I don't think reporting this to EFCC will help.
Look at the Terms of Service of the previous host and see if they are within their right to hold down a domain they registered. If they do no have any right to do this, then you can form a legal case.

What reasons are they giving for withholding your domain. You have mentioned the company you are transferring to, do well to mention the company you are transferring from (the ones withholding your domain)!

Coming out in the open may make them act.*

In the interim, you may want to get the .net equivalent of the domain (i'm assuming its .com) and do a redirect from the domain being withheld to the new one.


*I had a dispute with a datacenter in US over one of my dedicated servers some years back (they broke a network card and refused to replace it at no cost) and they refused to refund until they saw my complaint on webhostingtalk forum and they refunded and asked me to withdraw my case there.

If I mansion them here, they may get angry with me.

^^Did you sign any contract of non-disclosure with them? Does the terms of service you agreed to enter into with them forbid you from disclosing their identity under any circumstances? You care about their being angry, do they care about you at all?

Well your choice.
What about the other things I raised? What is the reason given for the refusal?

@item
why not go ahead a mention their name, one thing am sure of is that
no company want a complain about a clients to be exposed/to the public, because they know what that will do their business. You do not have anything to loose. At worse you will register the .net of your domain and do a redirect from the domain that is being held by them, and patiently wait for the domain to expire, so that your new host can now re-register it for you. I am sure they will not want to renew it when it expires.

I am presently using this sidon look for 3 domains am having the same issue with.

Effc has no say in domain dispute and another problem with Nigerians is that we don't bother to read TOS. I think the best you can do is do a whois and send a mail to the abuse email for help

EFCC wont help you with domain names

First did you login to your control panel and did the unlocking by changing the lock status or you just sent them a mail?

They are promohost.info. Even their site is no longer active.

As other posters had said,read their TOS and as for me i buy my domain from godaddy.com

Very nice customers support 24hrs

Efcc will not help matters here. We are still trying to do somethin about it.

You should be able to unlock the domain in the current host's control panel. Hope it hasn't expired?

It has not! I don't have access to the domain control panel. I only have access to the host.

financial matters are the only concern of efcc. if a website is involved, its their business. but i doubt if domain name disput can come into efcc jurisdiction.

EFFC has nothing to do with domain,

Wats ur relationship wiv dem b4 using dem?
Dont just jump in2 9ja hostin companies anyhow

SHALOM

lagoshost:

Efcc will not help matters here. We are still trying to do somethin about it.

iThink the guys involved has responded, Give them a lil time to see whether they can help you resolve the problem.

iThink its out of their control too,

Remember most of this guys are resellers too!

Thanks for understanding.

flexi-net:

EFFC has nothing to do with domain,

You don answer every

Was the domain name purchased separately or was it part of a deal as is free domain attached to a hosting plan?

In my opinion, Nigerians do not like facts and honest information about these things and that is why you see a lot of fly by night outfits claiming to be domain name or web hosting companies making impossible offers at ridiculous prices where Nigerians rush to use only to get disappointed in no time.

So, was the domain name paid for by you? If yes, then they have no right to hold on to it. If no, then they can hold on to it since you never paid for it.

However, since the company's website proper is not online it may be that the company itself may have gone under or that they cannot even access the control panel that can unlock the domain name in question.

Get a friggin lawyer to sue their arse. Period
oh just so you may know am a lawyer too

Chris. Whether or not you can seek redress or compel the domain transfer will largely depend on the Terms and Conditions you initially agreed to. Nevertheless, The bone of contention in your case is covered by the umbrella term "Intellectual Property" in law. In a nutshell, Intellectual Property consists of 3 things namely:

(i) Copyright
(ii) Trademarks
(iii) Patents

The EFCC has the power to prosecute some parts of intellectual property; mostly copyright infringement. In your own matter however, a domain name falls under the branch of Trademarks. Your best bet is to visit the Nigerian Copyright Commission (now known as Nigerian Intellectual Property Commission, NIPCOM) and file a complaint.

efcc has no business in this

so so long things. Register anoda domain and getcha butt and that of ur clients/visitors/members over there with a redirect. Cant remember where, but i saw a host service providers slogan as 'it all begins in a domain'. That's a myth! It all begins with youre service. Open getmoney.com and offer to dash people money wen they visit, but u dont. Open iwilldashyouonethousandnairaifyouenterhere.com, if we enter there and recieve credit notifications from our banks thereafter, a million of us will bookmark, a thousand will cram d domain, a hundred will save it in their pda and ofcourse 10 fools wil visit everyday and complain about it length still.

@poster
go ahead and register .net and redirect, you know your clients cannot afford to wait and they may not even understand what you are going thru.

Waleesa:

Chris. Whether or not you can seek redress or compel the domain transfer will largely depend on the Terms and Conditions you initially agreed to. Nevertheless, The bone of contention in your case is covered by the umbrella term "Intellectual Property" in law. In a nutshell, Intellectual Property consists of 3 things namely:

(i) Copyright
(ii) Trademarks
(iii) Patents

The EFCC has the power to prosecute some parts of intellectual property; mostly copyright infringement. In your own matter however, a domain name falls under the branch of Trademarks. Your best bet is to visit the Nigerian Copyright Commission (now known as Nigerian Intellectual Property Commission, NIPCOM) and file a complaint.

Pls where is the office of Nigerian Intellectual Property Commission, NIPCOM, i need them now now. thanks

I support you go with the advice of other posters saying you should use a redirect from the old address to the new one. The whole NIPCOM thing will take time. But here's their address:

Nigerian Copyright Commission
Ground Floor, Annex II
Federal Secretariat Complex
Shehu Shagari Way
Maitama
P.M.B. 406
Garki, Abuja
Title of Head: Director General

NB: The DG is actually a Law lecturer in the Lagos State University. His name is Mr. Adebambo ADEWOPO.

sorry my dear friend for nija if u have domain name dispute sorry for you. there is nothing someone can do about it online unless if you can apprehend the suspect better.

hehe, guy u don miss road, No harm in trying sha