After having written this about my former hosts and current domain registrants, I now find this.
I've therefore submitted a request for them (CP) to transfer my domain to a different registrar.
...The wait begins.
I've been quite diplomatic about this until recently, but since there is nowhere else to post this I think I will say it here since it really really needs to be said.
This regards my former hosts, Cyberpixels. I registered nsnet with them back in November of 2002 and was very impressed with their service. I got support when I needed it, I got all my stuff set up within 24 hours, it was cheap, it was great. They even upgraded my plan for free when I went over my bandwidth, and gave me my domain free for the second year.
All in all, great. I was making some good friends over at the forums and helping some people out with things that they had problems with, and all that kinda thing. I was really happy there. I even put a client's domain on their servers too.
Then the complaints started. People were flooding the forums with posts about how their accounts were not getting set up, how their refunds were never given, how their support requests were never answered.
Personally, I had never had a problem with any of this. The only thing I did have a slight problem with is that it took them 5 days to answer one of my support tickets. Never mind, it worked out anyway. Sometimes admins do have other things to do, after all they're only human.
About a year ago, I began to look for new hosting. Not because of the problems at CP, but because I wanted a change of scene and also I just wanted to see what everyone offered compared to what I was used to.
I finally chose a new host that was being run by just the one person. Now normally this isn't too strong a point, but when I sent an email about a quote she responded within 10 minutes. So I moved, and cancelled my accounts with CP. It took them a little while to get back to me, but I'd rather a little while than the never that some people experienced. My domain was still with CP so I continued to frequent the forums and such like so that I'd be aware of any problems and stuff.
Shortly after my move, I discovered that the owner of CP had not done anything for the last few months. They had left it completely to their staff, of which only one seemed to be doing anything useful. Apparently, CP's boss decided that they would run off with their new lover and enjoy themselves while their company was in the hands of somebody else. Fine.
But the bitching on the CP forums was getting worse. There wasn't a positive comment in sight, until the admins deleted all the posts that truly reflected what was going on.
And then ... CP owner fires all the staff. There was no mention on the forums of any of this, only that if you looked at the admin list, there was now only one name listed there.
Forum compaints did not disappear as quickly as they used to. Someone even found some staff members' blogs and highlighted the fact that they had indeed left and that their former boss was on vacation for... however long. On the boss's blog it said now they were going to be away for ages and how they are doing this and that and the other... no mention of work. Not that this matters much; not everyone goes on about their work on their blogs. However, I digress.
During this time that CP's director was away, there was a major outage with a lot of people complaining (just for a change) about data loss and the like. For 2 weeks there was no response from anyone. No announcement, no emails, no forum presence, no nothing. Then, after Christmas, the forums disappeared. They redirected themselves to the support helpdesk, where an announcement said that from January 1st there would be a complete redesign etc etc new staff blah blah blah and that they were, and I quote, "committed to turning things round".
...It is January 10th today.
The site has not changed one bit.
Neither has the helpdesk nor the announcement posted on it.
The forums are still non-existent.
Then today, while surfing the site of a friend, I found this from one of Cyberpixels' ex-employees. Read it, and make of it what you will.
Personally, I am disgusted by the way this 'company' has lied to its clients, who actually PAY to get good service.
I don't advise choosing CP under any circumstances, unless you want your money to go to somebody who doesn't care about what it was actually for.
If it didn't mean I'd have to pay $$$$ to transfer my domain, I'd do it. I don't want their name on my domain, nor do I want my money to go to them for actually having registered it. The other solution, of course, is to get a new domain but I can't think of a new name.
It's sad, but in a way I can't wait until CP folds. It will teach them a valuable lesson.
However, all of this is my opinion and my experience. Of course, they may be a lot better than I can see from the outside at this point in time.
Anyway, that's that. I would have posted it on the forums but of course they don't exist any more. Just beware who you trust with your money, and make sure that you do indeed get a service for it.
[EDIT] LOL I was talking to someone earlier who typed something random after CP's site addy and she came across all the billing databases for June of 2002. Now if that's not absolutely stupid and against Data Protection and that, I don't know what is. [/EDIT]