Yestreday i put in an order to purchase a domain (i year) which recently was expired (expired as of oct 2007). That domain showed available through aplus.net and so i made a purchase. However, the status only changed twice from pending initial payment to pending registration and i received an email saying that they submitted my request to Global Registry. Today i checked register.com and tried to find the same domain name and it says "domain name not available" and also checked whois which says pending deletion/renewal and the expiry date says 2008 oct. I am confused here. If it never expired in the first place, why did aplus.net showed the domain as available and allowed me to register? --link dev
first you should check it at the whois of its current Registrar or at least at Verisign then , it is possible that the original Registrant simply renewed the name.
About a year ago I have had the exact same problem with Aplus and found that there were many others who also had the problem. I already paid for the registration but the domain was never registered as it was not available. I got refunded a few weeks later loosing some money on the deal. I would personally advise you to stay away from Aplus in this regard.
I got the refund today and the support rep didn't even apologise. When i said that your application should be fixed so that i won't be disappointed again in future, he responded by saying we will look into it. This is how the customer support is. However, i had very good experience from their hosting services though. --link dev
I just tried the same thing. But really, there is no reason that the name I was trying to buy should be available... We'll see,
They said that the database returned an eroneous result. Yes, if the domain is not available then it should return as not available. In my case, it not only said "Available", but it also allowed me to enter an order for it and i waited for almost 3 days and the status still showed "Registration pending". Meanwhile i contacted their rep twice and talked about it and they said that they will refund my money. I declined saying i will wait for the system to update the status, which it didn't. So, i called the rep for a refund.