Hey guys. Some may or may not have noticed but my site was down for almost two weeks. After figuring out what really happened, along with the service I received, I feel it is about time I posted a review of my experience with BlackBox HQ. This is a long read, but I hope it can help you make a better, more informed decision when looking for web-hosting, domain, or media-related services. Coles notes: BlackBox HQ lied to me and took control of my site, manually took it down, then was unwilling to work professionally to get everything settled. For all of the details, read below. Like I said, it's long, but worth the read. --- In the following post, I will describe my dealings with this company and a little background information. This is a full explanation of my dealings with BlackBox HQ, it’s Director Mr. Kyle Sarwal, and employee Mr. Ken Chang. BlackBox HQ BlackBoxHQ :: Main Portal Before I begin, I would like to inform you, the reader, that this review is very long. It is very long for a reason, as this ordeal has been going on for quite some time. I should have spoken up sooner, but after the recent turn of events, I simply cannot let the actions of this company go unheard of anymore. Everything written below is simply the facts, nothing more, nothing less. If you have got this far, I thank you, and encourage you to read the rest. My name is Kaval Vilkhu, and I am the owner & operator of Make It Shine Automotive Detailing. I offer high quality detailing services primarily to the Greater Toronto Area. The reason this needs to be mentioned is to understand the nature of my business. Because I charge a premium for my work, it is important to have a way that clients can see previous work to understand why it is indeed worth the money. You yourself may have seen my work on various forums, or even on my website. Back in December of 2007, I registered a domain name with BlackBox HQ, as well as hosting on their server. The actual registration of the domain name was done by BlackBox HQ, but was registered under my name, as verified by the company, and CIRA through legally binding documents. This domain was registered for one year, as I wanted to ‘feel’ out how the domain name would reflect my company. Needless to say, it was great! Key word - ‘was.’ While I was the listed registrant, Kyle Sarwal of BlackBox HQ was the listed administrative contact. What this basically meant was that any administrative changes that were to be made, would be run through Mr. Sarwal. It is important to note that the WHOIS information showed Kyle Sarwal as the listed Registrant. As he confirmed in emails, this was done to basically protect the customer’s information from being publicly broadcasted to anyone who wished to find the listed Registrant’s whereabouts. Essentially, in their records (and CIRA’s) I was the owner of the domain. After some issues with the company being unresponsive to customer service requests, I decided to take my business elsewhere and cut all ties with BlackBox HQ. In retrospect, this is where the mess started. I took my site off their servers by backing up my content and deleting it from their storage space. The website itself was down for approximately 1 month, but it was something I was willing to do as I wanted to cut all ties with the company and it’s owner before commencing full operation again. BlackBox HQ is a reseller of domain names. Their reseller account is from a company called ModernDNS. The domain is managed by a company called eNom. A user has their own account so they can manage a domain name that is in their eNom account. After obtaining a new host for my web content, I needed to point my domain name to the new host. To do this, I had to change the nameservers to point to the web content, and in order to change the nameservers, I had to login to my eNom account and do it manually. It’s important to note that nameservers can only be changed manually, and voluntarily. In other words, you have to be aware of what you are doing. After obtaining the login information for my eNom account that BlackBox HQ created on my behalf for me to have full control over my domain, I logged in to get the nameservers changed up so I could get back to normal business operations. Upon logging in, there were no domains in my account. Quite strange it seemed, and unnerving that BlackBox HQ pretty much has all control over my own domain. I contacted eNom and asked them what my options were. I was advised that I would have to contact BlackBox HQ and request them to do a ‘push’ of my domain from their account to mine. A ‘push’ is basically a function where a domain is put from one account, into another, so the receiving account has full control over the domain. On that note, I contacted BlackBox HQ and requested them to do the push. After a lot of back and forth and lots of waiting to do a simple push of a domain, I finally received an email after 16 days (May 1st to 16, 2008): Hi Kaval, I just wanted to let you know that I have confirmed that the domain has been pushed to your account. You now have full control over your domain. Thanks! Make note of the statement “You now have full control over your domain.” Finally! It was finished, and I could move on with my business. Boy was I deceived! After the domain was pushed to my eNom account, I thought I would update the administrative contact details. For some reason, I was unable to find an edit option, almost as if my privileges of control were limited (more on this later). On June 4th, I received an email from BlackBox HQ stating that as per regulations, the WHOIS information for the domain needs to be updated and accurate. On the same day, I replied: Hi Ken, I contacted eNom about this and they have yet to get back to me as the contact info in my eNom account cannot be changed for some reason. I'll let you know when everything is sorted out. Regards, Kaval Fast forward now to November 18th, 2008, I receive an email from BlackBox HQ, stating that my domain will expire on the 17th of December. I think nothing of it, as I have lots of time to renew it, and exams (I’m a full-time University student) were around the corner. Around November 31st, I decided to login to my eNom account and add a 2 year renewal of my domain into a cart. I needed to update my credit card information on my profile but I did not have the card with me, so I left the cart alone with the intention of coming back to update it, and check out my cart. On December 2nd, I received a second notice from BlackBox HQ stating again, that the domain will expire on the 17th of December. I thought okay, no problem...at least they send clients emails regarding this. Fast forward to December 4th. I try again to find out why I cannot update the contact information and I discover that a PIN # is needed, so I request it in this email, sent on the same day: Hi Ken. I tried to take care of this by calling eNom, but I can't get anywhere without a supposed 7 digit pin # that was supplied to you or Kyle when the domain was registered. Could you forward me that PIN # please. Thanks In terms of obtaining this PIN #, I never received a reply. This is where things got worse. On the same day, I receive a message from a client stating that my website is not working. Immediately I go to a computer to see what is going on. Lone behold, my website is now pointed to a generic search engine as seen here. I immediately call a few friends to see if the site is working for them, but I get the same response - “No.” Following this, I call my hosting provider to see if they know what is going on. After speaking with them for a few minutes, they advised me to contact eNom and inquire about the issue. Before contacting eNom, I figured I would check out the cart I created a few days earlier to renew the domain now to save further headache. I logged into the account, updated the credit card information, and proceeded to complete the transaction. After completing the transaction, I instantly received an email from BlackBox HQ saying: Dear Kaval Vilkhu: Thank you for your recent order. Below you will find a summary of the products and services ordered for your account (LoginID = XXXXXXXX): Individual Items ================ Type Qty ExtAmt Description / Status =============================================================================== Renewal 2 $0.00 makeitshine.ca / Domain name does not belong to this account THIS ORDER WAS NOT BILLED. Thanks again for using us for your online services. If you have any questions regarding this order please visit our support center on our web site. Sincerely, BlackBox HQ Hmm? Domain does not belong to this account? What is going on here? Naturally, I go into my Domain listings to see if my domain is still there, and sure enough it’s gone. So now I have a domain that expires in 13 days, and I don’t even have control of it! I immediately contact eNom to find out where the domain went. This is where things get very interesting. ------ After speaking to eNom, it’s determined that on December 2nd, BlackBox HQ requested a push of my domain from my eNom account to theirs. To me, this doesn’t make any sense. How can this be possible, if I had full control over the domain as per the email from Mr. Chang? eNom tells me that the actual account I have, was just a sub-account that BlackBox HQ created for me. So in reality, I was being fooled to think I had full control over my domain, when in reality, the domain itself could have been pushed out of my account whenever BlackBox HQ pleased. At this point, I am pretty furious that 1) I was deceived into thinking I had full control over my domain, 2) My website is down resulting in a loss of potential revenue and, 3) I was not notified about any of this. Before getting upset with the company, I emailed to find out why my site was down. This email was sent right after I requested the 7 Digit PIN. Ken, it's me again. My site is not working. I've called eNom and they said that the domain was taken out of my account and BlackBox now has control of it. BlackBox HQ requested the push to their account, and eNom authorized it. I also tried to renew the domain but that did not go through. I was under the impression that after the domain was transferred to my account, there would be no more hassle. Please shed some light on this extremely important issue ASAP. Regards, Kaval I also forwarded this email to Mr. Sarwal of BlackBox HQ as I felt he would have more of an idea about what is going on. About an hour and a bit later, I receive a reply from Mr. Chang: Hi Kaval, Sorry for the late reply. I just checked my email now. Just looked at your site and I see what you mean by it being down. I’m not 100% certain as to the status of your domain as Kyle handles a lot of the eNom issues. I’ll see what I can find out but I think it would be much easier and probably quicker if you contact Kyle directly on this to have it resolved right away. I believe Kyle’s out and about tonight so you’ll want to give him a call. Let me know if you need his number. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Ken Chang So one thing is established - Mr. Chang had little to nothing to do with this ordeal. At this point, I’m starting to put up my wall, and prepare for anything to happen and have proper legal documentation of every instance of communication. A few hours later, I received a reply from Mr. Sarwal asking me to call him. At this point, I see it unnecessary to call, as the solution to fix this is quite simple - push the domain back into my account, or at the VERY LEAST, change the nameservers pointing to my host so my website, email and pictures are not down. I reply by saying I will be unable to call as I am busy with exams. Before I get a chance to email him back, I get another email saying: Just as a reminder, the domain name ‘makeitshine.ca’ will expire on Dec. 17 and will be held in a grace status for 30 days thereafter if it is not renewed. It is not our intention to renew the domain name. This is the final attempt we’ll make in resolving any domain related issues with you. If a response isn’t provided promptly, we’ll determine what to do with the domain name. Regards, I am sure that Mr. Sarwal had already determined what to do with the domain from the time he decided to file a push into his account. Regardless, the next day I reply back saying: Kyle, I am quite busy with exams and therefore do not have time to call. With that said, we have to sort this out through email. I would like to know what is going on with my website, and why it is down. Kaval At this point, I am aware of the legalities that surround this issue, so I opt to keep all record of communication through email, as anything could be said over the phone, and there was not anything that could be solved over the phone, that could not be solved online. The safest route to protect my interests would be to keep all communication to email. Given the evident miscommunication between Mr. Sarwal, Mr. Chang and myself, I wanted to communicate primarily through email to maintain a record if need be. I did not want this to be known by Mr. Sarwal or Mr. Chang so I asked to communicate through email because of exams. I logically assumed that for a web-oriented company, email would be the easiest method of communication, so it would not be any extra effort on their part. After sending the above email, I received a rather rude reply an hour later: I do not have time to trade emails back and forth with you. If this issue is one that you don’t see worth dealing with promptly by giving me a call, then I’ll reflect the same lack of concern. The domain name was reassigned to my account after many warnings and months of you not removing my personal information from your domain records. Your registrar investigated this and as per regulations required by ICANN and CIRA; a policy where under the terms of a domain registration agreement whereby the provision of false Whois (contact) information are grounds for cancellation of someone's domain name registration. Rather than see your domain get lost in the abyss (or having a third party pick up your domain and secure it; preventing you from re-registering it), I had them push the domain to me so that I can resolve this. My aim isn’t to make your life miserable/harder, nor is it to make it better/flourish; my objective is to eliminate these emails I get on your behalf because you have not responded to my multiple requests in removing my information from your domain registration records. My actions have been fair and just, considering what the alternatives were. Regards, At this point, I have already confirmed with eNom through phone calls that Mr. Sarwal requested the domain be put into his account. He however refuses to mention that he requested it, but rather tries to make it seem as though it magically ended up in his account. Even if that was the case, that’s okay as I could always sort that out. However, the nameservers were manually changed, and Mr. Sarwal tried to justify it, knowing it would negatively affect my business. The company had another alternative to solve this supposed issue - a telephone call. The customer service at this point evidently took a huge dump. Here is the request I received, on June 4th to update the information (the one and only request): Hey Kaval. We were doing some checking and noticed that the contact information on your domain has not yet been updated. This is something we cannot do from our end and you will have to submit a ticket to have done if there isn’t an area in your login to do so on your own. This info needs to be correct as per CIRA’s requirements. Thanks! Ken Chang At this point, I am baffled by the level of professionalism being exhibited, but seek to get the issue solved as soon as possible. Before replying to Mr. Sarwal’s email, I call eNom again to clarify what my options are in terms of getting this sorted out. After speaking to a representative at eNom, I replied to Mr. Sarwal, cc Mr. Chang with the following: Kyle, There seems to be an obvious misunderstanding and miscommunication between, not only yourself and me, but between you and Ken. If you reference the emails sent to me, you will find that there was only one time you contacted me (it was actually Ken) regarding the CIRA information to be changed. You will then find that I did indeed do my part to change it, but could not proceed as I was not provided with a 7 digit pin number. I requested this PIN number from your company and still have not received any response. So I will reiterate - I received ONE email, nothing more, nothing else, regarding the change to the whois information. If you need proof of my request for this PIN, I will provide it to you. However, at this point, the issue here can be resolved quickly - push the domain to my new eNom account. The ID is 'kvilkhu' . My new eNom account is not restricted, and I am therefore able to make the changes needed to put this to rest (the process is already underway). I will still need the 7-digit PIN #. I will reiterate again - I have not received 'multiple' requests to update this information, I have only received one. With this one request, I did my part, but your company did not respond to my request for the 7-digit PIN to make the change happen. Simply push the domain into my eNom account (account ID: kvilkhu), and everything will be taken care of promptly. I will still need the 7 digit PIN number. Kaval After sending this email, I receive a reply from Mr. Sarwal again. The immaturity displayed here is quite appalling. There isn’t any miscommunication between Ken and I, and I have the emails I’ve sent you archived; there have been multiple requests. Your CIRA login information would’ve been emailed to you automatically during the push. If you do not have that information saved, then that’s unfortunate. I realize that with your exams, you are too busy and shy away from a 5 minute phone call but have enough leisure to type out a decent length email. As per your request, the domain can be ‘simply’ pushed, much like the owner information could’ve been ‘simply’ resolved when I had requested. Again, much like you are busy with your exams, we are busy with our ongoing contracts and we will push your domain at our earliest convenience. It is evident that a phone call is not the best thing to do as the attitude from the email makes it seem like Mr. Sarwal has something nasty to say. The only way I would have called would have been if it were on record, which is more than understandable. ---- By this time, I wanted to actually see proof that BlackBox HQ sent me requests to change this information. If I was not responding to a request, a very simple service call would have been more than sufficient. On December 7th, I requested proof of these supposed archived emails but received the following reply within 1 hour 15 minutes: Hello Kyle, Please send me these archived emails you speak of. Kaval Reply from Mr. Sarwal: I’m not wasting my time in digging up the emails and obliging you. This is my last email addressing this issue. The domain will be pushed at our convenience. By this time, I have filed complaints with a few companies as well as done my own things to get the ball rolling on getting my domain back into my control. As far as complaints go, I submitted complaints to ModernBill, eNom and the Better Business Bureau of Mainland B.C. Mr. Sarwal reports that he did send multiple requests and said he will provide me with proof, yet when I ask for the proof he is ‘too busy’ to find it for me. How much more compliant can you be? I received one request, and Mr. Sarwal says I got multiple ones. He said proof can be provided, and when asked for the proof, he refused to show anything. That essentially left me with no other option aside from believing that a) - he is not truthful, or b) I am not worth his time. In any case, it shows extremely poor customer service. Where I stood at this point, was basically that my domain was going to expire in 10 days, and nothing was being done by BlackBox HQ to put the domain back into my eNom account, so I can restore completely functionality of my business before the domain expired. Through multiple calls to CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority) and eNom, I was told that I have one other option which would be guaranteed to work, but could take a bit of time. What other choice do I have? CIRA asked that I fill out a Manual Change of Administrative Contact form that would force the administrative contact email address to be changed to my email address so that I could authorize any changes and regain full control of my domain, as rightfully so. As the days went by, I hoped that BlackBox HQ would have requested the push back into my eNom account, but they did not. On December 17th, the domain expired and went into suspension. Luckily, I had submitted the Manual Change form to CIRA on the 12th, and with 5 business days to clear, it was cutting it close! To make a long story short, I got the domain back into my control, and with the help of my current host, I was able to have the domain transferred to a new Registrar, and my website back up and running, in my full control before the day ended! As I was writing this review, I discovered something else. A competitor’s website was now the destination of my domain name. Check this out: This is nothing short of crafty. I cannot guarantee that BlackBox HQ did this, but in my opinion, there is a very strong chance. Furthermore, I even received a phone call from GTA In Detail, asking why all of my posted links were turning into hits on their website. Many may not know, but Kevin of GTA In Detail is a good friend of mine too, and we have worked together on a couple of cars before. This brings me to my conclusion, which is quite evident - AVOID BlackBox HQ! Through some research I’ve found that Mr. Sarwal also owns a couple of other companies - DCSonline.ca, and Sarwal Group Enterprise, and two car forums - ClubEL.ca, and EuroForums.ca. The actions of this company and by the director have left me wondering how some companies are still in business. But like they say, what goes around comes around. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope in the future you will consider my review of BlackBox HQ and my dealings with their Director, Mr. Sarwal, and Ken Chang. Sincerely, Kaval Vilkhu
