ASAP, redefined
- TAGS:domain registrar, email, sysadmin
- IT TOPICS:Management, Networking
This IT consultant pilot fish gets a call from a small design firm customer whose email has simply stopped working.
"The office manager said that email had been down since yesterday and customers' emails where bouncing back," says fish. "They needed their email fixed ASAP!"
Fish heads over to the design firm's office. The network there seems to be fine. Fish keeps digging, because it's clear that nothing is getting in or out.
But fish is stalled at the point on the troubleshooting checklist when it's time to contact the domain-name registrar. It seems the owner's daughter set up that account along with designing the website. But she has since moved on to a new job, so the office staff has to contact her.
Several hours later, she returns the call. Fish talks with her about the email accounts.
An hour after that, she calls back and says it's fixed.
Turns out she had put the registrar accounts on her credit card -- a card she had canceled during the past year. And because she no longer checked the office email account that the registrar had as a contact, the automatic annual domain-name renewal had gone unpaid.
"All the emails, passwords and website had to be entered back in," fish says. "She told me she would see when she had time to upload the website again. It turned out to be weeks later.
"The owner's response was that his little girl sometimes did not keep track of things, oh well.
"It happened again the next year. I now have her login, and warn the office manager when to call daddy's little girl."
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