Domain in Limbo

I wondered if someone might have some advice for me.

I paid a hosting company to register and host my domain. Now they are defunct and I cannot change the nameservers to point to another host.

I am listed as the Registrant, Administrative, Technical and Billing Contact on my domain whois, but the Registration Service (defunct hosting company) has the Domain Management ID and password at Enom.com. I have written Enom and haven't received a reply yet.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

If you are the registrar under a whois search, surely that means that you own the domain. Forgetting about hosting, you should be able to move the domain from that companys DNS. Now some companys charge for this, however, if they no longer exist, I would find it hard to accept charges for moving your domain. After all, it is there fault that you must move the domain in the first place.
Keep trying to contact the company, then if that fails contact the NIC for .co.uk domains at http://www.nic.uk or http://www.internic.com for .com etc. They should be able to help you!

hi raptor. what do you mean by never saw that before? you on about the domains?

Thanks very much, Galore, for your reply and the info. I finally called Enom and they reset my user ID and password so I can access my account. I'm free! They said I have to request through snail mail for the registrar lock to be lifted.

Thanks again!

Glad to hear your sorted out & glad to help.

You may be able to get another reseller to transfer the domain to their Enom reseller account. Consider signing up with a reseller and ask them if they can push the domain to your account. If they can't, you may be able to request that Enom do it. This should be possible, because the previous reseller is out of business and it's not transfering to another registrar. Once it's transfered the lock may be lifted.

Thanks for the suggestion, Freeman. I'm open to anything at this point. I thought I was out of the woods, but when I tried to change nameservers, they were rejected. The help file said to go through a registry process, but I had no "register" option on the panel I was able to login to. I can't login like a normal client from the front page.

I want to transfer away from Enom for good. They may have "reseller" support, but they don't have customer support. I have not received a reply to any of the emails I sent over a week ago. The Enom rep on the (non-tollfree) phone was the only help I got. GoDaddy responded to me within 24 hours.

Isn't there some kind of organization I could contact that keeps registrars from holding your domain hostage??

I mentioned in my first post the people who administer all the domains. Try them, they may well be able to help you! After all, it is YOUR domain, so the company CAN'T take it off you!!
(Subtle Message to any more hosting companies out there that operate like this!)