theplanet.com trying to steal our business?

[JamesC]

Here is an email that I recieved today for a RapidSSL cert I purchased for a client through ReSellOne.

It would seem that ThePlanet is trying to steal our clients right out form under us by provieding a link to order it on their site? Man this is just not right!! Seeing how there is no way to eidt a 90 message in RWI2 those only go to 60 day reminders. This is just plane bad business!

Email below



Dear StarterSSL Customer,

Your StarterSSL certificate will expire in 90 Days! It is important that you renew your certificate as soon as possible to ensure the security of your website or application is maintained.

IMPORTANT CHANGES
Since purchasing your StarterSSL certificate we have changed our domain name from www.freessl.com to www.rapidssl.com to ensure our brands appeal to the widest possible audience. We have also renamed StarterSSL Certificates to RapidSSL Certificates. RapidSSL offers 128 bit encryption and great browser recognition and support IE 5.01+, Netscape 4.71+, Opera 5+, Mozilla 1+, Firefox 1+, Safari and AOL 5+. You also get a free Secured By RapidSSL site seal to show your secure status to site visitors.

HOW DO YOU RENEW?

To renew your certificate, please click on the following link and follow the instructions to buy a RapidSSL certificate.

http://www.theplanet.com/hosting%5Faccessories/ssl/rapidssl.asp

The renewal process will only take a few minutes, so please take this opportunity to renew your certificate today.

If you have already renewed your certificate, please disregard this notice.

Thanks for choosing The Planet again!

Sincerely,

ssl@theplanet.com

[neilhennigan]

James! Did YOU receive that Email, or did your customer? If it was only you, then it is probably supposed to be that way - it's how it usually works. The party who purchased the cert (YOU) receives the renewal Email. The party you purchased it for should NOT.

[yurtesen]

James! Did YOU receive that Email, or did your customer? If it was only you, then it is probably supposed to be that way - it's how it usually works. The party who purchased the cert (YOU) receives the renewal Email. The party you purchased it for should NOT.

Maybe he registered an SSL certificate for himself just like a customer would do. Most customers do not send these to us wondering why they should renew with a different place.

[neilhennigan]

Yurtesen (and anyone);

This topic is actually of interest to me, because I've been trying to get some sort of confirmation of the following;

a) Has ResellOne completely resolved the issue of their name appearing in Email sent to resellers' customers? I know that this WAS an issue, but need confirmation that it has been resolved. If the above cert was one which James sold to a customer, and James received the renewal Email with a TP stamp on it, it does not necessarily indicate a problem. In fact, it indicates normalcy - - it's pretty standard. I work with multiple suppliers, and, in most cases, the renewal Email still has the supplier's name in it. This is fine, since the renewal Email is only sent to the buyer (the reseller) of the cert and NOT to the approver or tech contact Email. It's actually a good thing.. it serves as reminder to the reseller that a reminder should be sent to the reseller's customer.

BUT, does ResellOne/TP's name appear on ANY OTHER Email which is actually issued to the customer?????? This could be a problem.

b) I've noticed a few posts about purchase/verification method used, and it seems that at first they were not using the Quick Invite method. In some more recent posts, I've found reason to think that this might have changed.. but can't find any formal notice about it. Would someone please tell me which method ResellOne is using and, if not Quick Invite, give me a short run-down on the process?

Thanks, Neil

[yurtesen]

I dont know the exact answer... You should experiment with it. I could manage to change e-mail addresses etc. on all messages I wanted to modify so far. But we are mostly doing domain registrations so most messages which interest us are about domain registrations.

[mustang]

Well, it appears that exactly 15 months after I first brought up this same topic (h t t p :// forums . resellone. net/showthread.php?t=200), my ssl clients are still receiving emails from ResellOne/ThePlanet.

I can verify this, as a 'renewal reminder' email was sent from 'ssladmin@resellone.net' to the client email address on record in the order's admin, billing, technical contacts. The email has a link to theplanet's ssl ordering page. It is signed with the email 'ssl@theplanet.com'.

I tried to copy or attach email here, but the message board complains that I dont have enough posts to post urls (even after I brole up the urls)! :(

Anyways, carry on, (non-)business as usual at ResellOne.

I've been shocked that TP has soo much internal red tape that it can't get out from under it's own weight to fix some core problems with ResellOne. It is an embarrassment to the company. Management should be held accountable. ResellOne has not delivered on the services it is selling. A class action lawsuit is almost inevitable.

The first step to getting any action is probably filing Consumer Protection Complaint with the Texas State Attorney. Complaints can be filed online at:
h t t p : / / w w w . oag.state.tx.us/consumer/complain.shtml

When filing your complaint, you'll need to know that ThePlanet headquarters are located in Harris County.

This is too much. I have suffered direct financial losses because ResellOne has not held to the agreements it advertises.

[neilhennigan]

It's amazing to me that so many people are keeping quiet and not complaining about this.

They do know that RS1 is not the only game in town, and that similar prices can be found elsewhere?

That USUALLY GeoTrust certificates purchased from ANY company are resellable, and that these Email issues are specific to RS1?

[Resellone-Eddie P]

This is a configuration issue. If you are still having problems with this issue please contact me directly at 281.668.1358 or you can email me at epowell@theplanet.com with a phone number and I can call you in order to facilitate a correction.

[JamesC]

Well here is another email sent with the same issue!!

Dear StarterSSL Customer,

Your StarterSSL certificate will expire in 90 Days! It is important that you renew your certificate as soon as possible to ensure the security of your website or application is maintained.

IMPORTANT CHANGES
Since purchasing your StarterSSL certificate we have changed our domain name from www.freessl.com to www.rapidssl.com to ensure our brands appeal to the widest possible audience. We have also renamed StarterSSL Certificates to RapidSSL Certificates. RapidSSL offers 128 bit encryption and great browser recognition and support IE 5.01+, Netscape 4.71+, Opera 5+, Mozilla 1+, Firefox 1+, Safari and AOL 5+. You also get a free Secured By RapidSSL site seal to show your secure status to site visitors.

HOW DO YOU RENEW?

To renew your certificate, please click on the following link and follow the instructions to buy a RapidSSL certificate.

http://www.theplanet.com/hosting%5Faccessories/ssl/rapidssl.asp

The renewal process will only take a few minutes, so please take this opportunity to renew your certificate today.

If you have already renewed your certificate, please disregard this notice.

Thanks for choosing The Planet again!

Sincerely,

ssl@theplanet.com


If this does not stop we will no longer sell SSL Certs from ReSellOne .... :(

Also instead of trying to make money selling SSL certs to our client's renew your own for the RW2 back end web sute??

[Resellone-Eddie P]

Can you please email me (epowell@theplanet.com) the notice the notice you received and include your User name.

[JamesC]

Can you please email me (epowell@theplanet.com) the notice the notice you received and include your User name.


I did that last night and I have yet to hear from you or anyone else over at TP... So what good did it do me? :rolleyes:

[Resellone-Eddie P]

Hello,

I wanted to update you guys on what is going on around here. It is no secret that there is a problem with the SSL renewal reminders going out and it appears that when the fix for the problem went through, it apparently has had no real effects. At the suggestion of LFCII, I have inquired about having the 90 day renewal reminder turned off until a real resolution can be found.

For those of you not familiar with the problem here is a breakdown of what is going on so you don't have to read over the entire thread if you don't want to. The RWI2 allows you to customize the renewal reminders sent out to your clients with information routing your client back to you. For reasons unknown the the RWI2 does not allow you to customize the 90 day renewal reminder, in fact the option to to do does not ever appear in the system in spite of the fact that the renewal reminder is set to send out default information. Further confusing the issue is that the 90 renewal reminder sends out information leading to ThePlanet's SSL ordering system and not Resellone.

At one point the problem was thought to be resolved and the issue cleared, however this was not the case. When I made my first inquires into it I was told that the remaining resellers experiencing the problem were isolated cases that had to be dealt with on a case by case basis. As such I am operating under the assumption that the issue was either never dealt with in the first place or that what ever resolution was created was never actually enabled. All in all it doesn't matter which was the case, the end result is the same.

I should have an update on this in the next few days.

[Domains_Aamir]

Hello,

This issue is being addressed but is more complicated than anticipated. In response we have taken the 90 day renewal reminder offline and have also removed The Planet's name from all renewal messages until the problem can be located.

I am making this our top priority.

Thanks,

Aamir A.
Reseller Services

[JamesC]

Hello,

This issue is being addressed but is more complicated than anticipated. In response we have taken the 90 day renewal reminder offline and have also removed The Planet's name from all renewal messages until the problem can be located.

I am making this our top priority.

Thanks,

Aamir A.
Reseller Services
Thanks Aamir,
This has been a real issue seeing how we sell moer certs as we do web site builder.

[LFCII]

Hi

Thanks Guys.......

It would have been nice to have the 90 day e-mail and to have been able to edit it. But, it is really great that you took it off line until such time that it can be. This is a step in the right direction, indicating you are working with us on getting things on track again.

Kind Regards,

Les

[Domains_Aamir]

We are trying to move in the correct direction and appreciate the recognization. Rest assured, we are NOT satisfied. Yes, progress is slow but normally meaningful progress comes in that fashion.

As for the request for a 90 day renewal notice edit option. I would like to supply you guys with that, however it must be noted that currently there is no 90 day renewal notice option for resellers. It would have to be implemented by TuCows, which is most likely a possibility - I simply want to get this situation regarding renewal notices to the best possible point first(whatever that may be). Once that happens, we'll be happy to look into the possibility of a 90 day renewal notice.

...You guys should not think that we are putting off this request. It's a matter of not wanting to initiate too many objectives at once and end up getting nothing done... All of you are experienced business professionals who have most likely worked in small team settings before so I would imagine that you can understand the reasoning there.

As always - Thanks to our customers for your patience and loyalty,

Aamir A.
Reseller Services

[Domains_Aamir]

Hello,

As you may have noticed or read on the forums, the body of the renewal notice emails have been changed from branded with the Planet information to a neutral body meant to inform the end user that their ssl certificate is comming up for renewal.

This is meant to inform without suggesting WHERE the end user should go to renew. The idea was that for the time being, the notices should be as neutral as possible. That idea implementation is meant to eliminate the possibility of The Planet or ResellOne obtaining customers from our resellers as this is NOT what we want.

In addition to the above changes, I've requested that the "From:" address on all renewal notices be changed from @resellone.net to sslorders@geotrust.com. The idea behind this is that it increases renewal notice neutrality (in reference to ResellOne and The Planet). In addition to that, GeoTrust has - for a long time - priced itself out of competition with it's resellers.

For instance, if you go to the GeoTrust website, the cheapest certificate goes for $249.00 for a QuickSSL certificate. Obviously this is not competition to our resellers.

I just wanted to update you guys on progress. Hopefully I will have further details on the actual resolution of the problem soon. The above is simply a stop-gap motion, not the end result we're looking for.

Thanks,

Aamir
Reseller Services