The Google domain name registration saga

I received an email today that the custom domain here was suspended due to billing problems.

The next 2 hours or so were spent in frustration trying to correct the issue, with some help from the forums (although the forum help wasn't easy, and took much digging). So, to document, in case I ever need to refer back to this, or to help someone else who might have the same problems, here goes:

1) The problem with the billing of the annual domain name registration fee was because I had it set up through Google Wallet (Google payments?). That's no longer being used, so I had to change the billing to directly charge a credit or debit card. I think PayPal might have been an option too.

2) When I tried to login to Google Admin, I repeatedly received an error of "Invalid Request". This didn't tell me much. I searched Google Help (not helpful). I followed their problem solving matrix, but was tripped up by the list of error messages. Mine wasn't listed. (There's a reason; I'll get to that.)

3) I searched for variations of Google admin invalid request login, etc, etc, and read through some forum questions and answers, which only served to frustrate me more. Most recommended trying to login as "bloggeradmin"@DOMAINNAME.com, stating that Google had changed how things were done and now required a "bloggeradmin" account. <-- a="" about="" account.="" account="" admin="" advice="" also="" and="" attach="" cache="" clearing="" cookies.="" creating="" did="" didn="" domain.="" error="" gmail="" google="" got="" helpful.="" i="" it="" just="" login="" lots="" me="" nbsp="" new="" not="" nothing.="" of="" p="" really="" same="" seem="" still="" t="" the="" there="" this="" through="" to="" trying="" walked="" was="" when="" which="" with="">
4) Finally, I found a link in one of the answers to https://google.com/a/REPLACETHISWITHYOUROMAIN.com/ForgotAdminAccountInfo where you, of course, use your domain name where indicated. Finally some progress! It was here I discovered I was using the wrong login (and what the correct username for my admin account is). I was able to reset the password using the usual methods and regain access to the admin account. I'm pretty sure the "Invalid Request" error was because the login I was trying to use doesn't have an admin account, but I didn't know that.

5) Once logged in to the Admin account, I was able to update the billing information. Now, this took some time as I received errors that my request was unable to be processed at this time. Those errors persisted for a while, but I did finally update billing info.

All in all, it took 2 1/2 HOURS to search forums and eventually find answers. It was an exercise in much frustration. And I've learned my lesson and made notes of the admin account information. Which I probably have somewhere, but have lost since I only dig that information out once a year at billing time if necessary.

tl;dr: I've resolved the billing issue and House Eller can stay in this custom home.

Welcome to House Eller

You may have noticed a little change to the blog. We purchased the houseeller.com domain and are now publishing there. It's a little thing, but getting here wasn't as easy as it should have been.

When we made the decision to purchase the domain name, I looked at a couple options to purchase it. I decided to buy it through Blogger/Google because they set everything up for me. I like easy, and that seemed the way to go since the cost was pretty much the same no matter how we did it.

It wasn't that easy. I guess partly it's my fault. I was using my iPad (Have you met my iPad? His name is Helo.) so I blithely walked through the purchase steps on it. Turns out Google Checkout, which is how you purchase through Google, didn't like using a mobile device. Unlike just about every other service on the web, it distinguishes between devices. And it wanted me to have a Google Checkout account on my computer first. Which I could then link to Helo.

So I thought I made my purchase. I even got a confirmation email. Then the fun came. The next day, I couldn't get in to view my purchase (I think I did once and saw something that said cancelled, but I couldn't get back to it). I followed the link in the email to link my mobile purchase to my computer. And kept getting errors that it couldn't find the information.

I somehow ended up creating a new Google Checkout account, not linked to Helo, and couldn't find a way to link them after the fact. Google Help was no help. Apparently, if you have an actual problem, you are out of luck. All the Help articles were basic instructions on how to set things up initially - actually more of a FAQ than Help.

Have you ever tried to contact Google about a problem? You can't. You can fill out their form once you dig through layers of unhelpful help, but you get an autoresponse that they can't address each individual problem, but have you checked out Help? (Yes, I did. That's why I tried to email my problem.) There is no chat help, no phone number. You can try the message boards and see if someone somewhere might have had this same issue and found a solution. But you can't actually get help from Google.

After verifying that the domain wasn't properly set up, I tried to purchase it again, but it wasn't available. Well crap. Time to leave this for the day and cool off.

Wednesday rolls around (I tried my original purchase Monday night). houseeller.com was still not set up. I had given up on looking at anything through Google Checkout since that was useless. I tried to purchase the domain name again, this time from the computer.... and it went through! When I got my confirmation email, I didn't hold out much hope. But then I got a second email with links to setting up administrator accounts! And this morning Blogger had magically migrated the blog over to the new domain.

Lesson learned: Google doesn't like mobile devices.

So, I welcome everyone to the new houseeller.com. Same blog, just with our custom domain. It only took 3 days to get here, but we made it.