domain registrar refusing to update nameservers

squibs

I'm setting up a website for somebody who already has a domain, used for email purposes. It's important that the email access not be interrupted as a large number of people use it for business. The company that they used to register the domain were contacted to update the nameservers to point at hosting purchased for technical reasons, and they are refusing:

"...the changing of nameserver entries acts as a transferal of domain hosting to the new company. These kinds of changes can only be performed by our Corporate Sales department <num deleted>. They would also require a faxed cancellation of hosting service form to be sent to them from the domain owner."

Surely the person that "owns" the domain should be able to say what the nameservers are set to?

ressem

If you're just creating a website, then surely you should only be changing the A records for the domain name, www subdomain and optionally others (ftp, tel, etc)?

They're not refusing, and the message is correct. You can change the nameservers. You just need to go through their procedure.
And once this is done, the domain will no longer be managed by them.

The stuff regarding a FAX etc are an attempt to cover their ass due to the risk of imposters getting control of the domain and directing it to competitors/ malware sites causing damage, PR and loss of revenue, to the owners.

Once the nameservers are changed then the new DNS owners can direct mail and web traffic wherever they want.

mneylon

Well the domain will still be billable by them ....

It sounds like the kind of reply you'd get from a Telco tbh

squibs

It is a telco.

I guess I'm used to domain providers like godaddy who let you use your hosting provider's nameservers. They've now agreed to point their nameservers at the server IP address.