As far as I'm aware of, validation is performed by the original CA even if you buy the certificate from a reseller. But I've only bought certs from a handful o

As far as I'm aware of, validation is performed by the original CA even if you buy the certificate from a reseller. But I've only bought certs from a handful of resellers, so maybe there are other ways for resellers to integrate with a CA's system. StartSSL's unusual pricing scheme (validate once, get unlimited certs for a year) makes me a bit suspicious in this regard.