diff --git a/lib/epp_constraint.rb b/lib/epp_constraint.rb
index 9cd68c121..992b5e37c 100644
--- a/lib/epp_constraint.rb
+++ b/lib/epp_constraint.rb
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ class EppConstraint
   # creates parsed_frame, detects epp request object
   def matches?(request)
     # TODO: Maybe move this to controller to keep params clean
-    request.params[:raw_frame] = request.params[:raw_frame].gsub!(/(?<=>)(.*?)(?=<)/) { |s| s.strip}
+    request.params[:raw_frame] = request.params[:raw_frame].gsub!(/(?<=>)(.*?)(?=<)/) { |s| s.strip} if request.params[:raw_frame]
     request.params[:nokogiri_frame] ||= Nokogiri::XML(request.params[:raw_frame])
     request.params[:parsed_frame] ||= request.params[:nokogiri_frame].dup.remove_namespaces!