I have a domain name in redemption. I am furious with my registrar because they never auto-renewed my domain and I never got an email informing me that it expired. My site is now down and I have to pay £128 to get it back. Reasoning with some kid with a headset in their call centre is pointless.
I’ve tried several times to transfer this domain from my registrar until I realized there was an “administration” fee of £50.
I’m now considering backordering the domain with another registrar and letting it expire. Is this the worst idea in the world? The last thing I want to do is lose this domain. Is there anyway to find out who else has this domain backordered.
Thanks
Donal
if you have any worthwhile traffic it will literally cost you thousands to get it back.
just pay the redemtion fees and chaulk it up to a learning experiance
It's one thing for registrars to notify their customers of such. It's totally different for those notices to actually reach their recipients.
pay it. today even.
pay it with a grimace if you must, but pay it.
Once you are back in control of the domain, take 3 deep breaths.
Then decide if you want a new registrar.
But first and foremost, get it back to being your domain, today. Because right now, it's not your domain, it's a domain you'd really like to have.
As others have already noted, you might not be the only one with an eye on it. Make it yours and only after that happens are you in a position to fret over what should happen next.
In the meantime, chalk it up fast. Getting control of the domain name is your first and utmost priority, then handle the other issues later.
Thank you for all your responses and advice.
Once I calmed down I realized that i need to just pay this and learn from it. Of course I can't do it until my registrars office in the UK opens back up in a few hours so hopefully I wont have any unfortunate stories.
However I still think my registrar is appalling and should be responsible for this error. My email address is valid and I have no SPAM filter on.
Also when I log in to my control panel, everything appears normal and on the billing/renewals page no domains are listed or flagged in anyway. The "Domain Renewals Date" page is completely blank. Hence why I have to wait to ring them.
Now do you see why I’m so annoyed about this?
Donal
However I still think my registrar is appalling and should be responsible for this error.
Oh definitely you're not alone in feeling this way. It's justified.
But there are at least 4 realities here:
1. Registrars know all too well this sort of thing happens, and no one can really absolutely solve this 100%. This happens even to the top guns, just look around.
2. Given that many of these registrars hardly make money (then again many don't really make money from domains anymore), calling each customer whose name is coming up but not 100% sure if they'll renew or not isn't exactly a good business decision.
3. It's easy to think "but this is exactly what we're paying these guys for: to maintain our domain names and notify us when they're coming up." Thing is, this is a cutthroat business nowadays, and not too many can afford the hassles and costs of running such.
4. Registrars can only do so much. Registrants should take charge of their domain names as well, or at least know the "basics".
Anyway, if you have a "manageable" number of domain names, just keep like an excel list of such or even post it notes. Imagine how cluttered my monitor is with all these post-its of when my domain name/s are coming up. :P
