I was somewhat taken aback (to put it mildly) when I received an e-mail from Nominet, entitled “WARNING: [yourdomain].co.uk is not intending to be renewed”. It goes on to say “Your provider has cancelled their request to renew your domain name”, which was news to me. The domain is due for renewal in a couple of weeks, and there is an invoice awaiting payment (but not overdue), which is the only contact I’ve had with the registrar on the subject.
It seemed pretty weird to me, and not the first administrative issue I’ve had with the registrar, so I decided to move the domain elsewhere. So far so good, until I e-mailed the current registrar to ask them to update the IP tag. I got a reply saying I had to complete their online form “for my convenience” and pay a fee of £10 + VAT to transfer my domain away. What? They choose not to renew it, for some unknown reason, and then want me to pay for the privilege of getting a new registrar?
I’ve never encountered either of these issues before. Has anybody else run into anything similar?
Don’t you have a domain control panel for updating IPSTAG’s?
Some older registrars still have antiquated systems, and, as many used to, charge for things we’re used to getting free nowadays. I’ve got a clinet on such a registrar, you literally have to email support to chnage anything as the CP only lists the domains and nothing else!
The first registrar I was with wanted a form completing and a £10 charge - this was a few years ago when £10 was worth something - I contacted them and they wavered the charge as I had been with them for a while.
If you want to transfer your domain name to someone, for example if you have sold your business or sold your domain name, then you will need to complete the registrant transfer process.
TechnoBear is not transferring the account just moving it from one registrar to another.
Is it a miss communication as you are not transferring but moving? That may be why my fee was dropped a few years ago?
Nope. With other registrars where I haven’t been able to update it myself, it’s just been a case of a quick e-mail asking them to do it, and it’s been done. I sent this lot a quick e-mail, and they replied immediately, telling me I needed to complete their form, which required everything from my full postal address to their billing ID number. I did that and so far I have “Your Ticket has been received and a member of our staff will review it and reply accordingly.”
That link is for changing registrant - I knew there was a £10 fee for that.
Somehow, I doubt this lot will be so obliging. I have another site with them, on the same hosting package. (Both sites/domains actually belong to local non-profits, rather than to me.) The hosting packages state “free domain name for the duration of the hosting” - yes, I know there’s no such thing as a free domain - but on the other account, the domain was invoiced along with the hosting. Unfortunately, I was ill at the time and they’d paid the invoice before I discovered the error. I contacted the company and they refused to refund the domain charges - said if we’d contacted them before the invoice was paid, they’d have amended it, but as it had already been paid, they “couldn’t” refund it.
Well the first “mis-communication” would be when they told Nominet they weren’t renewing the domain without communicating with the registrant. If Nominet hadn’t e-mailed me, I wouldn’t have known there was a problem.
I e-mailed the current registrar asking them to update the IP tag, so I would have thought it was clear that I’m changing registrars, not transferring the domain to another registrant.
I’ve experienced a few registrars charging a transfer out fee. If the worst comes to the worst, as long as you have an account with nominet and the domain registered there, you’ll retain control no matter how obtuse the registrar is, as nominet retain ultimate control of uk domains.
Indeed - and I’m finding that very reassuring at the moment. If all else fails, I know I can ask them to change the registrar for me. (They also charge £10, but somehow I don’t resent paying them half as much as I resent paying my current registrar.)
After an exchange of several e-mails, I got an “explanation” from my current registrar:
We have not cancelled the domain name, I think there was a problem where the system renewed the domain name by mistake - we have only cancelled this renewal and not the renewal of the domain name which isn’t due right now.
I wonder why I don’t feel reassured. A system which renews things by mistake, charges for “free” domains, etc. I’m off - just as soon as I can get them to change the blasted IPS tag.
More than likely. The sad thing is that if they’d just said “Oops, sorry, we’ve screwed up” I would have a higher opinion of them and be less annoyed. Anybody can make a mistake; what really counts is how willing they are to rectify it. With their previous mistake, the answer was “not at all”, and this isn’t looking much better. 48 hours on and they still haven’t changed the IPS tag. They haven’t replied to my last three e-mails, although one of those was requesting them to change the nameservers, and they have actually done that. (Yes - that was another thing I discovered I couldn’t do for myself. I’d never noticed before because I’d never needed to do it and I could hardly believe it when I found out. It’s the only registrar I’ve ever encountered where that isn’t possible.)
As you tend to be very thorough you’ve likely tried this course, but I notice in the link to nominet that EastCoast provided under the contact link has a section for disputes. I don’t know if they would go up to bat for you to get the process moving at your old registrar. I do know that in Canada if we register a dispute against a registrar with iCan they will contact the registrar normally via email within 2 days and give a ‘soft warning’ to get a customer’s request moving or a policy violation fixed, if the registrar does not demonstrate action then they step up the warning, which can eventually suspend the registrars license.
Hi Steve (nice to see you around :)), and thanks for the input.
I should probably have posted back to say what happened. I waited three days after requesting the IPS tag change, and it still hadn’t been done. Not only that, but the company had stopped replying to e-mails. My last three went unanswered - including one telling them not to renew the hosting automatically as I was moving elsewhere. (I had to leave the card details on the account so they could take the transfer fee.)
Anyway, at that point I got really fed-up and decided to go to Nominet. I expected to have to go through a palaver, explaining why I was asking them to effect the change, rather than my registrar, but no. They suggest approaching your registrar first, as there may be no charge if the transfer is done that way, but if you choose to do it through Nominet, then there’s no problem. It was actually quicker and easier than using my registrar’s transfer request form, and of course the change took immediate effect. I have two other domains with that registrar, and I’m going to move both elsewhere. I’ll just go direct to Nominet to do those and not bother trying to contact the current registrar at all.
i deleted my card details from the old registrar’s account as soon as I’d arranged the transfer with Nominet. Just as well, as I’ve since been getting “unpaid invoice” e-mails for the hosting I had already informed them I intended to cancel. The sooner I move the other two domains (and their hosting), the happier I’ll be. My initial experience of this company was positive, with good, prompt customer support, but my current experience leaves me feeling they’re going down the tubes fast.
Nice to hear that you are well TechnoBear! Also, glad that you got your issue resolved.
Good call on going to Nominet; most people don’t think to go to their country’s / region’s regulating body but they have dealt with so many shifty hosts and complaints that most will have processes that actually help.
If all else fails, I know I can ask them to change the registrar for me. (They also charge £10, but somehow I don’t resent paying them half as much as I resent paying my current registrar.)
A system which renews things by mistake, charges for “free” domains, etc. I’m off - just as soon as I can get them to change the blasted IPS tag.