I just lost a domain at webmasters.com because it expired. It expired because I did not receive any notice. webmasters.com tell me that they have send me 4 emails about the expire of the domain, they have probably send them to a wrong email address. All the emails to that domain stays on my server and I have used the same server all the time. There are emails to the address from others from long before the expire date so nothing has disappeared and I dont use a spam filter.

The worst thing now is that webmasters.com say that if I pay them $150 they will give me my domain back.
Thats very close to black mailing I think, webmasters.com are not showing any kind of good business culture here when black mailing me for $150.

But they will of course pay for their stupidity. I have 115 domains for my clients accounts there that will expire in the next 10 months. It will be a pleasure to move that domains to namecheap. for what I know that are domains that will stay on the net as long as I live so webmasters.com will lose about $1000 every year. Thats what happens to greedy people. What goes around comes around!

Not to mention that DP is good for ranking, so this thread will rank in Google and so on for webmasters.com http://forums.digitalpoint.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

This is what I like with the internet. If you screw somebody its easy for somebody to screw you back.

Did any of you have similar experiences at any web host ?

Tyggemannen,

The fee referenced, sadly isn't something they've probably decided on. It's a fee that just about every domain registrar has in place to get a domain out of limbo.

With enom, it's $160! All in all, they're not making precisely what you pay -- they only get to keep a sliver of that amount.

As far as the extra fee is concerned, many registrars do that. I had registered a domain and had got the notice but had forgotten to renew it, and it expired and was going to cost $80 to get it back. Needless to say, I no longer have that domain.

tyggemanennan,

The fee is standard for most registrars.
It is not blackmail, as the domain is no longer under Webmasters.com control and paperwork must be completed to get you back the domain during this Domain Restore period.

Lesson to be learned, YOU are responsible for your domains.

You have 30-40 days once your domain expires to renew it. The renewal fee is the regular fee. Once you go beyond this 30-40 day, that's when the Domain Restore fee kicks in.

One idea you could try is set your domain to autorenew, it might save you the trouble. When I lost mine, I learned the lesson, and set every domain I had to auto renew. Then again, I check my domains once a week to keep track of which ones are expiring soon.

Yeah, if you had auto-renew enabled then you could argue with them.

Right, I personally think that if you have 100's of domains to keep track of, it is rather sub-optimal not to use auto-renew.

I use Namecheap mostly for my domains, also have some at GoDaddy and Dotster. Auto-renew is my standard setting everywhere.

It is your domains so you should be checking whether or not it will soon expire. You can't blame them for you not checking on "your" domains. Sure they might of had email problems but in the end it is your domain.

If its an important domain, how could it have been expired for so long and no one even noticed? That fee is only charged after a domain has been expired for at least 30+ days.

I too think the best option will be to go for auto renew if you can't really manage all of them.

Sadly, it happens with most registars. Godaddy charges $80 I think. I lost dave-dave.com to them. What's worst is the expired domain name web page is filled with ads.

tyggemanennan,

The fee is standard for most registrars.
It is not blackmail, as the domain is no longer under Webmasters.com control and paperwork must be completed to get you back the domain during this Domain Restore period.

Lesson to be learned, YOU are responsible for your domains.

You have 30-40 days once your domain expires to renew it. The renewal fee is the regular fee. Once you go beyond this 30-40 day, that's when the Domain Restore fee kicks in.

For the record. I am responsible for the expiration yes. And the domain is still registered under webmasters.com in my name. Now they use the possibility to exploit me. The problem beside the $150 is that webmasters.com says that they have send me emails. Even though they said so they have not and as all companies they are not ready to aknowledge in public that they have done a mistake. I know, everybody thinks it is most likely that I have not seen the mails, but I would have seen them.

This, unfortunately, is a standard and frequently 'dirty' tactic used by many domain registars. The thing to remember however is that if the domain registar was not doing it then somebody else would.

If you look at it from the domain registars perspective, they can either let anyone register you domain once it expires and then you are left to fight it out with a third party - Which makes the domain registar look bad OR they can hold on to your domain after it expires and charge you a huge fee to get it back - Which also makes them look bad.

Which would you rather they do: Sell your domain back to you again for a huge fee or just let it go for anyone to register and have that person sell it back to you for a huge fee? There are all sorts of horror stories about how companies have lost their domain name and had to spend thousands of dollars to get it back again.

For the record. I am responsible for the expiration yes. And the domain is still registered under webmasters.com in my name. Now they use the possibility to exploit me. The problem beside the $150 is that webmasters.com says that they have send me emails. Even though they said so they have not and as all companies they are not ready to aknowledge in public that they have done a mistake. I know, everybody thinks it is most likely that I have not seen the mails, but I would have seen them.

Do you not understand? Every registrar does not. Not just webmasters.com.

It is still YOUR responsibility to keep track of you domain. If you won't, who will?

The buck has to stop with you.

Fingerpointing just makes you look like a whiner.

they are not ready to aknowledge in public that they have done a mistake.

Why should one acknowledge making a mistake if they really haven't done so? While it's good they email customers, they don't have full control over ensuring it gets delivered.

Even though some people believe it's the registrar's "job" to notify them when their domain names expire, your contracts with them state one another's responsibilities and defines your respective relationships. As you learned the hard way, you're at the mercy of someone else if you continue to rely on them to handle certain things for you inspite of your contract's terms spelling out who does what.

Ultimately it's up to you to decide what's more important. Either bite the bullet and possibly get the domain name back, or continue believing webmasters.com made a mistake and you risk completely losing it.

If you renew/redeem the domain name now, you can transfer it out 45 days after. And that's if it's in your name and all that jazz.

Good luck making the right decision.

For the record. I am responsible for the expiration yes. And the domain is still registered under webmasters.com in my name. Now they use the possibility to exploit me. The problem beside the $150 is that webmasters.com says that they have send me emails. Even though they said so they have not and as all companies they are not ready to aknowledge in public that they have done a mistake. I know, everybody thinks it is most likely that I have not seen the mails, but I would have seen them.

If you are responsible for the registration then you cannot blame anybody else for the predicament you are in.

I would bet those emails were sent. They would have been sent to the Admin Contact email address. Presumably this is the email address you are so confident about. Yes/No? Have you checked your spam filters? Sometimes these emails get trapped in there.

As somebody else mentioned. How come it took so long before you noticed it hadn't been renewed? how did you come to know?

You obviously haven't read their ToS very closely. The fee is quite normal and recommended to the registrars by ICANN themselves. This is not blackmail.

If the domain is valuable to you then pay the fee and get your domain back. You could always run the gauntlet of the backorder system, where the minumum fee is $60, but if it's a good domain you will have to outbid many bidders and might end up paying more than $150.

Recommendation: a) Pay the $150 and get your domain back, or b) Forget about it and start up with a new domain. These are basically the only 2 options you have.

I will make a summary for those of you that dont understand my previous posts.

- I never blamed them for the expiration. I blame them for lying when they say the have sent the emails. I dont like lies.
- I blame them for being greedy.

Thats all, try to read things more carefully next time please.

stu2, you assume that I dont know how emails works, dont assume that please.

I will make a summary for those of you that dont understand my previous posts.

- I never blamed them for the expiration. I blame them for lying when they say the have sent the emails. I dont like lies.
- I blame them for being greedy.

Thats all, try to read things more carefully next time please.

stu2, you assume that I dont know how emails works, dont assume that please.
- They send emails. All domain registrars want your continued business, they have no reason not to send an email. It's an automated system.
- They're not greedy. It's an ICANN fee, if I remember correctly. *ALL* registrars charge it. For $150, they probably get very little to none of that pocketed.

- I never blamed them for the expiration. I blame them for lying when they say the have sent the emails. I dont like lies.
- I blame them for being greedy.

While it's fine and dandy and conveniently easier to believe in such, you have no way of knowing if they're truly lying and being greedy. But I guess you don't care.

However, nobody cares about what happened to you either, considering you don't appear to have exhausted all available options to resolve your problem.

I use Namecheap mostly for my domains, also have some at GoDaddy and Dotster. Auto-renew is my standard setting everywhere.

Just be careful with NameCheap - they have no your credit card information on file and are doing auto-renewals from the funds available in your NC account only.

Just be careful with NameCheap - they have no your credit card information on file and are doing auto-renewals from the funds available in your NC account only.

What? Even when they are not set to auto-renew?

What? Even when they are not set to auto-renew?

Of course, NO. You need to specifically set your domain(s) to auto-renewal and make sure your account has enough funds when the renewal time comes.

Ah! I misread your post...

doing auto-renewals from the funds available in your NC account only

I thought the warning was something different :(

- They send emails. All domain registrars want your continued business, they have no reason not to send an email. It's an automated system.
- They're not greedy. It's an ICANN fee, if I remember correctly. *ALL* registrars charge it. For $150, they probably get very little to none of that pocketed.

Its not an ICANN fee, its the registrars fee.

Its not an ICANN fee, its the registrars fee.

Not correct. This is *registry* fee.

Not correct. This is *registry* fee.

Around 25% of that amount is the registry fee, the rest is the profit for the registrar... There was once a time where it involved some manual work which may have justified that a big margin but now a day you can do that fully automated.

Does anyone have any experience with bidding on your own domain, as someone else suggested? There are a few services, like SnapNames (http://www.snapnames.com), NameJet (http://www.namejet.com/), and the "classic" Sedo (http://www.sedo.com/) that keep track of expired domains and bid on your behalf.

If you let the "restore" period expire too, where does your domain actually reside? Does your registrar park it on their own servers, and offer it / list it somewhere, or does the name just disappear from all records, as if it had never existed?

In the first case (the name is listed somewher for auction), has anyone here had the experience of bidding for your own (lost) domain and getting it back?

Rob.

Hi Rob,

If your domain is important to you, don't take the risk of letting the restore period pass. I agree that $150 is a bit high, but it is still well worth it to get your domain name back.

The odds of SnapNames or any of the others getting your domain back are not that great. There are people (and companies) who will register it as soon as it becomes available just to see if they can make money by putting ads on it or selling it at a higher price. Dealing with these folks is NOT a pleasant experience, and often will end up costing you a LOT more than $150.

In the future, if a domain has any value to you at all, your best bet is to make sure that whoever provides registration services is white-listed in your email filters, domains are set to auto-renew, and make sure your registration service provider has your valid credit card on file at all times (so that the auto-renewals are processed).

Most honest providers give you a grace period during which you can renew at the normal price or, at worst, a small late fee.

Thank you for the answer. Now, regarding a domain that expires and no one tries to buy, does anyone know what happens to it? Does the registrar keep it somewhere, so that if anyone wants it, they know who to get it from? Or, does it go to some other, larger database (e.g., one that contains all domains dropped by all registrars), or does it just disappear after a while?

Just curious,

Rob.

Hi Rob,

It essentially disappears after a while. In theory, it could be registered again through any registrar once it has been deleted by the registry.

Keep in mind that it could be a long time before this happens, and it may not happen at all. The vast majority of domains that have been registered are being hoarded by people who have no intention of developing them, so if there is any conceivable way for someone to make money off it, it will probably never disappear.