Namecheap has canceled LL.io domain without consent

[Herzog]

Hi ,

a few days ago I managed to get an LL.io domain, bought on the register namecheap. Everything seemed fine, so much that I put the domain up for sale on Sedo. Today trying to connect to the domain it seemed unreachable. I contacted namecheap support who, without thinking twice and without my consent, deleted the domain. The explanation is that the domain is reserved and there was an error due to maintenance. Here the chat. Sorry for the poor English, and well you can imagine I wasn't too happy at the time.

Me: Hi dear, my domain on basic dns is not reachable at all domain
[Andrii joined the chat]
Me: Hi Andrii
Andrii: Hello, you've contacted Live Support! May I know the domain name?
Me: LL.io
Andrii: Thank you, I will need a few minutes to check it please.
Me: thank you
Andrii: Allow me around 3-5 minutes so I can look closer into the issue please.
Me: sure take your time thank you
Andrii: There seems to be an issue with the Whois information of the domain, I will need around 5-7 more minutes to investigate this.
Me: ok no problem
Andrii: Thank you for your patience.
Andrii: I am sorry for this delay, I am still investigating the issue.
Me: dont worry
Andrii: As we have checked, the issue is linked to the maintenance that was going on 17th of November at the registry of .IO domains.
Andrii: Thus, the domain was actually not registered, but still added to our system and your account. Because of that, I will be refunding
the amount for the registration of LL.io back to your PayPal.
Me: one second please
Me: i ll still own this domain?
Me: the domain was active until yesterday, fully working
Andrii: No, this domain name cannot actually be registered. The registry of .IO domains has reserved all 2-Letter domain registrations of
this TLD.
Andrii: I will need around 5 minutes to contact Billing team and issue a refund for you.
Andrii: I am sorry for this inconvenience.
Me: I bought this domain and I have the receipt from you
Andrii: Yes, I also have a record in our system for the registration of this domain. But due to the maintenance, the registration has went
through successfully, although it should have not, because such domains cannot be registered.
Me: your system allowed me to do this, I bought the domain, and if there was a registration error I kindly ask you to show me
the terms that state that this type of domain is reserved for sale.
Andrii: Just a minute.
Andrii: "This name is reserved by the Registry in accordance with ICANN Policy."
Here is a link to a Whois lookup: namecheap.com/domains/whois/result?domain=LL.io
Andrii: Meanwhile, the refund to PayPal for this domain has been issued now ($31.98)
Me: I bought the domain with receipt and I have not asked you for any cancellation, I will intervene through my lawyer
Andrii: I apologize, but the thing is that the domain was not registered at all, even though your order was successfull.
Me: i dont care
Andrii: We have issued the refund for this particular domain, because otherwise you would have paid for a domain that was not
registered.
Me: please dont close this chat, i need more details regardings what happened
Me: is there any correlation between icann policy and the fact the domain is premium?
Andrii: I do not have much details on that. I can totally say that the domain name was reserved by the registry that operates .IO
domains, and we cannot influence it in any way.
Andrii: I also cannot leave the idle chats open for too long, please let me know if we are still connected.
Andrii: You may re-initiate the chat at any time when you are back.
Me: im sorry for what happened. I ll ask to my lawyer. Have a good day
Andrii: I am also sorry for the situation. We love to hear from our customers. You may fill in the form below to rate my assistance if you
have a moment.
Andrii: Thank you for contacting Namecheap Live Support! Have a nice day, goodbye.
[Andrii left the chat]

I wonder if I am in a big fail or they can really take my domain off this way?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Namecheap have been extremely rude with me before. They like to hide behind ICANN policies when it suits them and don't even adhere to their own written policies in my experience.

Anyway, I'm intrigued to know whether you were actually able to use the name? I don't just mean configure it, I mean was the domain accessible or not?

 

[Herzog]

Namecheap have been extremely rude with me before. They like to hide behind ICANN policies when it suits them and don't even adhere to their own written policies in my experience.

Anyway, I'm intrigued to know whether you were actually able to use the name? I don't just mean configure it, I mean was the domain accessible or not?

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I confirm that the domain was fully functional and accessible from the moment of purchase (November 17th) until this morning. In fact I was able to set up the redirect to my domain sales site and add sedo's txt verification dns records.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I confirm that the domain was fully functional and accessible from the moment of purchase (November 17th) until this morning. In fact I was able to set up the redirect to my domain sales site and add sedo's txt verification dns records.

That's an interesting one then isn't it. In that case then what they've said is a lie, the domain was registered...

 

[HotKey]

I wonder if I am in a big fail or they can really take my domain off this way?

They can do that. Mistakes happen sometimes where reserved domains slip through and get registered. Though putting a reserve after the fact, that would be worrisome. Not sure if that's possible but it would be unethical. ccTLDs can be odd.

I'm surprised the agent told you

The registry of .IO domains has reserved all 2-Letter domain registrations of this TLD

because according to the registry

Certain single letter, two or more letters or number domain names are available for registration in a controlled and equitable manner.

 

[Herzog]

Thank guys. Do you have any advice give me? What would you do in the same situation?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Thank guys. Do you have any advice give me? What would you do in the same situation?

It's a shame of course, I feel your disappointment, but really they're not going to make an exception for you when the entire registry has them reserved. Not only can the registrar do nothing, but the registry are the ones that make the rules for their extension so that's the most important thing here. The refund and move on is the only way forward here.

Sorry

 

[bmugford]

It's unfortunate, but things like this happen quite often. Many times it will show domains as available that are not actually available.

If the registry itself has the domain blocked, the registrar can't legally assign it.

Brad

 

[Herzog]

Ok, it would seem that there is nothing I can do about it. I didn't understand well if LL.io domains are reserved for public sale from now in future

 

[xyo]

Same thing happend to me - it was NOT the fault of either NameCheap or Namesilo in my case.
The domains actually could be and were registered at registry-level (Donuts).

It was in course of the Registry backend transfer from Afilias to Donuts. Apparently they made some mistake during the transition and previously reserved domains became available.

For me it happened on Nov 17th, a recently dropped LLL.io keyword domain changed status from RESERVED to AVAILABLE.
So I tried my luck and registered the domain at Namesilo which worked without any problem.
The domain was actually registered (showing up in whois and domain also was connected)

Here's the timeline from my own whois monitoring script:

On Nov 20th someone at Donuts apparently noticed that mistake and reverted all those registrations.
Whois status of my domain changed back to RESERVED.

Though looks like Donuts didn't care to inform either registrars or registrants of their mistake and appologize. They just took them back without any notice - which is very bad customer-wise.

As of today, my domain still shows up as active on Namesilo (which of course it isn't anymore).
But as Donuts most probably didn't notify registrars, they can't know.

In the end, there probably nothing much we can do, as the Registry (Donuts in this case) can more or less do whatever they want.

Though I hardly assume there were more than a handful of those registrations, and they could have said "it was our mistake, and we'll honour the registrations" which IMHO would have been the right thing to do, but they went the exact opposite and just shit on their customers eventhough it was their own fault.

 

[Jonathan13]

Dont understand why domains aren't in a blockchain deal, would solve all the messing around. Probably too many vested interests are making this process "difficult" and worth $$. Transfer of ownership is simples. Don't know why Raven-coin (which needs a boost) hasn't jumped on this. And partnered up with ICANN, but probably "whoever" controls ICANN, CAN'T.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Dont understand why domains aren't in a blockchain deal, would solve all the messing around. Probably too many vested interests are making this process "difficult" and worth $$. Transfer of ownership is simples. Don't know why Raven-coin (which needs a boost) hasn't jumped on this. And partnered up with ICANN, but probably "whoever" controls ICANN, CAN'T.

Seems like a nice idea but it doesn't make sense. What if a domain is stolen from it's rightful owner?

At the end of the day we have a system that's perfectly adequate.

Registering a domain and having it taken away isn't really that much of a hardship. Having a domain taken away that you've worked on for decades and built a brand around - there are already ways and means to protect yourself.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Same thing happend to me - it was NOT the fault of either NameCheap or Namesilo in my case.
The domains actually could be and were registered at registry-level (Donuts).

It was in course of the Registry backend transfer from Afilias to Donuts. Apparently they made some mistake during the transition and previously reserved domains became available.

For me it happened on Nov 17th, a recently dropped LLL.io keyword domain changed status from RESERVED to AVAILABLE.
So I tried my luck and registered the domain at Namesilo which worked without any problem.
The domain was actually registered (showing up in whois and domain also was connected)

Here's the timeline from my own whois monitoring script:

Show attachment 205614

On Nov 20th someone at Donuts apparently noticed that mistake and reverted all those registrations.
Whois status of my domain changed back to RESERVED.

Though looks like Donuts didn't care to inform either registrars or registrants of their mistake and appologize. They just took them back without any notice - which is very bad customer-wise.

As of today, my domain still shows up as active on Namesilo (which of course it isn't anymore).
But as Donuts most probably didn't notify registrars, they can't know.

In the end, there probably nothing much we can do, as the Registry (Donuts in this case) can more or less do whatever they want.

Though I hardly assume there were more than a handful of those registrations, and they could have said "it was our mistake, and we'll honour the registrations" which IMHO would have been the right thing to do, but they went the exact opposite and just shit on their customers eventhough it was their own fault.

That is disappointing and bad that they didn't have the courtesy to contact the registrars...