advice Autorenewal is scam or just business?

forge said:

What really chaps my hide are the registrars that renew and bill 30 days in advance of actual expiration.

There are at least a few registrars that do this.

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Care to name and shame?

stub said:

Care to name and shame?

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No, i don't care..it's names.co.uk same group with register.it.
it was a good deal when i registered was like $3 promotion. but later on they added transfer out fee, or maybe i don't remember if there was.. then domains got stucked there so i was thinking to let them expire, but forgot about setting off auto-renewal about 50 domains extended. my mistake as i was so busy and couldn't check it before expiry.

Apprich said:

No, i don't care..it's names.co.uk same group with register.it.
it was a good deal when i registered was like $3 promotion. but later on they added transfer out fee, or maybe i don't remember if there was.. then domains got stucked there so i was thinking to let them expire, but forgot about setting off auto-renewal about 50 domains extended. my mistake as i was so busy and couldn't check it before expiry.

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..it happens

I recently got a name auto renewed at Uniregistry a month before expiry.

I dont keep any of my domains at auto renew.

I didnt realize, till I got charged. I asked them to refund it. They agreed but said you will need to delete the name and we will refund it.

I asked them that they should send a mail before auto renewing. They replied, they did send a mail a week before.

I checked my mails and found that they did send a mail. So, it was my fault as I didnt read the mail properly and thought it is just another domain expiry reminder mail.

Hope this is my first and last auto renewal until specified.

Just sharing!

stub said:

You should. You must be crazy to have used them at all.

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This means that I'm crazy.
I use 1and1 since 2009.
As of today, ~4.4K my domains there.

stub said:

Care to name and shame?

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Now that you ask...

MyDomain.com (and I think all the Domain.com family) auto-renew 15 days prior to expiry.

I can't seem to remember the other ones at the moment.

forge said:

Now that you ask...

MyDomain.com (and I think all the Domain.com family) auto-renew 15 days prior to expiry.

I can't seem to remember the other ones at the moment.

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every registrar has different rule difficult to remember them. for example as i remember dynadot and epik don't give auth code after expiry if you don't renew domain.

some notes if I can extract out from all your comments;

- do renewal 3 months before expiry
- turn off auto-renewal immediately after registering new domain
- don't leave credit card bound to website or not use credit card that they can charge
- use reputable registrars

most of us know this facts but still sometimes we got caught due to busy life.
thanks to all your valuable comments

stub said:

Care to name and shame?

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I know Rebel.com does this. I also had this happen at some other registrar but can't recall who that was.

Apprich said:

- don't leave credit card bound to website or not use credit card that they can charge

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Yes, thankfully this saves me, most registrars I don't have a credit card on file.

By the way, I just read a blog post complaining that Network Solutions auto-renewed a chunk of names at 60 days prior to expiration (which doesn't surprise me).

As you say, every registrar is different (which makes tracking more difficult).

NameDeck said:

I know Rebel.com does this.

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30 days ahead?

forge said:

30 days ahead?

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I checked to be sure. They renewed and charged at 21/3 for 2 domains expiring at 6/5. $14.99 each (dot-com). I don't particularly mind as their pricing is not that bad and the domains are valuable to me.

Jurgen Wolf said:

This means that I'm crazy.
I use 1and1 since 2009.
As of today, ~4.4K my domains there.

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Maybe you are, maybe your aren't But you are an old hand and an expert with domains. But for a noob to be using them. I think it's crazy. As an aside. I probably wouldn't buy a domain registered at 1and1 unless it was transferable to a non-1and1 account.

Yes, they are transferrable... and within minutes (instant transfer-out).
I sold many 1and1 domains to endusers. Some even internally (within 1and1).

Jurgen Wolf said:

Yes, they are transferrable... and within minutes (instant transfer-out). I sold many 1and1 domains to endusers. Some even internally (within 1and1).

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Does the recipient still need to renew the domain instead receiving a free push? Would you know why they do that?

rgds
stu

stub said:

Does the recipient still need to renew the domain instead receiving a free push? Would you know why they do that?

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Internal transfer-in at 1and1 and Hexonet is processed exactly the same as external transfer-in... using AUTH code and paying the reg fee (and 1 year will be added).
And if certain TLD is under promotion at 1and1 - this fee will be also promotional, for example - you may internally/externally transfer .ORG for $4.17 (1 year will be added for $4.17).

+ 1and1 doesn't set 60 days lock...
So if serverTransferProhibited is not set by the corresponding registry - you may freely transfer away at any time.
For example, recently I sold and transferred out some .life domain (Donuts registry) which was ~40 days old.

Verisign (.com/.net) and Neustar (.biz/.us) also don't use "60 days" anymore.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Verisign (.com/.net) and Neustar (.biz/.us) also don't use "60 days" anymore.

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Really? You can freely transfer to another registrar after being registered for only 1 day?

stub said:

Really? You can freely transfer to another registrar after being registered for only 1 day?

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Really.
If your registrar doesn't set this lock, registrars have such rights optionally.
Really with 1and1, really with Dynadot etc.

Jurgen Wolf said:

Really.
If your registrar doesn't set this lock, registrars have such rights optionally.
Really with 1and1, really with Dynadot etc.

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Good to know. Although I never want to transfer out unless I sell something at Dynadot

forge said:

What really chaps my hide are the registrars that renew and bill 30 days in advance of actual expiration.

There are at least a few registrars that do this.

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One has to know their registrars policies and I personally would not be adverse to this because I have some high value domains. I do it 3 months ahead anyways and if I was laying in the hospital somewhere it would make me feel a lot better to see my domains renewed 30 days ahead as opposed to the last minute.

When you reg a domain,first check the consistency of pricing to be sure of your next budget when renewing. If you see that the pricing is not consistent or has some doubts, as in the first year is different from the proceeding years(very common with discounted domains) then don't enable auto renewals because registrars are at liberty to charge any price depending on the demand/supply ratio and the PR consequences. Domain registrar business is very expensive and the registrars are so desperate to fork profit out of the registrants hence they play all possible tricks within the legal framework to remain relevant in the business, so be more vigilant.

lowcalls said:

When you reg a domain,first check the consistency of pricing to be sure of your next budget when renewing. If you see that the pricing is not consistent or has some doubts, as in the first year is different from the proceeding years(very common with discounted domains) then don't enable auto renewals because registrars are at liberty to charge any price depending on the demand/supply ratio and the PR consequences. Domain registrar business is very expensive and the registrars are so desperate to fork profit out of the registrants hence they play all possible tricks within the legal framework to remain relevant in the business, so be more vigilant.

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I understand that registrar business is not very profitable, considering registering domain fee %90 goes to registry for regular reg fees. Business all depends on 2nd year renewal profit. and if they offer promotion in 1st year and can't charge on 2nd year, registrar in loss in this case, not counting all other fees that they pay to hold business active.

Only way for registrars to make profit, either sell their other products like hosting etc which customers expected to spend money on that or charge them horrendous fee in 2nd year. Domainers, don't spend any money on other products, or registering big amount of domains on their promotional price and escape 2nd year fee...

And domainers have to escape from this 2nd year fee considering little amount of domains they sell out of hundreds of domains they register.. Big piece of cake of course goes to registry... It would be cool if domainer would be differentiated from standard customer when registering domains or bypass registrars. But registry doesn't care about who register domains, registry get flat fee from registrars and busy of eating their big pie..

But who is more legit in this food chain is debatable. If domainers don't register domains, they can't make more profit, or would domains expected to be just registered by end users for the purpose of creating websites? Domainer person exist by nature since rule of first come first served nature of domain name system. It's inevitable names were grabbed by domainers and then sold to others. This would be same like expecting lands and properties just bought for living and not trade them...After that they just designed the system over years to make it less tradable by people. Domain names are digital properties by nature, as same like properties in real world.

Hoping that in future decentralization of domain system will help to solve this distribution of this big cake and become more democratized.. But on the other hand, system puts more protectionism as like Gdpr which is trying to get rid off all little guys and protect end user privacy? then question comes who will pay bill of their big cake if only system is designed to protect legit established entities?

I consider domaining a business. As with any business, I try to understand the rules of the companies I do business with. I use several registrars and with every single one, it is extremely easy to either change the default or change the auto renew setting.

If you are managing your domains in a spreadsheet or even a control panel, it is also pretty easy to manage renewals manually.

Once everything is set up, maintaining renewals is the simplest part of the process.

As for changing prices, why didn't you check on that? If you join the godaddy discount domain club, you will know exactly what renewals are, and they generally won't be much different than original registration fee.

Basically, this is your issue. Learn from it and move on. If managing renewals is too difficult, this is probably the wrong hobby or business.

forge said:

What really chaps my hide are the registrars that renew and bill 30 days in advance of actual expiration.

There are at least a few registrars that do this.

Click to expand...

If someone wants auto-renew, that's a good thing. It's intended for people running websites that can't afford an interruption...30 days gives enough time to attempt the auto-renew and if it fails because the card was canceled or whatever, they have time to notify the owner and the owner has time to get it sorted out before their business goes offline.