discuss PLEASE HELP being legally forced to renew .at domain

Post the info they sent you.

That's what happens with .at domains unfortunately.. that's the reason I don't register any.

You need to fill and email/fax a form signed by you requesting personally for a domain to drop if you don't want to renew it... stupid but that's how it is :/

Totally ridiculous, that is just crazy

Hypersot said:

That's what happens with .at domains unfortunately.. that's the reason I don't register any.

You need to fill and email/fax a form signed by you requesting personally for a domain to drop if you don't want to renew it... stupid but that's how it is :/

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Oh this is a first! This should be illegal?

techpr said:

Oh this is a first! This should be illegal?

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Each european registry (and most country/cctld registries I know) have the right to set their own rules, sometimes really eccentric, .at is one of those registries. Nothing illegal there I'm afraid.

Hypersot said:

Each european registry (and most country/cctld registries I know) have the right to set their own rules, sometimes really eccentric, .at is one of those registries. Nothing illegal there I'm afraid.

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If that is the case, I would tell them to go fuck themselves.

I had a 5000 page website and in the middle of one article was a picture of a pregnant lady with her hand over her belly. All images on the site were home made but one of my staff must have gotten this one off the web because I got a pay up notice from Getty for $2,700 for an image no bigger than an inch.

Related to this post???

Well they sent me notices for two years that looked like they came right from a court house. I never responded even once to acknowledge anything, I simply removed the image. Two years later they gave up.

MY advice

Ignore them, send their emails to spam and get on with your life. Small crap like that is not worth pursuing and they will simply give up.

They sent a letter by post from their collection agent to recover renewal charges and penalty....I am in another country and they have collection agents ....as if I defaulted on a million dollar loan

I never faced this with any registrar...

It is just possible you can renew the domain at the registrar for the normal fee, then tell them you do not want to renew it next time.

I had an .at I did not renew and I ignored all such messages and nothing happened, but no collection agency was involved. Does this involve 1&1 by any chance?

It's 101 domains..If I knew this is problem registering these extn and they will pile on..I won't register ..bad policy

This is normal, .at works like .de in this regard.
Maybe the registrar did not make it clear enough for the foreigners.
When you register a .de/.at, not paying the renewal fee does not equate renunciation. Then the registry takes over the expired domain names and requests direct payment from the registrant.
If you do not want to keep your domains you have to renounce them explicitly.

The current setup has at least one advantage: if you die, your heirs can inherit your domain names. You may ignore the domain name even exists until you get that formal payment notice from the registry.

I always encourage people to invest in ccTLDs but make sure you get acquainted with the rules and peculiarities.
Stop assuming every TLD works like .com.

They can probably do little if you don't reside in Austria. Be more careful next time.

Germans are machine people, Americans are service people, so they think differently. Maybe Germans think only endusers buy domains, so they think they are doing a favor by reminding renewals. US supported Nazi Germany in WW2, but when Russians reached Berlin, US decided to invade Germany first, and made it a puppet. As puppets Germans had to obey, so they became strict, while Americans remained flexible. For domainers it is better to work with Americans, but Germans seem to have more money, and negotiate less. while Americans would try to get the best deal and offer alternatives, but I may be wrong.

I guess this is what they mean by "your domain will never expire" but the terms sure could be more clear. @Kate offers good advice to us all to really know the terms of a registry prior to investing in it.

Interesting that the following link from Name.com explaining the terms for the .at goes to a 404 not found. In case where you registered also has a broken link, because .at changed their structure, it might help make your case to get out of paying.

https://www.nic.at/en/faq/domain_registration/

Someone should set up a list of minimum requirements for a registry, one of which is no crazy things like this, and only registries that meet all the requirements be checklisted, and domainers refuse to deal with the others. They would soon get a message!

I really hope it works out for you @domain12345. If you do decide to renew and then get out, I see they require 28 days for the notification.

Bob

Some registries have a different lifecycle and do almost the opposite: you have to renew domains early
Example: .es but it's not the only one.

The problem with the big registrars is that they offer a lot of foreign extensions, but they are not familiar with the peculiarities of each.
Often, they don't even bother to follow the rules which may lead to unexpected problems. When the registrant does not care, and the registrar does not care, problems happen.

Sometimes that leads to complaints like this:

• registrant: My domain is in redemption yet I renewed it in time.
• registrar: We will investigate
• ...
  
• registrant: Any news ?
• registrar: The central registry is telling us that the domain should have been renewed 8 weeks before expiry. Sorry about that.
• registrant: Are you kidding me ?
• registrar: We are sorry, but this country TLD non-standard rules blah blah
• registrant: Why didn't you tell me ?
• registrar: <Insert boilerplate excuse here>

Now, the good news: .de & .at are the only TLD that - to my knowledge - work like this.
In general it's safe to assume that if you don't pay the renewal bill, you lose the domain and nothing bad happens.

But there is a quirk: a German registrar like 1&1 likes to apply the German way of doing things to other extensions including .com. They expect you to cancel your contract. Not paying the bill is not enough.
There are plenty of stories on NP about 1&1 and collections. Search the forum.

I did not know this when i registered at 101...atleast i must know the terms of renewal upfront...not that after paying and if i then want to let go .it gets stuck in the neck..i will only stick to .com etc. .atleast no nonsense

topdom said:

Germans are machine people, Americans are service people, so they think differently. Maybe Germans think only endusers buy domains, so they think they are doing a favor by reminding renewals. US supported Nazi Germany in WW2, but when Russians reached Berlin, US decided to invade Germany first, and made it a puppet. As puppets Germans had to obey, so they became strict, while Americans remained flexible. For domainers it is better to work with Americans, but Germans seem to have more money, and negotiate less. while Americans would try to get the best deal and offer alternatives, but I may be wrong.

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.de - germany -sends you invoices
but no need to pay
simply ignore them

.at - Austria (not Australia) - is a different story
they mean it


maybe some of the 82 million Germans are not machine type guys