BEWARE!! NameCheap might use a form of front-running; ICANN suggests.

[member-1090916]

I post this for people that are not aware of the current situation on Reddit where lots of people have shared their own experience with NameCheap and because of that people get banned and post get removed by people from Namecheap and some unrelated people that have no jurisdiction with Namecheap but claim be be in control and ask for information about your domain(issue); also with me.

I would like to let everyone know and confirm that NameCheap is far from a reliable company/registrar. I always had that feeling; that got changed by people that claim they are some sort of NameCheap evangelist on Reddit, but at the end they are just busy with their own things it seems.

What happened:

About a year ago we checked a domain-name for multiple tld's where we already own some of the tld's; we did this with Spaceship and registered there. Two of the checked tld's were released we found out and one was never registered before; and I mean really not registered and checked multiple times before with Spaceship for it's price. At checkout something was going wrong when we wanted to pay the domainnames as one tld seemed to fail to register and it was not clear why this happened; all were on promo for the first year which helped us. Chat support of Spaceship got involved as friendly as always and needed to check that specific failing tld which took some time and in the time between we ordered the other two tld's with Spaceship as we normally do.

As we needed to check - also suggested by Spaceship - we could order it somewhere else for the same amount of price we checked with NameCheap but with not the best feeling but GoDaddy was not option at all because of the known stories about their registrations after you check and smaller companies might do as well we thought. The domain-check of NameCheap said it was a premium - so not really cheap - with around $80 for the first year and $160 for the second; so we discussed that with Spaceship that were still checking what went wrong and they also found out the price they showed on discount/first registration was failing because it was as premium domain. As this domain-name should be part of a startup/charity project we decided to order it later as Spaceship guaranteed that they would not ever order such names after checks; and I can confirm that as once they didn't send out renewal e-mails for a domain I own because of technical issues at their side, it got into redemption and they gave me promo-code-credit to order it back as we agreed something went wrong at both sides and we agreed it could - but likely would not - be drop-catched which it didn't so both were happy. So no bad faith at all and I trust these guys for doing business with them from the start as we had some minor technical things with the also great guys of Porkbun; no worries bunnies

But with NameCheap it went different; exactly as I suggested to someone close to me: watch this NameCheap might register this domain-name.tld after around 24h of the check we just did... and indeed that happened. Sad, indeed no disaster but just a sad move of NameCheap and this is why:

After about a week Namecheap (and indeed it's them) changed the DNS to a Enom sales account but actually a couple of days later they changed it back; they might forgot that they cannot transfer a domain within the first 60 days for that domain so they changed it back to a nonsense parking page for ever.

There was no direct need for that lost tld - we have things covered - but I dislike this kind of behavior of a company wherefore we also developed an implementation for their API for as registrar to be able to help domain-name owners out when they need to move/arrange whatever they want to do with their domain-name; this behavior was directly a no-go.

After months I thought let's see what the purpose of this registration is - as I was curious and it actually could hurt a project in bad faith - so I contacted the xxxx.protect<@>withheldforprivacy.com e-mail address with a question if the domain-name was for sale maybe; no response. A reminder: no response, months later again... no response... just no response.

When months later checking something out on "the internets" for good and trusty registrars I (sometimes) found messages about NameCheap and bad faith of registration after checking domains and I thought: hey this sounds familiar to me so I started googling and actually found here on Reddit multiple messages about this fact so I responded; someone "close" to NameCheap was debating that NameCheap is not a company like that and they never would or should like be one and I needed to contact her; so I did as I finally dared to because I thought this was just me, but it wasn't.

Explaining what happened she told me "Let me have some folks made aware of this, please hang tight."; never any update. Then this person asked me to create a ticket with domainsupport@ and she wanted the ticket, she was on holiday, no access on that level, etc. No solution at all.

Then support kicked in by response:

- Not able to do a deep investigation because of domain age (less then a year and no logs ??)

- ... lots of stupidity from NameCheap support user which didn't read very well ...

- ...

- ...

- Oh NameCheap support has the solution: contact THEIR domain broker "DomainAgents" as THEY are THE mediator that can communicate; I wonder (not really anymore) why they can and no-one else can (or does).

- Sorry I won't negotiate as I'm fine but I need to say NameCheap is a company of bad faith; that bothers everyone and they don't seem to prove me the opposite.

- ...

- End of story ?

No!

I contacted ICANN which are very helpful so far and they directly came with the following response:

=================

Based on the information you have provided, this may be a form of front-running. Front-running is the practice of using insider information to register a domain name that someone else wants to register. This is done with the intent to charge a higher price for the domain name or to get the registrant to purchase the name with a particular registrar. Information on Front Running: ....icannwiki.org/Front_Running

If you have a complaint regarding front-running by a Registrar, you may submit the following Generic Registrar Complaint Form at ICANN’s Contractual Compliance Complaint page: ....icann-nsp.my.site.com/compliance/s/generic-registrar

ICANN’s Contractual Compliance team will review your complaint and reply directly to you.

You can find the Contractual Compliance approach and processes via this link: ....icann.org/resources/pages/approach-processes-2012-02-25-

=================

So where we are at ? I filed a complaint against this situation with ICANN; no-one parks a "premium" domain for 180 euro's for the second year not responding at all. I wonder what happened if I stayed quiet but I wanted honest and it seems these companies don't work this way especially because we have another very wanted tld registered that came free after this remarkable situation which is still for sale on their market and doesn't even get removed after notifying NameCheap about it.

Where ever this situation goes there is one message I want to sent out:

!!! Stay away from NameCheap !!!​

Maybe - and I hope so - I can rectify this when they want to become honest and make this right.

 

[Future Sensors]

Tagging @enetwork

 

[silentg]

What people are actually seeing is a registration path / search bug. Like GoDaddy and other registrars, a domain can briefly show as “available” during certain stages of the check process, even though it’s already registered or being processed. It’s a known technical issue, not front-running.

I use Mac's Terminal to check if a domain is available because registrar reg path search isn't reliable.

 

[member-1090916]

What people are actually seeing is a registration path / search bug. Like GoDaddy and other registrars, a domain can briefly show as “available” during certain stages of the check process, even though it’s already registered or being processed. It’s a known technical issue, not front-running.

I use Mac's Terminal to check if a domain is available because registrar reg path search isn't reliable.

This is not the case; everything is checked as we work on cli daily.

 

[NickB]

Are you the one who started the below Reddit thread?

https://www.reddit.com/r/NameCheap/s/svnVbwk5sa

 

[pb]

tl;dr: no domain name provided, so all evidence is circumstantial

 

[Future Sensors]

Tagging @tamar

 

[Yanosh]

Proof ?

 

[silentg]

This is not the case; everything is checked as we work on cli daily.

Saying “this is not the case” isn’t evidence. Working on CLI tools daily doesn’t change how registrar lookup paths and registry timing behave. This issue has been observed across multiple registrars for years and is well documented. If there’s actual proof of front-running, it should be posted.

 

[Future Sensors]

Proof ?

According to the Reddit thread, OP refuses to provide proof.

NameCheap responded with: "If you genuinely have proof or details you want us to investigate, I'm asking for this here. Otherwise, this post serves no purpose except to spread misinformation."

 

[silentg]

They’re the second-largest registrar. If you think of a good domain and check it, there’s a good chance someone else has already thought of it and registered it as well.

1. GoDaddy 52,796,957 (54,612,910 in June 2024)
2. Namecheap 11,615,294 (10,063,495)
3. Newfold Digital 10,741,615 (11,852,737)
4. Tucows 10,522,917 (10,752,136)
5. Squarespace 8,520,131 (8,100,817)
6. IONOS 5,776,513 (5,808,097)
7. Gname 4,524,983 (4,585,733)
8. TurnCommerce 4,148,729 (5,879,883)
9. Alibaba 4,048,687 (3,998,406)
10. Team Internet Group 3,098,770 (3,296,830)

https://domainnamewire.com/2025/10/07/the-biggest-com-domain-registrars-updated-rankings/

 

[NickB]

They messaged me privately and I suggested they share the domain/s here so it can be looked into...

Most will look into it impartially and give you an honest answer....

 

[member-1090916]

They’re the second-largest registrar. If you think of a good domain and check it, there’s a good chance someone else has already thought of it and registered it as well.


...domainnamewire.com/2025/10/07/the-biggest-com-domain-registrars-updated-rankings/

No, otherwise they would have done that and used it and not directly trying to sell it using Namecheap servers. There is no investment there.

 

[Yanosh]

No, otherwise they would have done that and used it and not directly trying to sell it using Namecheap servers. There is no investment there.

Kindly share your proof

 

[member-1090916]

They messaged me privately and I suggested they share the domain/s here so it can be looked into...

Most will look into it impartially and give you an honest answer....

As explained there is no need for that as if people are really willing to help out it would be someone stepping out with clearance to do so. Namecheap won't give any information about their clients; they only want to know which domain so they can keep it for no reason.

 

[Future Sensors]

Creation Date: 2025-07-01T09:23:45.459Z

 

[NickB]

As explained there is no need for that as if people are really willing to help out it would be someone stepping out with clearance to do so. Namecheap won't give any information about their clients; they only want to know which domain so they can keep it for no reason.

I did say transparency goes a long way on here as well

 

[katerleonid]

Even with proof, in some exceptional cases, two people can think of the same domain name and try to register it.

 

[Yanosh]

As explained there is no need for that as if people are really willing to help out it would be someone stepping out with clearance to do so. Namecheap won't give any information about their clients; they only want to know which domain so they can keep it for no reason.

The purpose of sharing information here is to support your claim , cause as now it is just mere words.

 

[Jannes]

The way OP speaks highly of Spaceship makes me wonder if they even know that Spaceship is owned by Namecheap.