registrars how to buy unowned domain name cheap AND are registrars the most corrupt industry?

[inorganic]

I bought a domain name nearly 40 years ago which I renew every 10 years or so. But I consider myself "a beginner" because I haven't done anything except renew that domain name every 10 years and update the website now and then (by hand).

Recently I attempted to buy a currently unowned domain name for a friend, and this has led me to believe the registrar industry is the most dishonest and corrupt industry on planet earth. So my question is two-fold.

#1: Are registrars in fact the most corrupt organizations on planet earth ... as they appear to me?

#2: How can I buy a currently unowned domain name and nothing but the domain name for 10 years (or common period) at the lowest price ... and at the same time follow the KISS principle (KISS == keep it simple, stupid).

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If you are a registrar --- do not reply to this message because I already know I cannot trust anything you say. And if you are someone who just repeats what registrars tell you, also please don't answer. If you have a fair degree of knowledge and experience with domain names and the registration process, then please do answer!

Let me describe a few of my recent experiences so you will understand why I am so angry at registrar entities.

First I checked to find unowned domain names similar to what I wanted. First I checked with the whois app on my linux mint 22 computer. A couple plausible domain names were already taken, but the third one I checked was not yet owned.

So naively I went to a few of the registrar companies that people recommend. And guess what? They asked insane prices (namely thousands of dollars). WTF? As I recall, I was paying $60 for 10 years for my long-held domain name, which I got from network solutions decades ago and renewed ever since. I'm not sure, but network solutions might have been the only place to get domain names way back when I got mine.

Anyway, with whois (and by searching on other websites that I no longer remember), I found the expiry date on the domain that nobody owns was listed as "3 days in the future" and was currently owned by the registrar I tried to buy from. Say what? This implies, if not outright for-sure means the obvious, right? That when I asked about buying the domain name "cheap", the registrar has some fancy way (probably an agreement with ICANN that is only available to registrars) to reserve a domain name for 3 days or so. In that way they can claim "the name is taken" and then RAPE YOU for thousands of dollars per year while they pay $0.16 per year (or whatever ICANN now charges). And if you don't buy ... it returns to the "unowned pool" ???

If this isn't blatant corruption, I don't know what is. Unless, of course, this kind of blatant fraud is now "standard practice". But even if that's true, that just says the entire industry is totally corrupt.

Note that I tried this with a couple other domain names (that I was not interested in, to avoid possibly creating "signs of interest" in the domain name I am interested in) ... and I experienced similar results.

I am also angered by the endless questions and answers I see under google searches that are obviously planted by utterly corrupt registrar owners or employees. Why? Because they do not give honest answers to the question, but instead give answers cleverly crafted to deceive people and mislead them to buy high-priced domain names and other services.

In short, everywhere I look I see nothing but overtly criminal behavior from registrars. Just go read answers to simple questions on google someday if you doubt me (and know anything at all about domain names). And to be clear, I do NOT know much about domain names, I simply have a little experience with them and I'm not stupid. And that is enough to totally scandalize me. I have been an electronics designer and software developer for decades, but haven't much dealt with domain names, servers and websites.

I will appreciate answers to my questions. How can I get a currently unowned domain name cheap ... and explain whether the industry is as utterly corrupt as it seems to me (and how to avoid that corruption).

 

[forge]

I wondered, do they still send snailmail for your renewals?

Disclaimer: I can't remember the last time I actually held a domain at their esteemed registrar.

Hmm, if memory serves, they actually offered some enticing promo codes several years back...

https://www.namepros.com/threads/netsol-get-your-domain-for-1-updated-link.1103502/

 

[Mikeyboy]

I remember this. Do netsol invoices go back that far? May log in and see what junk i picked up in that promo

 

[The Durfer]

sell your 1980s domain for profit and move on. Half the world has changed to a new format that the 80s would call corrupt anyways. The millenium was a half world outlaw change to new technology that they wanted to make legal and mainstream anyways. You can never convince technology to go backwards, only start the world again.

 

[DomainNature]

It is most likely a dropping domain, I had such cases, WHOIS shows non registered for many hours, on registrar it show still registered alongside with the year of registration, then domain is catched by SAV and pushed to auction.
But I agree the system is corrupt I have seen weirder situations when WHOIS is manipulated to the desired date!

 

[Future Sensors]

But I agree the system is corrupt

Thank you for trying to get the discussion back on track.

 

[MariaEl]

Thank you for trying to get the discussion back on track.

I am confident OP will have overcome the obstacles by now, and I do hope we will receive an update.

Sometimes dealing with registration is distressing for those who are not familiar with it. At least, it has happened to me.

 

[shahn321]

Honestly peaking, I registered my first domain in 2019 and I have tried almost all the famous domain and hosting provider company but personally I dont like HostGator services, I mean they had no option for customers care calling you have to chat , But GoDaddy you can directly connect with call.

 

[scithe]

When was NetSol $6/year? Or did OP mean $600 for 10 years?

My allowance wasn't high enough to fill my car with gas at $.88/gallon and pay $75/year for a .com so I had to wait until Yahoo came along and offered $15 .com registrations in 1998.

 

[Internet.Domains]

The domain name I wanted to register was a .com domain.

I had this problem about a month ago and don't remember for certain which registrars. But it was 2 or 3 of the most popular registrars ... almost certainly godaddy and namecheap ... and probably bluehost but not sure.

About your question being "already registered", let me repeat what happened so you are totally clear.

I first verified the domain I wanted to host by doing "whois peekaboo.com" ... where "peekaboo" is not the domain name I searched for --- but is simply a substitute for purposes of not revealing the name I want within this forum message. The query with the "whois" indicated nobody owned the domain name I wanted.

So THEN I went to one of the registrars to buy or "register" the domain name. When I entered the domain name I wanted there (which had just appeared as not owned by anyone in the "whois" app in linux mint 22 ... the registrar said THEY owned that domain name and would sell to me for something like $2500. I don't remember if that was $2500 just once, or $2500 per year. Either way I was scandalized.

So THEN I went to yet another site to look up the data on the domain name. And it agreed that the first registrar that I contacted a few minutes before owned the domain name, and the expiration date for the domain name was 3 days in the future.

To be clear, this means I executed whois ... then went to the registrar website that claimed they owned the domain name ... then went to another registrar website that claimed the same but also told me the expiration date was 3 days in the future. And all this happened within a few minutes --- probably 10 minutes.

So the domain name went from "nobody owns the domain name" to "registrar #1 owns the name and wants $2500 to sell to me" immediately after I tried to register that domain name with registrar #1.

Get it? What registrar #1 did was to see my request ... somehow immediately buy the domain name for 3 days ... then tell me they owned the domain name but would sell to me for $2500 (but did not tell me how long they had supposedly owned the domain name). But then when I checked with another registrar #2 because what happened with registrar #1 was obviously corrupt ... they included the fact the domain name ownership expires in 3 days.

To me, this tells me that ICANN has some kind of deal with registrars that allows registrars to put a temporary 3-day hold on domain names without actually buying them ... or otherwise ICANN will sell the domain name to the registrar for only 3 days (probably for $0.16 or something cheap like that), which the registrar companies use to run the scam I mentioned.

It doesn't matter whether actual domain name owners are kept private or not. There is a DIFFERENCE in the information specified by "whois" or any other domain name service between an UNOWNED domain name ... and an OWNED domain name (whether the owner is hidden or not). Don't you agree? And I don't care who owns any domain name either --- I just need to be able to distinguish whether NOBODY or SOMEBODY owns the name. Right?

And yes, I was very careful to make sure I entered the exact same domain name in all cases.

Plus I repeated this process again with a totally different bogus domain name (in the sense that I was not actually interested in the domain name) ... and experienced the same behavior.

Hey. If I can buy an unowned domain name cheap --- why won't anyone here tell me how?

Okay, let's do a test. I just went to the lookup icann link you mentioned and entered the domain name I want. That then displayed in a blue box the blue text that reads ...

The requested domain was not found in the Registry or Registrar's RDAP server.

NOW --- if I go to buy that domain name and someone tries to charge me $2500 ... and then my next check says the registrar owns that domain name --- THEN what do you say is happening?

Do I have to go to a more expensive registrar like dynadot to avoid being scammed like I described? Or is $12 per year the current "cheap going rate" to register a dot-com domain name? I really don't want to try one of the cheapskate registrars if that makes me go through that process again --- though I supposed I could try with an unowned bogus domain name I don't care about.

Thanks for your suggestions. I will post what happens once I decide which registrar to try again with.

Wowza!.... This is extremely interesting .... Something going on???