IONOS transferred my domain to DomCollect.

[Allysin]

I've had a .info domain with IONOS UK. It is set to expire on January 20th, 2024. I've made the mistake where I've turned off auto-renewal myself. When you do this yourself, it changes the expiration of the domain in the IONOS Control Panel to 1 year less = January 20th, 2023. I wasn't really worried about this as knew that I paid for the time all the way until January 20th, 2024. I was recently going through all of my domains everywhere and noticed this domain was not showing in my IONOS account. I called them yesterday and the customer support rep says: Oh - I can see the domain - we will restore it back to your account within 30 minutes. I checked after 30 minutes and instead of the restored domain, I got the following Email:

Dear Allysin,

Thank you for contacting IONOS.

I hope this email finds you well. I apologize for the information I gave you earlier, I just tried to reinstate the domain back to the account but seems like the supposed renewal date for the domain SOMETHING.info was dated on Jan 10, 2022, since the renewal is annual and at this time, the reactivation of the domain already took place and unlike some of your domains that are set for renewal every 2 years, it had to follow the process of expiration.

I've already escalated this to our Domain's Admin team to see if we can reactivate the domain but unfortunately, they are not available at this time anymore. They will be able to reply to my query first thing in the morning, by then I will send you an email update with another resolution to reactivate the domain.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us by phone. Our contact details can be found at https://my.ionos.co.uk.

Just now, I received the following Email:

Dear Allysin,

Thank you for contacting IONOS.

I hope this message finds you well. We would like to inform you that the domain SOMETHING.info has been transferred to DomCollect. In light of this transfer, as a courtesy, we are willing to waive half of the restoration fee, which amounts to 45 pounds.

If you agree to proceed with the restoration of the domain, kindly reply to this email at your earliest convenience. Upon receiving your confirmation, we will initiate the creation of a request ticket to our Domain Admin team to commence the domain restoration process.

It's important to note that while we strive to facilitate the restoration, restoration with a domain under DomCollect is not guaranteed, and it is subject to the policies and procedures set forth by DomCollect.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out. We are here to help.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

What is DomCollect and how would you advise I proceed? I really believe I was paid up until January 2024 but if this was NOT the case, don't registrars delete the expired domains anymore? This is a .info domain.
Estibot estimates the value of this domain at $ 110. Godaddy and Afternic less than $100.

 

[pb]

"DomCollect International GmbH was established with a view to acquire and monetize qualitative premium and generic domain names." - that means they either sold it to another company or transferred it to a sister company (I haven't checked for connections).

German companies work a bit different, for them if you "cancel" the domain renewal, it means you don't want it and they delete it. Seems that in this case they decided to utilise the remaining subscription time to get some pennies from the parking.

What to do? I'd start by checking T&C to see if that's actually how it is supposed to work and then, regardless of the outcome, keep demanding they give it back without further delay or any fees, and then I wouldn't renew it anyway, because who would keep a <$100 .info domain?

 

[capybara]

Could it be that your domain was registered with some kind of plan that discounted the first year but in return expected a (more than industry-average) second year payment from you at a later date?

 

[Allysin]

Could it be that your domain was registered with some kind of plan that discounted the first year but in return expected a (more than industry-average) second year payment from you at a later date?

Thanks for that thought but this wasn't it 100%.