Sav.com failed to renew and auctioned off my $5,000 domain (EEA.net)

[william]

I’m sharing this as both a warning and a public record of what happened with Sav.com’s V2 system.

What happened

EEA.net expired on December 24, 2025 at Sav. The name entered the standard 30-day registrar grace period.

On January 20, 2026, while the domain was still in grace, I attempted to renew it through Sav’s official V2 dashboard.

At the time:

• The cart showed EEA.net – Domain Renewal – $12.12
• I proceeded to payment
• The system moved to a “We’re processing your order(s)” screen

I took timestamped screenshots of this flow. As I've come to find out later, the transaction never completed. The dashboard continued to show “Renewal Grace Period.” I reasonably believed the renewal was still in progress.

Later, Sav said no backend order existed for EEA.net on January 20 and sent the name to auction, where it was awarded to another bidder.

Why I contacted Sav when I did

EEA.net has an unusual two-month gap between its creation and expiration dates. That mismatch made the timeline look longer than it actually was, which is why I reached out after noticing the problem. Importantly, my renewal attempt still occurred within the official grace period.

Why I had screenshots

Since Sav rolled out V2, I’ve experienced:

• Domains disappearing from my dashboard
• Failed or inconsistent renewals
• Confusing status labels

Because of this, I now routinely screenshot renewals and orders on Sav. That is why I have contemporaneous images from January 20.

What Sav said

On February 2, before the auction ended, I contacted support and provided my screenshots. Sav acknowledged in writing that the V2 dashboard showing “Grace Renewal Period” may have been misleading. They still refused to intervene, saying only backend logs matter.

Their position: my “first recorded attempt” was February 2, after grace had ended.

Why this matters to other domainers

I manage over 2,000 domains and paid thousands for EEA.net. I’ve renewed thousands of names over the years at other registrars without issues.

The core problem here is not that I forgot to renew. The issue is that Sav’s own interface allowed a full renewal flow during grace, entered a processing state, continued to show “Grace Renewal Period,” and then later relied solely on backend logs to justify sending the name to auction.

Because of repeated V2 issues, I previously moved most of my highest-value domains out of Sav. I kept a smaller set and documented renewals precisely so I would have evidence if something went wrong. In this case, even that was not enough.

Over the past few days I’ve seen multiple similar reports on Trustpilot, Reddit, and NamePros involving stalled renewals, missing domains, confusing status labels, and post-hoc reliance on logs. This appears to be a pattern rather than a one-off. This makes me deeply concerned that many domains at Sav could be at risk whenever a V2 renewal glitches, because Sav ultimately defers only to its internal logs.

What I’ve done

I filed a formal ICANN Contractual Compliance Complaint regarding Sav’s handling of this renewal and auction.

Screenshots I’m sharing here

1. Jan 20 cart showing EEA.net – $12.12
2. Jan 20 “Processing your order(s)” screen
3. Dashboard showing Renewal Grace Period
4. Feb 2 support chat where Sav admits the UI may have been misleading

If anyone has had similar V2 renewal issues at Sav, especially stalled “processing” states, please share your experience.

I’ll update this thread as things progress.

 

[william]

What this experience has shown me is uncomfortable: if a renewal stalls in Sav’s V2 system, screenshots of the checkout may not be enough on their own, because Sav ultimately defers only to its backend logs, even when their own interface (and maybe backend) created the problem in the first place.

In practice, that means a careful user would need to treat every important action like a high-stakes transaction:

• capture screenshots or video of each step,
• confirm completion in the Orders section,
• verify that payment actually settled, and
• double-check that the change is reflected consistently in both V2 and legacy views.

Realistically, most domainers are not going to video-record renewals or treat routine actions like a legal deposition. And they shouldn’t have to.

That’s exactly why I’m raising this publicly. A system where a stalled “processing” screen plus a misleading “Grace Renewal Period” label can still result in an auction. Even when the user acted in time. It places too much risk on the registrant and too little responsibility on the registrar.

 

[william]

One thing this case has made me think about is incentives.

In my situation, I contacted Sav before the auction ended, offered to pay the renewal fee, and provided screenshots of a timely attempt during the grace period, while their own dashboard was still displaying “Grace Renewal Period.” From a customer perspective, the simplest outcome would have been to pause the auction, review what happened, and let me renew - keeping a long-term client and avoiding a dispute altogether.

Instead, Sav let the auction proceed and relied strictly on backend logs, even after acknowledging that the V2 interface may have been misleading. I’m not claiming bad intent, but the structure of this process creates a situation where a stalled renewal can still produce an auction result rather than a straightforward fix for the customer.

This also affects the auction buyer, not just me. Because the auction was allowed to complete despite a disputed renewal attempt, the domain is now associated with negative publicity, which could affect both the current buyer and any future buyers. That creates uncertainty around an asset they purchased in good faith.

On top of that, if ICANN determines that the renewal should have been honored, it’s unclear what protection or guarantee the buyer would have for a refund. I’ve personally experienced difficulties with refunds at Sav in the past, which only heightens that concern. Even a temporary hold on the name or requests for the buyer to respond to inquiries would already be an inconvenience for someone who believed they were acquiring a clean asset.

From both sides, registrant and buyer, it’s hard to see how letting the auction run to completion in these circumstances actually served anyone well. We'll see how Sav.com continues to handle it from here, but as of now they consider this "resolved".

 

[lansespirit]

sav.com is very hard to use and often has inexplicable bugs

 

[Grego85]

I've had this same thing happen to me a few years back, even before V2 was introduced. They auctioned off two of mine even though they had also charged me for the renewals like everything was normal. They never did make it right either. I know this has happened to some others as well.

 

[snake_case]

definitly a bug, but it's hard to loose a valuable domain due to it.
Sav have to invest in its platform system
sad that you lost your domain
I wish sav return your domain to your account asap

 

[william]

sav.com is very hard to use and often has inexplicable bugs

I've been experiencing and hearing this consistently since the V2 rollout. But even more so in recent months.

I've had this same thing happen to me a few years back, even before V2 was introduced. They auctioned off two of mine even though they had also charged me for the renewals like everything was normal. They never did make it right either. I know this has happened to some others as well.

That's unacceptable! I would refer to: https://www.icann.org/compliance/complaint or check out some other protections that ICANN offers. I don't think these some statue of limitations if you have the proof.

definitly a bug, but it's hard to loose a valuable domain due to it.
Sav have to invest in its platform system
sad that you lost your domain
I wish sav return your domain to your account asap

Thank you.

As of now, Sav has stood by their position that “no renewal attempt exists,” and they have already transferred the domain out of my account. The only options they offered were to buy the name back at auction, and once the auction ended, to contact the new owner directly.

What worries me most is the broader implication. If this can happen on a $4,995 domain despite screenshots, a clear checkout flow, and a misleading “Grace Renewal Period” label, what happens when the name is someone’s primary business domain, their brand, or their life savings?

In 2026, it should not be possible for a stalled checkout screen and a UI bug to outweigh a timely, good-faith renewal attempt - especially when the customer raises the issue before the auction even ends. Bugs happen in every platform, but the question is how a company chooses to handle them when real customers are harmed.

That is ultimately why I’m pushing this further, not just for myself, but for anyone who relies on Sav.

 

[jberryhill]

Threads like this one are a pretty common theme on Namepros.

I'm curious... When did you notice the domain name had expired (or was going to expire) in the first place? Did you receive any renewal notices prior to December 24?

The thing about grace periods is that they are, in general, not reliable when you are cutting it close. They are intended to be a backup instead of something used in the ordinary course, and you are going to be the 884,730th person to find out that if something goes wrong with buggy registrar software near the end of one, there is no effective recourse.

ICANN cannot get your name back for you, and cannot require SAV to compensate you in any way. SAV cannot get the domain name back for you, and is not going to compensate you either. The amount of money at issue here is too low to make it worth taking any sort of legal action, and the value of the dispute is not the auction price or some hypothetical value of the domain name.

It's irritating and annoying that the grace period appears not to have worked out for you.

But anyone reading this thread can walk away with one of two distinct lessons -

(1) If that ever happens to me, then I get to post a "I wasn't able to renew my name during a grace period" thread at Namepros, or

(2) I should try to avoid relying on post-expiration grace periods as a routine way to delay payments.

Things routinely go wrong with registrar renewal systems, payment processing, etc.. That is a fact of life. Another fact of life is that there is frequently no effective recourse if you get burned by relying on last-last-last-minute chances to renew domain names that are valuable to you.

This will, in all likelihood, make you angry at me for some reason, because I am failing to be appropriately sympathetic to the point that you were entitled to rely on the stated renewal policies, etc..

Yes, I agree, you were entitled to rely on those things.

I ride a bicycle a lot, and I have to deal with the fact that sometimes people driving cars do not understand that I am a vehicle who is entitled to the same rights of way as any other vehicle. Now, I can zoom down a road, and see a car waiting at an intersection to enter the road, and I have two choices:

(1) I have the right of way to keep going unaltered down the road, so I keep going at speed.

(2) The car might pull out in front of me anyway, and I had better prepare to take evasive action and keep an eye on their wheels.

Now, sure, I'm perfectly entitled to assert my right of way and end up as a gooey red stain on the side of their car when they pull out in front of me. I have the right to keep going at speed, and they do not have the right to pull out in front of me. I would win any argument in court, if I live - or my surviving wife might win a decent insurance settlement. But, I'll still be dead.

And that is the problem with getting wrapped up in "what are my legal rights" over "what is a practical way to manage my affairs to avoid these kinds of things."

So, yes, absolutely, I agree with you. You were entitled to renew that domain name and SAV failed to live up to their obligations. The fact remains, however, that the domain is gone and you are not getting it, or the money, back. But you are, again I agree with you, absolutely right that you should have been able to renew it.

 

[LDJ]

I’m sharing this as both a warning and a public record of what happened with Sav.com’s V2 system.

What happened

EEA.net expired on December 24, 2025 at Sav. The name entered the standard 30-day registrar grace period.

On January 20, 2026, while the domain was still in grace, I attempted to renew it through Sav’s official V2 dashboard.

At the time:

• The cart showed EEA.net – Domain Renewal – $12.12
• I proceeded to payment
• The system moved to a “We’re processing your order(s)” screen

I took timestamped screenshots of this flow. As I've come to find out later, the transaction never completed. The dashboard continued to show “Renewal Grace Period.” I reasonably believed the renewal was still in progress.

Later, Sav said no backend order existed for EEA.net on January 20 and sent the name to auction, where it was awarded to another bidder.

Why I contacted Sav when I did
Show attachment 293693

EEA.net has an unusual two-month gap between its creation and expiration dates. That mismatch made the timeline look longer than it actually was, which is why I reached out after noticing the problem. Importantly, my renewal attempt still occurred within the official grace period.

Why I had screenshots

Since Sav rolled out V2, I’ve experienced:

• Domains disappearing from my dashboard
• Failed or inconsistent renewals
• Confusing status labels

Because of this, I now routinely screenshot renewals and orders on Sav. That is why I have contemporaneous images from January 20.

What Sav said

On February 2, before the auction ended, I contacted support and provided my screenshots. Sav acknowledged in writing that the V2 dashboard showing “Grace Renewal Period” may have been misleading. They still refused to intervene, saying only backend logs matter.

Show attachment 293689

Their position: my “first recorded attempt” was February 2, after grace had ended.

Why this matters to other domainers

I manage over 2,000 domains and paid thousands for EEA.net. I’ve renewed thousands of names over the years at other registrars without issues.

The core problem here is not that I forgot to renew. The issue is that Sav’s own interface allowed a full renewal flow during grace, entered a processing state, continued to show “Grace Renewal Period,” and then later relied solely on backend logs to justify sending the name to auction.

Because of repeated V2 issues, I previously moved most of my highest-value domains out of Sav. I kept a smaller set and documented renewals precisely so I would have evidence if something went wrong. In this case, even that was not enough.

Over the past few days I’ve seen multiple similar reports on Trustpilot, Reddit, and NamePros involving stalled renewals, missing domains, confusing status labels, and post-hoc reliance on logs. This appears to be a pattern rather than a one-off. This makes me deeply concerned that many domains at Sav could be at risk whenever a V2 renewal glitches, because Sav ultimately defers only to its internal logs.

Show attachment 293694

What I’ve done

I filed a formal ICANN Contractual Compliance Complaint regarding Sav’s handling of this renewal and auction.

Screenshots I’m sharing here

1. Jan 20 cart showing EEA.net – $12.12
2. Jan 20 “Processing your order(s)” screen
3. Dashboard showing Renewal Grace Period
4. Feb 2 support chat where Sav admits the UI may have been misleading

Show attachment 293691
Show attachment 293695


If anyone has had similar V2 renewal issues at Sav, especially stalled “processing” states, please share your experience.

I’ll update this thread as things progress.

Nice name! Sorry for your lost.

This situation is really bad. It means our investments aren't secure. What would happen if you ended up in the hospital or if your backup cards didn't work? That's why it's better to use reliable expensive registrars like gd; they wouldn't let that happen. I believed that registrars can't auction off a domain just because it expired; instead, it should go through a redemption period, then expire, and only then can drop catchers grab it for whatever sales process.

 

[URL Stream]

But, I'll still be dead.

Dead right.

 

[Marketer]

Once I renewed a domain, as showing up in my dashboard, because of "grace period" showing up, after payment, in few days I got mail from another registrar for the same domain, that confused me, I checked with Sav they said, "Sorry, we don't have this in our system" and promised me to return the transaction.

and yes the v2 is very odd

 

[william]

Threads like this one are a pretty common theme on Namepros.

I'm curious... When did you notice the domain name had expired (or was going to expire) in the first place? Did you receive any renewal notices prior to December 24?

The thing about grace periods is that they are, in general, not reliable when you are cutting it close. They are intended to be a backup instead of something used in the ordinary course, and you are going to be the 884,730th person to find out that if something goes wrong with buggy registrar software near the end of one, there is no effective recourse.

ICANN cannot get your name back for you, and cannot require SAV to compensate you in any way. SAV cannot get the domain name back for you, and is not going to compensate you either. The amount of money at issue here is too low to make it worth taking any sort of legal action, and the value of the dispute is not the auction price or some hypothetical value of the domain name.

It's irritating and annoying that the grace period appears not to have worked out for you.

But anyone reading this thread can walk away with one of two distinct lessons -

(1) If that ever happens to me, then I get to post a "I wasn't able to renew my name during a grace period" thread at Namepros, or

(2) I should try to avoid relying on post-expiration grace periods as a routine way to delay payments.

Things routinely go wrong with registrar renewal systems, payment processing, etc.. That is a fact of life. Another fact of life is that there is frequently no effective recourse if you get burned by relying on last-last-last-minute chances to renew domain names that are valuable to you.

This will, in all likelihood, make you angry at me for some reason, because I am failing to be appropriately sympathetic to the point that you were entitled to rely on the stated renewal policies, etc..

Yes, I agree, you were entitled to rely on those things.

I ride a bicycle a lot, and I have to deal with the fact that sometimes people driving cars do not understand that I am a vehicle who is entitled to the same rights of way as any other vehicle. Now, I can zoom down a road, and see a car waiting at an intersection to enter the road, and I have two choices:

(1) I have the right of way to keep going unaltered down the road, so I keep going at speed.

(2) The car might pull out in front of me anyway, and I had better prepare to take evasive action and keep an eye on their wheels.

Now, sure, I'm perfectly entitled to assert my right of way and end up as a gooey red stain on the side of their car when they pull out in front of me. I have the right to keep going at speed, and they do not have the right to pull out in front of me. I would win any argument in court, if I live - or my surviving wife might win a decent insurance settlement. But, I'll still be dead.

And that is the problem with getting wrapped up in "what are my legal rights" over "what is a practical way to manage my affairs to avoid these kinds of things."

So, yes, absolutely, I agree with you. You were entitled to renew that domain name and SAV failed to live up to their obligations. The fact remains, however, that the domain is gone and you are not getting it, or the money, back. But you are, again I agree with you, absolutely right that you should have been able to renew it.

I agree with the practical lesson you’re describing. I don't rely on grace periods.

But the fact that “this is how the world works” doesn’t make the outcome acceptable, and that’s the part I think deserves more attention.

What bothers me most isn’t just that my name went to auction. It’s that the structure of Sav’s system creates a financial upside for them when things go wrong for customers.

That creates a troubling incentive. When a stalled checkout can benefit the registrar more than fixing the problem, the risk is no longer just technical it’s structural.

Importantly, I have not conceded that this is finished. I’ve filed a formal ICANN Contractual Compliance Complaint precisely because I believe this deserves independent review. My position remains that a timely, good-faith renewal attempt during grace should not be nullified by a stalled checkout and a misleading “Grace Renewal Period” label.

Even if ICANN can’t directly transfer the name back, that doesn’t mean the issue isn’t real or that there should be no accountability. At minimum, the community should be asking whether a platform that can convert its own checkout failures into auction revenue is aligned with its customers.

So yes, I accept your point about managing risk as a user, but we can do that and still challenge a system that monetizes failure instead of correcting it.

 

[jberryhill]

I don't disagree with you, but just wanted to be clear on whatever your expectation might be in terms of results. The ICANN Compliance process will typically run with ICANN asking for an explanation of what happened and, if anything went wrong, what steps have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again. The registrar will either flat out come up with a different version of reality or claim some kind of one-off failure (payment processor, cosmic rays, whatever) which has "now been corrected".

I agree that it should not be acceptable. There are folks who routinely use post-expiration grace periods to put off making payments as long as possible, and they should take note that these kinds of things happen.

 

[DaveX]

Same thing happened to me. Only difference was that my domain had not expired.

Sav showed processing...PayPal took funds from my bank...but Sav claimed the order never completed.

I ended up using the legacy system and renewed it....again.

I think the original transaction funds were released by PayPal but I haven't logged in to check.

That V2 should not even exist there. Super buggy and weird.

 

[pb]

I'm curious... When did you notice the domain name had expired (or was going to expire) in the first place? Did you receive any renewal notices prior to December 24?

The problem with sav is that they keep spamming e-mails titled "Action Required: Please Renew Domain" *without* the domain name mentioned in the title - and they do that several times for every domain in your account, starting at -30. Effectively, even if these mails aren't eventually picked up by a spam filter, you just adapt and ignore them.

 

[biggie]

Hi

I remember when there was no sav


imo….

 

[jberryhill]

I remember when there was no sav

An interesting topic for discussion would be "Why did you choose SAV?"

I don't recommend registrars, and of course I've heard of problems with all of them, but I am curious how people make these choices.

 

[biggie]

An interesting topic for discussion would be "Why did you choose SAV?"

I don't recommend registrars, and of course I've heard of problems with all of them, but I am curious how people make these choices.

Hi

I think many are lured by the initial cheap reg/renew/transfer fees being offered.

same with some other new players on the block who want domainers money and their expiring names for auction inventory

imo…

 

[DaveX]

An interesting topic for discussion would be "Why did you choose SAV?"

I don't recommend registrars, and of course I've heard of problems with all of them, but I am curious how people make these choices.

I registered a handful there to "sav" a few bucks.

 

[Shuckinm]

Sorry this happened to you, I have been a long time sav user and even their v1 was full of bugs, but now their v2 just introduced even more problems overall. Their backorder system on v2 didn't even work for a while, so evidently they launched an incomplete product (one that didn't need a complete overhaul either). Not to mention - a much uglier mobile UI (old one was fine and more informative).