Hiya. I wasnt shure where to post this, so Im posting it here. Hopefully someone can offer some advice. The issue is that my website & email suddenly went down a few days ago. I contacted my hosting people & they claim that though my hosting is valid until 17 may 2007... My domain name has expired. I never recived any notification or renewal notice what so ever. it is usualy £12 for 2 years & now they say it has entered a period of 65 days where it will cost me £150!!!!! to get it back... after which it will be open for anyone to register if I do not pay up. I find this fee is unfair & too high. They say my "spam filter" must have caught the reminder. Well.. i dont have a spam filter. What is my legal position in this dispute? Ive just written to them asking for a copy of the original notification they sent out. Any help/advise would be very helpfull. Thankyou. ---------- btw... My site is supposed to be for my company.. so mabe thats why they want so much, but Im not running my company currently & never really have done. Im just a student at the moment & really the £150 they want is extortionate! Could i go to the small claims court with this & plea that the ammount they are charging does not fairly reflect their actual costs? ????
The domain name has expired and that money they asked for is the redemption fees to claim for an expired domain name. It is a little high but it is not uncalled for. Did you register the domain name under your own name or your web host owns it ? You don't really have much legal ground to stand on as you are responsible to ensure you renew the domain names, ie keep record of when they expire or set it to auto-renew.
I would agree there, you didnt pay the renewal so your domain expired, just wait 60 days and then register the name you won't have to pay that stonking great big fee then, unless of course someone is likely to register it again in which case youd need to pay the fee. As far as you not getting the renewal notice you unfortunately dont have much if any legal ground, as eddy said, it's your responsibility to keep an eye on the expirey date, nothing much can be done in my opinion. Don't quote me on this of course.
hi. Thanks for that. Yeah, guess it was my own fault. now i have to pay £150 !!! or take the risk of waiting...
It is probably going to be a long wait for it to expire, hopefully by then no one else snapped it up. Or just bite the bullet now and pay the 150. Then set it to auto-renew then you do not need to worry as long as your credit card has existing credits. Going to the courts will be more costly then that and it will most likely be thrown out. Take it as a lesson.
I'm not going to discuss why you didn't get the email. It is highly possible that you did get in in your junk mail and didn't notice it. Registrars do send out notices before the domain will expire. The money you are asked to come up with may seem high, but this is not something they are doing to extort you. This occurs with every registrar. After a certain time if you haven't re registered this is a redemption fee. Most of the advice has been good here. If your name is for your business, and you really don't want to risk someone else getting the name (believe me if it's a good name, professional catchers will snag it at pool.com snapnames.com etc.). I would reg. Besides if you own a business it would likely be a couple of months before you make that money back. Now if it's really not that important you can let it drop and then reregister it. It's up to you on how much you want to risk the name. Skinny
I would probably pay their asking fee. They know you need the name and are playing smart. The more you enquire about getting the domain back, the more confident they become that you'll pay the asking price. Not too many chances to win this battle, really. Imagine your name being taken over by some domainer, be prepared to face a price much more higher then. To call it straight, your options are to either pay the £150 or give up on the name. Because if you believe it will eventually become available for re-registration in about 60 days, be sure it won't. Many have learned this lesson.
Looks like everyone has given sound feedback. One question I have is what's the domain name extension if it's not a .com. Otherwise, never mind. Good luck making the prompt, relevant decision.
One thing I forgot to ask the OP is if s/he even read their registrar's contract or legal agreement to begin with, especially since it defines their relationship. Not reading it doesn't make it null and void, though.