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Forgot to pay my domain for a year and now I have to spend £2200 ($3000) if I want to get it back

I guess this is a cautionary tale.

I was recently having issues with my Gmail account that’s tied to my Epik ( a domain registrar ) account, so when I was supposed to renew my domain, I didn’t receive any e-mails about it. When I decided to randomly check on my website, it seemed to be down. So I checked Epik and a domain that usually cost £15 a year to renew now cost £400 to renew as it was expired.

As a teenager who does not have £400 to spend on a domain, I decided to just wait until the domain fully expired and buy it for a cheaper price.

After some time, the domain fully expired and GoDaddy decided to buy it as soon as it did, and charged me £2,225 to renew the domain. I don’t understand how a price that large is justified, considering that my website gets barely any visitors and I basically only use the domain for hosting stuff. No idea how hiking prices this much is legal

kitnaht , (edited )

Sorry, but chalk this up to lesson learned. It’s almost always been this way. Domain squatters will do this all the time. In fact, some domain registrars will use you searching their site for an ‘available’ domain, and if you don’t buy it up right away – will buy it and hike the price and sit on it for years in order to lock it down, knowing you wanted it.

btw, Namecheap says Sunglocto dot com is like $10 - so just register a .com. Not through that Epik piece of shit that you used before. Legit, use Namecheap; they’ve never done me wrong and have been my registrar for more than a decade now.

hddsx ,

Time to register that domain before OP gets it…

mal3oon ,

Gohddzsx?

hddsx ,

I prefer to be called daddy. Godaddy

iAmTheTot ,

Have also had good experience using namecheap for years.

sturlabragason ,

Thirded for Namecheap.

hddsx ,

I mean, I use namecheap. I’m thinking about throwing one of my domains onto cloudfare just in case.

If you don’t like namecheap, some people have been suggesting porkbun or something.

jqubed ,
@jqubed@lemmy.world avatar

I had this happen with NameCheap. I’m not sure if they bought it or someone else, but it stayed registered with them. Whoever bought it has held it for a couple years, put up a fake website to look like they were using it, but took it down after a year when I didn’t bite on buying it. Current status shows it’s pending deletion finally for abuse or non-payment. I keep checking to see when I can nab it again.

homesweethomeMrL ,

It happens with anyone. Bots track expirations and snatch them so that they can ransom them back to you for thousands - exactly as in OPs example.

AUTO RENEW. Auto-renew. Auto-renew is the way. The solution to this problem is Auto-renew.

gofsckyourself ,

Namecheap is alright, but Cloudflare only charges at cost with no markup.

joeldebruijn ,

Got a work related variant, a 3 letter domain we really liked was registered by a person asking a couple of hundred bucks or so. Which really was a good deal and we were more then happy to pay.

Our IT department advised guiding the transfer themselves. Instead our marketing department went ahead anyway and just agreed to “you end your subscription and after that we register it” … instead of using transfer codes.

In the minutes between, a bulk claimer snatched it away.

AlwaysTheir ,

OMG. I can’t believe the marketing department was that inept. Tragic

VonReposti ,

I simply don’t get why domain squatting is legal. On my ccTLD it is absolutely illegal meaning you have to forfeit the domain if you don’t use it anymore.

kitnaht ,

Just because you don’t have a website up at [XYZ].com doesn’t mean you’re not using it. You could have a domain controller on the back end doing file services, or you could be using it for network auth, etc. Not all .coms exist for the purpose of putting up a website.

VonReposti ,

Neither do .dk domains, but in order to determine use the courts will have to be involved. I haven’t heard about a lot of those cases, but I’d guess you can prove use against the person who wants to take the domain. If I have a domain called firstnamelastname.dk it’d be pretty easy to show that I got a mail address at [email protected] that’s in use.

TexasDrunk ,

Yep. I have one registered for professional email. I don’t host anything else.

wesker ,
@wesker@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I own 8 domains. Only one has HTTP/S ports open. The rest are for email and other services.

TCB13 ,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

I believe most regulated ccTLDs (not the ones sold to the higher bigger) actually do that.

cygnus ,
@cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

This happened to me years ago (the .com of my full name). I kept checking in at expiry date for 3 years and they eventually let it expire, so I bought it back for normal price.

BinaryUnit ,
@BinaryUnit@lemmy.world avatar

This ☝️it happened to me and to a close friend, if you are reselient and can wait it is possible to but it back at regular price

grandma ,

Damn you reminded me to check my gmail and there was a domain renewal reminder, thanks!

possiblylinux127 ,

You can file a complaint if they just squat on it. Godaddy is terrible

gofsckyourself ,

I’ve always wondered how well that actually works. Anyone go through this process?

atocci , (edited )

This was the plot to an episode of iCarly

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

if only we listened to spencer’s advice. always listen to spencer’s advice.

TCB13 ,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

After some time, the domain fully expired and GoDaddy decided to buy it as soon as it did,

Oh yeah, that’s what happens when you pick scammy domain registrars. It is very possible that Epik auctioned your domain (after wall they kept it after the expiry date and payed fees) and then GoDaddy snatched it. This is what usually happens.

kautau ,

Not just scammy

Epik is an American domain registrar and web hostingcompany known for providing services to alt-tech websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist materials.https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Epik#cite_note-1 It has been described as a “safehaven for the extreme right” because of its willingness to provide services to far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epik

I’m in no way surprised at what they did, and in fact only surprised that it wasn’t them that bought the expired domain, but instead was godaddy

PassingThrough , (edited )

Now would be a good time to look for a .com you like, or one of the more common TLDs. And register it at Namecheap, Porkbun, or Cloudflare. (Cloudflare is cheapest but all-eggs-in-one-basket is a concern for some.)

Sadly, all the cheap or fun TLDs have a habit of being blocked wholesale, either because the cheap ones are overused by bad actors or because corporate IT just blacklists “abnormal” TLDs (or only whitelists the old ones?) because it’s “easy security”.

Notably, XYZ also does that 1.111B initiative, selling numbered domains for 99¢, further feeding the affordability for bad actors and justifying a flat out sinkhole of the entire TLD.

I got a three character XYZ to use as a personal link shortener. Half the people I used it with said it was blocked at school or work. My longer COM poses no issue.

foggy ,

Hahaha. I purposely got a jibberish .xyz domain. If they ever ask for more than the $9.99 a year they can pound sand.

Perhyte ,

If you don’t mind using a gibberish .xyz domain, why not an 1.111B class? ([6-9 digits].xyz for $0.99/year)

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

They don’t really care. They’re fishing for “whales”. Those who forgot to renew their domain or something but desperately need it back. Businesses, likely.

Cornpop ,

That’s a horrible domain name anyways. .xyz is trash, the name itself is long, hard to pronounce and sounds like gibberish. Time for an upgrade.

LunarLoony ,
@LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

That’s the second time I’ve seen someone cast xyz in a negative light. What’s wrong with it? (Genuine question, in case it needs saying)

NateNate60 ,

It’s just a hallmark of “I bought the cheapest domain name TLD available”.

That’s not necessarily bad if all you need is something to get the job done, but there is a stereotype associated with it.

crank0271 ,

The Boost Mobile of gTLDs

NateNate60 ,

Nothing wrong with Boost Mobile, or any other discount telecom provider either. It’s not like the phone signals taste different lmao

hddsx ,

I’ve lost my domain too. It took me two years to get it back. Hopefully it won’t be squatted for long

teuto ,

I had a squatter get mylastname.com after my dad died. After a while I guess they noticed that I registered mylastname.net and orffered to sell me mylastname.com I didn’t respond and they let it expire. I should probably register it.

atocci ,

The .com of my last name is taken by an actual business. Fine, no issue there. The .net of my last name however is being squatted on by Hover, who seems to have done the same with tons of last name domains and are selling email addresses on them in the form of [email protected]. The .org of my last name is currently redirecting to the .xyz of my last name, which looks like a family’s personal website that lists their address and phone number as a header at the top of the page.

starshipwinepineapple ,

tldr - lesson learned. buy a new domain and move over to it.

but for those who want to learn something new - you are only renting your domains. If you fail to pay by the registration date then you generally get a grace period to pay more money to renew it. If you fail to pay before that period expires then the domain will be released. Some companies like godaddy will automatically buy the domain for another year (or more). But even if Godaddy doesn’t then it still goes up on a list of expiring domains and there are backorder services that will try to buy the domain or auction them off.

So in the end it doesn’t really matter what registrar you use. If you do not pay, it goes back to a list where people can see it is expiring and then you’ll get some people who either want to legitimately use that domain or more likely they are wanting to try to sell it to you or someone else for more than they buy it for.

And I saw someone mention file a complaint. I’m sorry to say that if you did not have money to renew the domain then you aren’t going to be able to do that either. This is called Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the fee is between $1500-4000 for 1 to 5 domains.. Additionally, just because you file a complaint does not mean the issue will be resolved favorably or timely. These complaints can last years, and there is no guarantee you will get the domain back.

This is why you should always pay your domain rental fee. And if you don’t, then you need to either be willing to pay a ton of money to get it back or you will need to move on. Sorry its a tough lesson to learn but if you’re just a student then you probably weren’t using this to run a business or anything so in the end you are quite fortunate.

femtech ,

I’m glad I don’t care about the domain name. Just something easy to remember but I can always change it and tell the fam.

hddsx ,

It’s important if you’re building a brand, or if you’re dumb like me and run your own email server

kitnaht ,

Luckily for me I don’t need many email addresses and zoho will do something like 5 for free on your domain. Do you dislike running the email server? I don’t mind all the normal day-to-day upkeep of things, but is email some special kind of hell or something?

hddsx ,

I like running my email server, because I justify it with my use cases.

If you like to spend time conversing with support about why your IP is on a blacklist, or why your email is being sent to spam (or outright rejected - I’m looking at you Microsoft), and then trying to increase your domain and IP reputations, be my guest.

Otherwise, a service is generally best

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