123-reg NEW Warning - scam £40 provider admin charge

[Whois-Search]

you say its legal, I say its dishonest at the very least.

I think a few people in this thread need to read the rules on this...

Taken from the .org registry website:

12. Why is my registrar charging me to redeem my domain name through RGP?
PIR does not determine the fees that registrars charge their customers. However, the registrar incurs extra costs each time it invokes the RGP process. Registrars may charge a fee to restore a domain name through RGP at their discretion. You should contact your registrar to inquire about the fee being charged.

Source: http://www.pir.org/get/faq/grace#q10

Taken from the .org ICANN registrar agreement:

5. Restore Fee. Registrar shall pay PIR a fee (the “Restore Fee”) per Registered Name restored during the Redemption Grace Period; provided that PIR reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to lower such fee based on extenuating circumstances. The current Restore Fee as of the Effective Date is US$40 per Registered Name Restored.

Source: http://www.icann.org/en/about/agreements/registries/org/appendix-08-08dec06-en.htm

Then on top of that the domain may have been sold via a reseller:

Page 24 http://www.opensrs.com/docs/contracts/Services_Agreement.pdf

gTLD Redemption Fee………………$80.00

At the very least then 123-reg will be just about covering it's own RGP costs at £40.

 

[rwinslow]

I'm sorry, but you may have missed my point, and are defending the undefendable. 123reg renewed the domain for a further year. It's not actually in any 'so called' grace perdiod, thats a big fat lie by 123reg. It should have already been on the open market by then, but now is not due to officially expire until 2013 since they renewed it. Also unable to change the IPS tag and move the domain away at this point.

For those who want to read 123reg's blurb on the grace period, visit:

http://tinyurl.com/cdbuunf

They make no mention of the fact that they renew the domain for a year, waiting for you to pay them £40 instead of about £9.99. YES they renwed the domain to avoid them paying any high redemption fees themselves, so what you are saying is wrong. they say they are passing on this fee, but they renew the domain in advance of the domain reaching a grace period.

I have been told by a friend that after a further period of time, if the fee is not paid, the domains end up listed on an unrelated site for thousands of pounds (HugeDomains.com). 123reg state that they have no contact with hugedomains, but yet the domain is renewed by 123 and passed onto hugedomains. Explain that anyone?

Without going in to a long explanation, and to try and keep this simple....

If a domain is renewed and live, aka NOT in redemption period, we will not charge a fee.

If we do renew a domain name for a year on expiry that was not wanted, and the customer wants that domain name, they only have to pay the years fees as per normal.

There are no hidden fees, and no conspiracy to try and charge more for domains that are held on our tag.

When we launched multi year .uk domains we also introduced some other features, such as auto-recovery (where possible) from redemption, that page was not working correctly and showed some incorrect information. Sorry about that. We are / have fixed anything not working exactly as our open business practices state, as I have stated here. Any customers who were charged more for manual renewal with an admin fee are to be refunded.

Let me know the domain in question and I will check it personally myself, issue a refund if we did charge a redemption fee when we should not have. Email is [email protected]

123-reg has open business practices, as the largest in the UK it would be very easy for us to start charging fees to transfer tags away, hike up renewal fees compared to sale fees or any of the other practices out there, but we do not do that. Our size is built on years of open business practices and to continue our growth we will stand by those.

 

[123reg_suck]

Without going in to a long explanation, and to try and keep this simple....

If a domain is renewed and live, aka NOT in redemption period, we will not charge a fee.

If we do renew a domain name for a year on expiry that was not wanted, and the customer wants that domain name, they only have to pay the years fees as per normal.

There are no hidden fees, and no conspiracy to try and charge more for domains that are held on our tag.

When we launched multi year .uk domains we also introduced some other features, such as auto-recovery (where possible) from redemption, that page was not working correctly and showed some incorrect information. Sorry about that. We are / have fixed anything not working exactly as our open business practices state, as I have stated here. Any customers who were charged more for manual renewal with an admin fee are to be refunded.

Let me know the domain in question and I will check it personally myself, issue a refund if we did charge a redemption fee when we should not have. Email is [email protected]

123-reg has open business practices, as the largest in the UK it would be very easy for us to start charging fees to transfer tags away, hike up renewal fees compared to sale fees or any of the other practices out there, but we do not do that. Our size is built on years of open business practices and to continue our growth we will stand by those.

I have already had all this explained, and anyhow already knew the rules for gtld domains, thanks.

I asked several questions regarding extortionate fees to 123reg customer support, and was given a standard copy & paste answer about the gtld rules.

In my correspondance, I quoted UK law regarding how administration fee's should be fair and of just proportion. £40 is not a fair administration fee and certainly not proportionate, and hence probably not legal in the UK. Since the domain had gone past the grace period, this fee should not have been applicable. For the .com domain, the domain was passed onto hugedomains.com and never put back onto the market.

After querying 123reg about the lawfulness of their extortionate charges, I got no further response, just dead silence, hence the need to make complaints and warn others. I am not surprised that someone from 123reg is now defending their stance yet again with the standard reply which we all already know.

I seem to have upset some domain resellers on here who probably practice the same game with regards to disproportionate fees. All I get is the same stance about the rules, which are well known. Someone explain why a £40 admin fee is lawful, i.e. fair and proportionate?

As for transferring TAGs away... with another client who no longer needed my services, you tried to charge them £80 admin fee to transfer away, plus a years renewal fee. Explain How £80 admin fee to transfer away from you is fair and proportionate? You do this only to prevent customers going elsewhere where the customer support is better and everything cheaper. Nominet would not allow it for .uk domains, but you get away with it for US domains.

 

[Pred]

I have already had all this explained, and anyhow already knew the rules for gtld domains, thanks.

I asked several questions regarding extortionate fees to 123reg customer support, and was given a standard copy & paste answer about the gtld rules.

In my correspondance, I quoted UK law regarding how administration fee's should be fair and of just proportion. £40 is not a fair administration fee and certainly not proportionate, and hence probably not legal in the UK. Since the domain had gone past the grace period, this fee should not have been applicable. For the .com domain, the domain was passed onto hugedomains.com and never put back onto the market.

After querying 123reg about the lawfulness of their extortionate charges, I got no further response, just dead silence, hence the need to make complaints and warn others. I am not surprised that someone from 123reg is now defending their stance yet again with the standard reply which we all already know.

I seem to have upset some domain resellers on here who probably practice the same game with regards to disproportionate fees. All I get is the same stance about the rules, which are well known. Someone explain why a £40 admin fee is lawful, i.e. fair and proportionate?

As for transferring TAGs away... with another client who no longer needed my services, you tried to charge them £80 admin fee to transfer away, plus a years renewal fee. Explain How £80 admin fee to transfer away from you is fair and proportionate? You do this only to prevent customers going elsewhere where the customer support is better and everything cheaper. Nominet would not allow it for .uk domains, but you get away with it for US domains.

people are trying to help you trust me
but I think you have your wires crossed on a few things

as far as the bottom point
when someone transfers a .uk away
they can log into nominet account and pay fiver or max a tenner and do a tagchange

if you were administering for them
it would have made morer sense for you to send them a nominet transfer costing them a tenner plus vat
then they could have changed ownership names AND tag for same fee
then been free to transfer into a new registrar

not sure what happens with 123 when trying to change tag now
I know for example in domainmonster you can change tag easily and for free

as far as gtlds they have to pay fee if expired

the .com you are talking about that went to hugedomains
as far as I know 123 don't have an agreement with hd
think that is a mike mann company
what does the date say in whois? you sure it didn't drop and they caught it?

 

[123reg_suck]

people are trying to help you trust me
but I think you have your wires crossed on a few things

as far as the bottom point
when someone transfers a .uk away
they can log into nominet account and pay fiver or max a tenner and do a tagchange

if you were administering for them
it would have made morer sense for you to send them a nominet transfer costing them a tenner plus vat
then they could have changed ownership names AND tag for same fee
then been free to transfer into a new registrar

not sure what happens with 123 when trying to change tag now
I know for example in domainmonster you can change tag easily and for free

as far as gtlds they have to pay fee if expired

the .com you are talking about that went to hugedomains
as far as I know 123 don't have an agreement with hd
think that is a mike mann company
what does the date say in whois? you sure it didn't drop and they caught it?

Thanks

But frankly I'm fed up with trying to get answers vis-a-vis the £40 admin fee being disproportionate and unjust. I think I'll wait for my complaints to run their course.

Thanks for those of you who have given advice... but now we're going in circles.

Bye all! Beware of 123reg.co.uk to all you that are not resellers in the same game.

 

[Whois-Search]

I have already had all this explained, and anyhow already knew the rules for gtld domains, thanks. I asked several questions regarding extortionate fees to 123reg customer support, and was given a standard copy & paste answer about the gtld rules. In my correspondance, I quoted UK law regarding how administration fee's should be fair and of just proportion. £40 is not a fair administration fee and certainly not proportionate, and hence probably not legal in the UK.

If 123-reg is being charged between $40 - $80 from their suppliers for RGP fees (see my post above) - how is £40 not proportionate?
It is up to you the registrant to renew your domain name on time, why should 123-reg pick up the bill for you not renewing your domain on time?
Also that is one of the lowest RGP fees i've seen in the registrar industry - other registrars charge between $80 - $250.

Since the domain had gone past the grace period, this fee should not have been applicable...

See the flow chart on:
http://www.icann.org/en/resources/registrars/gtld-lifecycle

The 30 day redemption period comes after the grace period?

For the .com domain, the domain was passed onto hugedomains.com and never put back onto the market.

123-reg does not have a partnership with HugeDomains.com

Now either HugeDomains is a 'dropcatcher' and picked it up when it dropped (see the registration date on the domain).

Or the name was auctioned off through one of their suppliers (OpenSRS/Tucows names go to www.afternic.com) and HugeDomains may have bought it there.

As for transferring TAGs away... with another client who no longer needed my services, you tried to charge them £80 admin fee to transfer away, plus a years renewal fee. Explain How £80 admin fee to transfer away from you is fair and proportionate?

On .uk domains 123-reg does not charge for TAG changes.

 

[Alien]

Thanks

But frankly I'm fed up with trying to get answers vis-a-vis the £40 admin fee being disproportionate and unjust. I think I'll wait for my complaints to run their course.

Thanks for those of you who have given advice... but now we're going in circles.

Bye all! Beware of 123reg.co.uk to all you that are not resellers in the same game.

You going so soon or are you 'another' member here already I wonder? :wink: