names.co.uk / namesco charging £12 to 'release' domain tags

[cowtipping]

The company I work for uses this company and not only are their domain renewal fees extortionate (£19.99 + VAT for a co.uk for example), if you want to transfer the domains they charge £10 + VAT 'administration' fee.
Is this even legal?
Any way out of not paying this, or does the company just have to suck it up? (I've convinced them to change registrars.)

 

[monaghan]

The only charges Nominet make are for registration / renewal and registrant transfer.

There's nothing to prevent a company from charging you to make any change to the register though, just because most don't charge doesn't make it wrong or illegal to charge.

This is just an example of not reading or understanding the T&C's of the service you purchase.

 

[AssetDomains]

The company I work for uses this company and not only are their domain renewal fees extortionate (£19.99 + VAT for a co.uk for example), if you want to transfer the domains they charge £10 + VAT 'administration' fee.
Is this even legal?
Any way out of not paying this, or does the company just have to suck it up? (I've convinced them to change registrars.)

Its underhand but not illegal most decent companies do it free. Only alternative is force the tag change via the nominet control panel it costs the same but at least you know the current companies aren't cashing in

 

[cowtipping]

Oh well!

 

[Skinner]

I'd do it via Nominet comtrol panel, just to deprive names of the money, plus if you have more than 1 name, and names are going to charge each doing via nome means 1 fee total.

 

[cowtipping]

I'd do it via Nominet comtrol panel, just to deprive names of the money, plus if you have more than 1 name, and names are going to charge each doing via nome means 1 fee total.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to try and do. Just got to track down all the email addresses that were used to register the names now so I can put them all in the same Nom account. :roll:

 

[Skinner]

It should be the one listed on your names control panel (assuming they registered it first). If not if you have any renewal emails from nom about the domains that will reveal it also.

 

[cowtipping]

Didn't even think of that...

You'll have to excuse me - I'm pretty hungover

 

[GreyWing]

Give Nom a ring if you are stuck, they are really helpful when it comes to this sort of stuff.

 

[cowtipping]

Thanks all. I changed the co.uks via Nominet and paid just £12 (to Nominet) instead of £168 to the original registrar. :twisted:

 

[viceroy]

I'd also remember to cancel any service that you've signed up for at names.co.uk - a lot of companies will continue to charge you for reg fees/ services unless they are cancelled explicitly with them (or via their own control panel). Delete any card details they have on file as well... A lot of Acorners have learned this the hard way when dealing with the likes of 123-reg.

 

[cowtipping]

None of the names are showing up under the card renewals and a couple of the names I'd already transferred before seeking the advice of this forum (because they were about to expire and I needed to act fast) - we have not been charged for. So it's lookin' good.

 

[cowtipping]

One weird thing has come out of it though - I didn't change the nameservers on any of the domains cos a bunch of them were redirecting to .coms so I thought I'd just leave them be, but the names are no longer showing up under namesco's control panel yet they're still doing what they should be doing. It's no biggie - I can change the nameservers to the new registrar if I need to change their function (eg. set up forwarding emails etc), but it's like these domains are currently operating in a little black hole of their own. (We are still using namesco for hosting - the names which had hosting attached to them are still there and doing what they're meant to do, it's just the redirectors which have vanished.)

Er, is this normal?

 

[viceroy]

Dunno? Maybe propogation is taking longer than usual or maybe the last nameservers on record are regarded as the default until new ones are entered? I'm pretty sure that redirects will die if there aren't any valid nameservers listed though... I'm sure someone here with more technical knowledge than me would be able to set you straight