Unfair Transfer Fee

[Retired_member41]

I guess this has been discussed before, but everytime I buy a domain, it grates on me that I have to pay £12.

This price is way to high, and should be considered as criminal! (criminal being my opinion and a common used term relating to an unusually high fee for a service which should be priced at a fraction)

I'm a big fan of nominet, and give them full marks everytime I fill in a questionaire, but surely its time to get this fee down, or introduce something fairer for high users.

What do you think about buying say 10 transfer bundled up for £20 etc

If you are buying cheap names like I do and a few others, the transfer fees really add up and almost make buying some domains not worth it. And for the people who buy lots of names high price or low, why should they be punished with an extra £12 a go?

Those old overdraft and misssed direct debit charges people fought the banks for look cheap in relation.

Poll attatched.

 

[rob]

I would prefer that than premium rate calls and idiot staff who dont know what to do.

Most are now digital, however there is and can be manual transfers. They cost no more than the tenner plus vat.

 

[Retired_member41]

Paper transfers should cost more than an instant electronic no manual intervention online transfer.

 

[Edwin]

I'm happy with the price and transfer system. It works extremely smoothly, and produces an excellent paper trail (nice invoices, etc.) which are handy when you're doing the accounts.

 

[Rob_F]

I don't see the need for it when they have such a massive cash surplus and all the gTLDs can be "pushed" internally free of charge at 90% of registrars.

I agree that the service level received by Nom is superb but lowering or scrapping the transfer fee shouldn't impact that.

The fact that transfers used to cost £30 isn't justification for them still charging £10 for it, it is after all an entirely automated process.

- Rob

 

[anthony]

The previous fee (£30+VAT) was documented by Nominet as a 'cost recovery fee', continuously under review to reflect the manual intervention of their staff. Therefore a transfer does not cost Nominet themselves a penny.

With the electronic transfer system, there is little if any involvement of Nominet staff whatsoever, they are out of the loop. To therefore charge a registrant almost 5 times the annual cost of a domain registration, and at the same time leaving the two registrants involved to do all the work to effect the transfer, I don't see how Nominet can justify the current cost. With so many other changes which you can make to your own domain, it seems this cost is still applied simply because they can. It might look to people like there is a reason for the charge, but at the end of the day there isn't really!

 

[rob]

I have been on at the transfer fee since 2006 and posted up the maths on their stats on transfers x £30 etc.

As I said 3 years ago:

I support the manual checks that go with .uk as it does prevent domain hijacking and adds a layer of security, however using online services can remove the need for paper forms.

As for cost, I was one of the ones contacting Nominet regarding high fees and a month later it was dropped from £30 > £10 .

Ideally the cost would be as low as possible, however there is always going to be some time spent for the manual checks so in theory there will always be costs that are required to be recovered.

At £30 it was blatent that the fees were in excess of real costs, at £10 it is still possible.

...

One option could be on (free) transfer of a name a £5 renewal fee is paid, thus the new contract is the standard 2 year period, Nom has revenue to cover costs and there are no issues with assigning 'transfer credits' per domain etc as has been suggested.


The question in this poll is do I think it is unfair, and no I dont. I certainly dont think it is criminal.

Do I think it can be reviewed? Yes, and I would hope it is.

There are several policy issues that affect .uk people on here, however there is often very little actual involvement or support when push comes to shove over it.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/intelligence/statistics/automaton/ gives a pointer but no hard stats.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/intelligence/statistics/service/ indicates 1 day turnarounds, which is a very very good service compared to the general state of the country.

 

[Edwin]

My experience generally with Nominet is whenever I've needed support it's been there (by phone or email) and it's been good. If part of the price for that support is a modest transfer fee, that's a small price to pay.

At the same time, Nominet has in the past shown willing to review the fees and it's never been an "untouchable" subject, so there's nothing to say they won't do so again in future.

 

[monaghan]

I was in favour of a cost recovery fee when the process was manual, there was a real cost in processing the paper forms, however, the new process is simply a front end to a simple electronic change to the register. We're not charged for changing other details on the register via electronic means.

 

[mally]

I'm sure nominet said they were looking into changing the price of transfers

 

[namealot]

Auctions banks etc charge more than that what do they…? Little or even less most of the time your doing it because you have sold it …?

There are very few things in business that if you sell can legally be transferred for that sort of money would you rather have to pay somebody independent like solicitor…?

Cheaper names some may think its high but you could argue why you selling cheap names in the first place?

It’s a easy process and should anything go wrong you can phone them up and speak to someone who can sort it out …? Try and get that done in any other business for £12

 

[The Ferryman]

The ideal situation would be to allow Registrars to change the Registrant record, we can change everything else, and leave the present online system in place for convenience of anyone who wants to use it, eg if Registrar charges more, etc

Regards

Bruce

 

[rob]

The ideal situation would be to allow Registrars to change the Registrant record, we can change everything else, and leave the present online system in place for convenience of anyone who wants to use it, eg if Registrar charges more, etc

Regards

Bruce

Would you really want some of the registrars to have the power to change the registrants?!

Wow!

 

[Edwin]

It’s a easy process and should anything go wrong you can phone them up and speak to someone who can sort it out …? Try and get that done in any other business for £12

Yep. Nominet's phone support gets 2 big thumbs up from me. I've had occasion to call them on a few things, and every time they've given me a prompt and accurate answer - both a rarety in these days of offshored callcentres and "your call is important to us" ungreetings...

 

[The Ferryman]

Would you really want some of the registrars to have the power to change the registrants?!

Wow!

Well, they could let me do mine, that would help for a start.

Bruce

 

[monaghan]

Would you really want some of the registrars to have the power to change the registrants?!

Wow!

NO! Not without some form of registrant supplied auth key, anything else is asking for trouble

 

[wb]

Definitely agree that registrars shouldn't be given the power to change registrant details as Nominet do a great job with things. I've selected the 'unfairly high' option as although the service is good, the amount can surely be lowered.

Not sure how often this applies, however something else to remember could be that more cheap domains may be transferred before dropping if the transfer fee was reduced (i.e. Nominet would then be able to generate both renewal and transfer fees if a cheap expired domain is sold by a domainer, rather than just registration fees if a domain is caught by a catcher). I haven't given much thought to this scenario, but I think it would be true for many bargain basement domains which people want to sell off as expired.

 

[BREWSTERS]

My experience generally with Nominet is whenever I've needed support it's been there (by phone or email) and it's been good. If part of the price for that support is a modest transfer fee, that's a small price to pay.

I'll echo that, and add, when was the last time you heard of a .co.uk being stolen?

With .coms et al, when something goes wrong you're left dealing with a registrar which inevitably leads to banging your head against a wall.

 

[Ashton]

It’s a easy process and should anything go wrong you can phone them up and speak to someone who can sort it out …? Try and get that done in any other business for £12

This is a great point, and their phone support is fantastic. However, they have a surplus of cash that they do not know what to do with. They clearly do not need to charge so high for the transfers as they are earning far more than enough to pay any support staff.

Lowering the cost of transfers would increase the rate of transfers in the lower end domain market (What Caz originally states is directly related to low value domains) and improve the market.

 

[rob]

What would be an interesting poll is "Have you ever not bought a domain name due to the cost to transfer it?" With Yes/No straight answers.

Anyone want to start it?