Vilandra
Active member
It was Namecheap who sent me the $990 bill.
Yes, I contacted them and was told what ichpen said above, that it was from the registry and they didn't have control over it.
"Premium Domain" - is there anything I can do about it?
- Thread starter Vilandra
- Start date
It was Namecheap who sent me the $990 bill.
Yes, I contacted them and was told what ichpen said above, that it was from the registry and they didn't have control over it.
ichpen
Well-known member
It's mostly the new gTLDs that fall into this category.
This is correct. Some registries have marked "premium" domains and charge a lot more for them. For example .art and .club. Usually their prices are higher for registration (sometimes MUCH higher) but renewal does not cost more.
To answer if the .club domain name in question is a premium domain you would have to know the exact domain name and ask the club registry.
Transferring the domain to a different registrar may change the price but not the fact that premium domains are charged higher.
See:
Your Passion. Your.CLUB! - .CLUB Domains
We are .CLUB – the most popular domain extension for the social world we live in. The Internet has connected us in ways we never dreamed of. Everyday, communities and groups are forming around every imaginable interest.
nic.club
Sim
Well-known member
Actually, from everything I've read .club domains are supposed to renew at the same low price - it's only the initial registration that is at a higher price for premium domains.
It might be worth contacting the .club registry (https://nic.club/) and asking them (not sure if they'd deal with retail questions - they primarily deal with registrars), or else contact one of the other registrars on the list and ask them about transfers and renewal pricing.
I'm pretty sure renewals should not be at that level.
I found a list of .club premium domains and typed one into name.com to see pricing - registration was high, but renewals were low:
The domain is not in the expiry period is it?
It might be worth contacting the .club registry (https://nic.club/) and asking them (not sure if they'd deal with retail questions - they primarily deal with registrars), or else contact one of the other registrars on the list and ask them about transfers and renewal pricing.
I'm pretty sure renewals should not be at that level.
I found a list of .club premium domains and typed one into name.com to see pricing - registration was high, but renewals were low:
The domain is not in the expiry period is it?
Suzanne O
Well-known member
Ask them via support if you can have the domain at a normal price.
It sounds like you have ordered it for 10 years.
In reality you should be able to get them to untick a few boxes to lower the cost.
Mr. Jinx
Well-known member
10 years? Sounds more like 100 years!
Forsaken
Well-known member
I had two major issues with Namecheap; the first was when they got socially engineered and gave access to my account to a hacker who targeted me, and he transferred away several valuable domains (this was before 2Factor Auth was a thing), and also there was a period of time where valuable domains (primarily 'premium' or 3-4 letter domains) would not auto-renew, nor would you get emails to renew them. This wasn't a rare thing for a period of time with them, and is why I wouldn't trust them with even an old free .tk domain if I had a choice.
ŽivaAkcija
Well-known member
namecheap thief and liars
BirdOPrey5
in memoriam 2024
No one should be using anything but .com., .net, .org, or their country's TLD. (edu and mil of course for those organizations.) But for the rest of us any but the original are wastes of money.
Arty
Well-known member
I haven't found any reports of people with similar experience. Also haven't had any issues with namecheap.
Looks like something went wrong with that domain. Maybe renew process started too late, so domain expired, was dropped by registrar and became premium?
Looks like something went wrong with that domain. Maybe renew process started too late, so domain expired, was dropped by registrar and became premium?
I wish that was the case, but its not easy to find decent name. Options are either something abstract or something very long. Domain squatting is a thing, many people are looking for domain names to grab with only one purpose: to sell it for profit later.
Robust
Well-known member
Namecheap is one of the largest registrars. Not a fraud registrar. I've had some bad experiences with them rarely (like once they transferred one of my domains to another user somehow, and the registrant details were changed but it continued to point to my site and DNS was unchanged. they fixed this relatively quickly after I reported it). Support is generally OK and prices are OK.
These days I tend to only keep my .io domains there, since they're the cheapest by far for that. Or buy SSL certificates from them. Cloudflare for most other stuff, or Porkbun for initial registrations as Cloudflare doesn't seem to allow it.
The whole 'premium' thing doesn't sound like namecheap. Contact support to ask what's up, or just transfer out to Cloudflare.
Robust
Well-known member
Other TLDs aren't so worthless these days. I would refrain from the overly long ones like .shopping, but .xyz, .me, etc., are perfectly suitable. If you're a company, especially one intending to scale, you may wish to ensure you have the .com for legacy reasons mainly. But I think other TLDs are fine for most people.
Edit: For other TLDs registry rules on what is 'premium' may apply and so namecheap may have little say in this. May be the case for .club. Best to contact namecheap for more info.
Vilandra
Active member
I did contact namecheap (first thing I did) and they told me it was from the registry, not them. It also was set to auto-renew, so it did not lapse (wasn’t set to renew until late June).
I was able to switch registrars and renew for $10, so crisis averted for now. I guess we’ll see what happens in the future. Thank you to everyone who offered their help!
I was able to switch registrars and renew for $10, so crisis averted for now. I guess we’ll see what happens in the future. Thank you to everyone who offered their help!
