We just had to rescue a domain that had been gone into the "Redemption Period" because the person receiving the emails forgot to renew it in time.

Wow! I could not believe what we had to pay to get it out of Redemption with Enom. $250 dollars !!!! I could not believe my eyes!

The domain was active in minutes, so there was nothing that indicated it took so much "hard work" to do it.

Does anybody regulate these fees?
It seems that the Registrars can charge anything they want when a domain falls into this category.

Not very nice to pay that amount of money to redeem a $11.95 domain

It seems to me that this is a very abusive policy, and it should be regulated by ICANN.

Rodrigo

The regulation of the fees is done by the individual domain company. IN the past eNom used to charge $170 for RGP, but it depends on how popular the domain name is. While I agree that the price is high, it's all spelled out in their TOS very clearly.

Was this directly through eNom? $11.95 for a domain doesn't sound like it's going directly through eNom. Maybe you're using a 3rd party and they're upping the rate also.

You have to remember with the RGP that if the domain has been expired for 30 days (the normal grace period of domain registrars), the registrar takes a gamble an renews the domain name personally during the RGP period.

$250 to recover a domain that was actually expired is not a bad price in my eyes. Imagine what your fees would be had someone else bought the domain name when it expired and then you wanted to purchase the domain name directly from them. Likely your fees would be over $1000, and higher depending how popular the domain used to be.

I just checked this from inside our Enom account and it is $11.50 / year for a .com domain from inside our reseller account.

BTW, this domain did not have any traffic.

I wonder why the Registrars do not send any reminders (like they do when a domain is about to expire) when a domain is about to go into "redemption phase" ? I bet if people would be aware of the $250 fee, I'm sure they will be more careful next time.

Anyway, we sure learned our lesson....

Rodrigo

oh good experience sharing

Most people aren't aware of the fees involved when a domain expires, if they were, they certainly would do their best to ensure their domain doesn't expire.

A lot of people have a hard enough time paying the renewal fees, let alone $250 for redemption fees, so they have no other choice than to let the domain drop and hope they pick it up when it becomes available (which can be a difficult thing to do).

This how you learn to be organized!
With only some of your attention you could have saved 250$.
If you paid that sum it means that the domain is important to you.
The idea behind is: I'm not reading the also about the fees ... but until now none of my domains slept from my hands ... unless I wanted to!

Well, we found out that the contact information email for that particular domain was not ours!
So it was not our direct fault.
We were unable to see the domain contact information while the domain was in "redemption". Once we paid the $250, then we found out that we were never reminded by the registrar.
Now we are trying to get our money back from the guy that did not pay in time.
Regards,

Did you recognize the address at all? Was the address a bogus address?

I don't think you'll have much luck getting a refund as they leave the updates of information in the clients hands, but let us know what they say.

I agree with Conor that there's not much hope of getting a refund. Is the fee steep? Of course it is, but it is what it is.

It is from one of our associate freelance web designers.
It will be hard to get the money back... but we will try.

All the best

Of course, it is very hard to get back a domain in the redemption period because registrars ask their own prices for it and they are surely very high.

I'm still not over this issue.
I'm not against Registrars making money, but why such a high abusive fee?

All the answers I've gotten here are like "well that is what it is", and nobody seems to complain or give some insight on how to fight this abusive policy on the part of the Registrars.

"They charge what they want, and there is nothing you can do about it"
That is a tough answer to swallow. I still think ICANN (or somebody) should regulate these fees so they will be more reasonable across the board.

Just my

Regards,

They don't regulate the normal registration fees, and it's not really up to them to regulate something that is up to the market forces to decide.

The real problems here are:

1. insufficient information presented to the customer. These fees are often not mentioned, and they can change unexpectedly.

2. the fact that the customer fails to renew the domain in time, not informing himself of the exact consequences of such an event, expecting essentially no ill effects.

The registrar is offering a chance to the customer, after he failed to renew a domain on time: to not lose the domain to some cybersquatter. I'd say that's usually worth more than $250.

Listen after a 30 day ICANNA imposed on all TLD and 45 - 90 day registrar add on provided days to renew an expired domain at regular rates. Plus the usual 90 ,60 30 day warning before expiry. The domain owner should even be charge more any one complaining should really do some math. whats it cost to hold a domain for the extra time "yes it does cost"