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Surely this is illegal?

by Ian Jackson
14 replies
Apologies if a similar comment/quesion has been posted before, but the WF's a big place...

A domain name of mine expired last month, so I still have the window of opportunity to renew it, and I believe still have entitlement/option to it for 9 or 12 months from expiry date anyway?

Today I had an email from a domain seller offering it for sale to me for $199...! and I'm assuming I won't be the only one they'll have emailed.

is this legal?

Thanks
#illegal #surely
  • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
    Hi Ian

    Originally Posted by Ian Jackson View Post

    Today I had an email from a domain seller offering it for sale to me for $199...! and I'm assuming I won't be the only one they'll have emailed.

    is this legal?
    Unless they're claiming ownership of the domain, I suspect all they're doing is offering to renew it on your behalf.

    It might be profiteering, opportunistic and ethically dubious, but probably not illegal.


    Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author badboy_Nick
    Dont think it would be a smart marketing move to stiff your customers into renewing their domains at 10 times the cost. Give them a call and I'm sure they will sort it out for ya.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ian Jackson
      Thanks guys, indeed, I'm awaiting an email from them.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alex Mensah
      Originally Posted by badboy_Nick View Post

      Dont think it would be a smart marketing move to stiff your customers into renewing their domains at 10 times the cost. Give them a call and I'm sure they will sort it out for ya.
      I would email them as nick said so that they can give it back to you at the same price that you werer paying before.
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  • Profile picture of the author ThomM
    Originally Posted by Ian Jackson View Post

    Apologies if a similar comment/quesion has been posted before, but the WF's a big place...

    A domain name of mine expired last month, so I still have the window of opportunity to renew it, and I believe still have entitlement/option to it for 9 or 12 months from expiry date anyway?

    Today I had an email from a domain seller offering it for sale to me for $199...! and I'm assuming I won't be the only one they'll have emailed.

    is this legal?

    Thanks
    I believe you only have a month if that after a domain name expires to renew it before it is available to anyone who wants it.
    It sounds like this person waited till the day it was available, bought it, and is trying to sell it back to the original owner.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      Domain sellers frequently go through lists of expired domains and "offer" them back to the person who registered them.

      They also send "bills" through the mail about renewing your domain for a high price.

      However, it's not from the domain registrar you used for that domain - right?
      So ignore it.

      You can reclaim a domain for a limited time after expiration - but to do that you will usually have to pay a premium fee to reclaim the domain.

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  • Profile picture of the author R Hagel
    I had the same thought at ThomM. I guess without knowing the exact details (such as the date the registration expired), we can't say for sure what happened.

    Regardless, it doesn't seem illegal. As Frank said, maybe ethically dubious -- but probably not illegal. (IANAL)

    It'd be like if you let your car lease expire without renewing or buying the car. If someone purchased it a month later and then tried to sell the car to you at a higher price, it's not illegal. Kind of irritating, but not illegal.

    cheers,
    Becky
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  • Profile picture of the author tbunch
    Originally Posted by Ian Jackson View Post

    Today I had an email from a domain seller offering it for sale to me for $199...! and I'm assuming I won't be the only one they'll have emailed.
    You say "a domain seller". Is this a different seller than the one you had it registered with? Another domain seller may have bought your expired domain because they thought they could profit from it. Maybe they don't own it but are trying to trick you. Maybe to a whois and see if it it currently registered.

    I have had similar things happen when I only bought the .com domain and another seller emailed me to sell me the rest (.net .info .org) at a much higher price than I could have bought them for in the beginning.

    Illegal - no. Dirty tactic - maybe. Way to make money - probably.
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  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    Seems perfectly legal to me.

    For whatever reason you have let your domain expire. And you have bad information about how long you have to renew it.

    So if a company comes along and offers to save your butt by taking care of the registration renewal now, they're offering a potentially valuable service.

    Whether you agree or disagree with the quoted price is a different issue.

    Sure, most here (including me) would say $200 for something you can do yourself is unreasonable. On the other hand, you're the one without a live domain and about to lose it forever (maybe you have already lost control over it). No one here knows if that domain has any value.

    Or, if you have lost rights to the domain, someone offering to sell it back to you for $200 could be an awesome deal. People have lost their jobs for not timely renewing domains.

    .
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Originally Posted by Ian Jackson View Post

    A domain name of mine expired last month, so I still have the window of opportunity to renew it, and I believe still have entitlement/option to it for 9 or 12 months from expiry date anyway?
    See this chart: ICANN | Life Cycle of a Typical gTLD Domain Name

    Your domain has already gone through the auto-renew grace period (this is usually 40 days). During this period you pay the renewal fee, typically around $10.

    After that, you're in the 30 day redemption grace period. During that time domain registrars can charge an administrative fee, usually around $200, to renew the expired domain. This sounds like what you're being offered at this point.

    Once the domain has been deleted it can be repurchased by you for the regular domain registration fee. However, there is a brisk business in expired domains and its quite likely that your domain name will be purchased by someone else the instant it's available
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    • Profile picture of the author ozduc
      As is already said this happens all the time. Domain sellers look for expiring domains and then contact people to see if they're interested. Usually they will first contact the people who own the other extensions of the domain. Most of the time they have not purchaed the domain they are just phishing to gauge interest.
      To give you an example I owned a .info domain and I got an email from one of these "domain sellers" that went,
      "We see you are the owner of xyz.info, we would like to inform you that xyz.com has expired and would like to offer you the xyz.com domain for $199. We are sure you will see the value in owning the .com of this brand."

      Well sure I see the value in it so I went on over to Godaddy to check the who is and they were right xyz.com had expired and was back on the market, so I registered it with Godaddy for $7.69.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    If the expiration is past the grace period, which is only about a month, and someone else bought it and wants to sell it, there's nothing illegal about that. You let it go, someone got it and sells it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nic Lynn
    Grace period is 30-days. After that it often goes up for auction. Doesn't look like this activity is illegal per se.

    And stop calling me shirley.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ian Jackson
      Thanks to you all for your replies. I've no interest in the domain now anyway - it has no future use or relevance to me.

      I was kind of curious about the situation as I understood the "grace" period was up to 1 year. Seems not. I did query with the live help on my domain supplier, but they were not really on the ball. I won't say who it is because they're otherwise fine.
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