Hi
I am currently having a battle with totalregistrations.com regarding a domain that due to my going on holiday has fallen past their renewal period. Sadly I wished I had moved to a more reputable registrar such as enom/godaddy but I wanted to try one of the little guys and a UK company at that. This has not paid off and I wanted to warn you all about what has happened.

5-7 days after the domain is past its renewal due date totalregistrations.com will place the domain for deletion. Most companies offer 30 to 45 days for this. However I do not have a problem regarding their 5-7 day policy.

This is what I believe is un-ethical and taking advantage of the situation:
"At this point the domain would require a 3 year renewal to be ordered via Support in order to recover it and this offer applies until the domain goes into Redemption."

I received the above in an e-mail after contacting totalregistrations.com regarding renewing the domain. What I find un-ethical is that they do not state anywhere on their site about charging 3 years and it just looks like they are taking advantage of the situation. This amounts to 52.50 euros for the 3 year period instead of the publicised renewal fee of 17.50 euros.

When I confronted totalregistrations.com regarding this, in one of the communications was a clip from their terms and conditions which basically is resulting to scare tactics by insinuating that the domain will be sold on. Here is what they sent:
"7.4. Should you fail to renew your domain name prior to a 10 (ten) day grace period, you agree that we may, in our sole discretion, delete the domain name registration, or on your behalf renew and transfer the domain name to a third party buyer identified by us (such a transaction is hereinafter
referred to as a "Post Term Renewal and Transfer")."

I am all for taking legal action regarding this as I believe this type of business is bad for the more honest and customer concious amongst us. I would like to hear your comments, and if you have had similar experiences and what you did about it.

Thanks to all who take part in this thread.
Ian

Your failure to renew the domain on time forfeits your right to complain. You at no point really "own" the domain and when you fail to renew it, the registrar has every right to take it back and make you jump through as many hoops as they like.

There isn't anything you can do. Perhaps you should have been more diligent and renewed your domain on time.

Anacrusis is correct, you are bound to what you sign. always read your contracts before you hit "I agree"

I have to agree. I know it's not what you want to hear, but their terms were specified and they haven't done anything they didn't say they would do.

If the domain is so important to you I'm not sure why it's an issue registering it for 3 years. Many people have their domains registered for as many as 10 years. You can register the domain for the 3 years and then transfer it to another registrar and not have to deal with that company again.

I think pursuing any legal action is only going to cause you stress over something you're not going to win.

If your domain is in expired mode
you can renew it, but it will cost you
about 1000 or 2000$ if they have started
to bit for it.