
I lost my domain and everything that goes with it - kevingrahl
https://tenebris.uber.space/article/i-fucked-up
======
StuntPope
It should be pointed out and understood that when a domain enters Redemption
period, in every TLD, the inflated cost to redeem it is imposed by the
registry itself, not the registrar.

So the point where the normal cost is $6.95 but it cost over $100 or $200 is
not because the registrar is gouging you, but because the registry is charging
the registrar minimum $100 or so, and then the registrar would also apply
their own markup, which is pretty standard.

Also - all registrars are contractually obligated to send out multiple
notifications to the admin contact email, and even though this wouldn't
necessarily apply to .DE (because it's overseen by DENIC, not ICANN) - most
registrars use the same notifcation workflow across all TLDs. Usually
something like 90, 60, 30, 10 days and -5 days.

I will say that the rule in .DE that you can't renew past T-5 is pretty weird
though.

~~~
kevingrahl
Thanks for pointing that out, it wasn't clear to me who's responsible for that
price. I added your comment as a footnote to the relevant sentence. [1]

But no matter who's responsible I think it's not right to ask someone to pay
more than 19 times the price of the normal renewal just because they might
have forgotton to renew. I'd have paid maybe €50 but €185 is borderline
extortion in my opinion.

I can assure you, I have not gotten any kind of notification from Namecheap. I
don't know why some people here are so insistent that I must have gotten them.
I triple checked my email address at Namecheap and don't do spam filtering. If
some mail isn't in my inbox it hasn't been sent.

[1] - [https://tenebris.uber.space/article/i-fucked-
up#price](https://tenebris.uber.space/article/i-fucked-up#price)

~~~
StuntPope
I am told that the registry's logic around the exorbitant cost to pull a
domain out of redemption is to teach the registrant to be more mindful of
expiries ...and not to be predatory because they have you over a barrel.

I can't speak to whether the registrar sent you renewals or not. I did mention
in another comment below that for some unfathomable reason my company
(easyDNS) is the only one I know of that offers the functionality to setup an
iCal feed with your domain expires.

------
diegorbaquero
Happened the same exact thing to me, with Namecheap too. They didn't send me
any reminders about my .li domain. I couldn't renew from 2 weeks before
expiry. I wouldn't pay $200 to recover it in grace period, now they are
selling it for $5k.

Switched to Cloudflare, never touching Namecheap again.

~~~
skoskie
Cloudflare is a registrar? I had no idea.

[https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/)

------
iagooar
A similar thing happened to me, and I was lucky enough to get help from
Namecheap's support (they actually escalated it fairly high in the command
chain).

After that incident, I decided to move my critical email communication with
just the barebones provider's domain to either Apple's iCloud (you get a free
account when using iCloud) or Fastmail (paid but worth every $).

This way I don't need to worry about my own domain for critical stuff.

~~~
kevingrahl
I don’t like when someone else has access to my emails. In my case only my
hoster, whom I trust, has access to my server and thus mails.

~~~
drinchev
You might also check other articles about registrars sending to 3rd party
companies who pay a lot money to get information about domains that recently
expired and being bought by them. I think there was an article about it here
on HN not a long time ago.

Every domain that I had expired was immediately bought by a company and this
makes it hard

------
ppetty
First: kudos for having the guts to share a mistake.

Second: kinda cool that you didn’t completely bash Namecheap, though the
negative stuff you’ve described about them is well-deserved I think this may
be (unfortunate) typical behavior for most registrars.

So a couple of follow up questions:

1\. What was the motivation for self-hosting your email? I’m genuinely
curious. Proton sounds good. A year ago I switched from Google Apps to
Fastmail (with a custom domain) & still feel like this was a great decision.
Especially, because I have aliases for email addresses that use the same
username but a fallback domain. If I ever forget about my domain renewal email
will still get through to the 2nd domain. (That doesn’t help with logins
though.)

2\. Your name seems pretty unique, if .de isn’t available have you considered
other TLDs? I’m kinda dumb in that regard and have gone overboard with my
domain name + almost every TLD … although slightly proud not to have gotten
sucked in to the .dev phenomenon.

—

Good luck!

~~~
kevingrahl
Mistakes are what we learn from!

1) I like to have things in my own hand. On one hand It’s about having control
over who could possibly have access to my mails. If I were using Gmail for
example I’d have to put up with data mining and the entirety of Google and
their advertising partners possibly reading my mail. In my case only my
Hoster, whom I trust, has access to my server. On the other hand it’s about
flexibility. It’s my mail server and I can adjust whatever settings I like. I
haven’t been using any spam filtering for example but It’d be trivial to set
it up and tune it to my exact needs. I can also use other domains without much
setting up. I’d just have to register the domain and point it to my server and
all my addresses would work with that domain. I’ve unlimited addresses, some
just forwarding via .qmail some running a full virtual IMAP/SMTP account with
separate credentials. Those .qmail forwarding addresses are super useful btw!
I’m using a unique address for every service I use which makes it trivial to
find out who’s selling my data/where spam comes from. Delete the virtual
address and voila, no more spam from them. Running my own mail server also
makes backups easier I’d like to think. I just backup the right directory with
cron from time to time.

2) Sure, there are hundreds of TLD’s to choose from. I’m sure I’d find one
that’d be alright but I’ve used kevingrahl.de for as long as I can remember
and all my friends and customers are accustomed to it. Using a .de address has
the added benefit that in theory my government should drop all captured
packages intended for surveillance (Germany can’t legally spy on its own
citizens, it is known that they filter by TLD as a first step).

Thanks!

------
WheelsAtLarge
After reading this, I'm rethinking using my own domain email as an ID on
websites.

I trust that Gmail will be around a lot longer than me paying my own domain.
I've been paying for my own domain for years but at some time I'll stop and
someone else will own it; this gives them ownership of my email address.

~~~
kevingrahl
It's certainly something to keep in mind.

But there are problems with a similar outcome that could arise by using a
third party provider like Gmail. They could suspend your account for example
which is far more unlikely to happen with a domain.

As long as you pay for both it and your server/email provider you should be
good. I personally would rather risk what happened here than dealing with
Google in case my account got suspended.

------
steve918
It's hard to have a lot of sympathy here.

1) Namecheap sends out renewal notices, if he wasn't getting them it's likely
he didn't keep is email with them up to date.

2) Auto-Renew

~~~
kevingrahl
I’m not asking for sympathy!

I just checked to be sure and my email address on Namecheap is correct. I did
not receive a notification email however.

~~~
slenk
This just boggles my mind. I have been getting emails for 60 days before a
domain expiry.

Are you sure somehow a weird account isn't your namecheap contact email?

~~~
_nalply
Conspiracy alert: Perhaps a NameCheap employee has been bribed to covertly
suppress notification emails?

------
ymolodtsov
Are you sure that price is not set by DENIC or any other organization
responsible for .de TLD? Never had issues with Namecheap and their support has
always been very helpful.

~~~
kevingrahl
No I’m not, as I said in the article:

> Please note that I do not know if Namecheap or DENIC is responsible for
> setting this price.

~~~
ymolodtsov
Well, in the beginning you were pretty clear about blaming Namecheap for this.

~~~
kevingrahl
Now I'm starting to doubt your reading comprehension..

I explicitly said I don't blame Namecheap except for not sending me some
notification and for that one service agent who told me he wasn't authorized
to answer my question. That's were they fucked up. But as I said in that
article "clearly it was my fault not renewing the domain in time".

------
jaifraic
Are you sure it is a good idea to publish this _before_ you got your domain
back? A malicious reader could try to battle you and get the domain before
you.

~~~
kevingrahl
I thought about that before posting but I see no reason why anyone would want
to even try. I didn’t want to pay Namecheap’s fee so it’s quite clear I
wouldn’t buy it from someone else either. Worst case I have to get a new
domain..

~~~
underyx
You would probably buy it from a squatter for a less outrageous price, such as
20-30 EUR for the next year.

------
wbrasky
> But from €9.6 to €185 is an increase of 1827% or 19.27 times more. To me
> that's usury.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

~~~
Aeolun
Not literally, but the intended meaning seems clear to me here?

Though ripoff would also have worked.

~~~
wbrasky
I mean, it's a minor quibble, but ripoff would make sense. Usury does not, in
any way. It's simply a misuse of usury.

------
kevingrahl
If someone has a suggestion for some reliable registrar that isn’t Namecheap
I’d be happy to hear about them!

~~~
LinuxBender
Most of the registrars have been acquired by other companies and are only the
previous name for marketing purposes. I am not happy with any of the US or EU
registrars beyond Mark Monitor, and MM are not meant for hobby domains/users.

Do you prefer US or EU? For US, you might try out Cloudflare or Amazon
route53. I don't care for either of them, but others I know have been happy
using them.

When you get your domains back and if you can afford it, you can pay for up to
10 years. Most registrars will give a discount. If they offer more than 10
years, don't do it. 10 years is the hard limit, which means you would have to
trust that registrar stays in business more than 10 years and most will not.

~~~
kevingrahl
Thanks for the input! I heard good things about MM and would love to use them
but I’m not exactly their target audience.

I’d prefer an EU based registrar, any suggestions there?

As soon as I have my domain back (or a new one) I’ll definitely pay some years
in advance from now on.

~~~
markvdb
Gandi. Fairly low pricing, very FOSS friendly, often actually knowledgeable
support that you don't have to hit with a baseball bat before they get a clue
(unlike OVH).

------
rzvme
I am using Gandi. You pay full price, but you get privacy inclunded

