Early last year my sister, without asking me for advice or help, decided to register her new business. Being a complete technophobe, she didn't realise the difference between registering a domain and registering your business. Some tit recommended she use Start.biz (so called 'national business register') to sort it all out for her. These guys make a profit from misinformed people and charged her £99 to simply register a domain and provide a 'Welcome pack' (2 or 3 bits of paper that pat you on the back for using Start.biz). So, skip to a year later and she has now just realised she paid £99 for a £10 service and is asking me to sort it all out for her. Great. I've got her a nice and cheap hosting package and a new domain name, but she wants the old domain back aswell (already ordered business cards with that domain on, can this cluster**** get any worse?). So I contacted these guys asking for the EPP code so I can transfer the domain to the new hosts. They've now emailed me saying they cannot transfer until the domain is renewed (it expired early January) and they want £60 to renew it. So what are my options here, can they really not transfer without renewing it first? I would prefer not to give these scam artists another penny but my sister really wants the old domain back. The thought of paying £60 for a £10 service makes me sick. Thoughts?
Depends really, if the domain is on hold or in a non-transfer period it may well have to be renewed. Check the domain status on whois.domaintools.com and it should tell you if its in Transfer Prohibited status. If it is, you will have to renew it first. If not they may just be charging an "admin fee" to transfer out, which they are quite entitled to do.
Thanks for the advice BioSniper. The domain's status is currently "pendingDelete". The hosts I want to transfer to has asked for a £10 transfer fee (on top of the renewal fee) which I have no problem paying. However the current domain providers want me to renew the domain with them before they transfer it. Their standard 1 year renewal fee is £60 which imo is a complete ripoff.
Tbh you'll just have to evaluate which one is cheaper, replacing the business cards or transferring the domain.
Sadly following that method, ANYONE could register it again, and there are companies built on watching expired websites, who upon cross-checking with google page ranks, then purchase said domain snappier than you can blink, and fill it with ads. Some of the websites I used to register on behalf of friends which are no longer required have ended up this way.
DON'T DO THIS! I tried this once with an old personal domain (as the old company that registered it was uncontactable) and lost it. Within 5 minutes of it becoming free, it was picked up by a site that wanted to charge $100US minimum in an auction for it.
