Company domain taken

A

amgd28

Registered User
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Hi
I got the shock of my life today when I went to my website and something else stared back at me. I registered my domain last year with letshost, and signed up for their hosting arrangement also.
I signed up to them automatically debitting my account for any renewals, and I didn't blink an eyelid when an invoice was received for the annual renewal, which duly came out of my account
HOWEVER - this renewal only renewed the hosting service and not the domain registration!!!! I was never warned about the registration lapsing, and I'm now completely at a loss what to do. Letshost are not answering any calls - their numbers are ringing out
Any ideas!!
 
Re: Company domain taken!!!

Your billing automatically tells you when your domains are up for renewal...i find the biling area great ..you can look at what you have paid ,owe, need to renew etc..I have often recommended lets host here for their fantastic response and customer service. If you e-mail , send a ticket to support they will reply within a couple of minutes usually. Im not sure what could have gone wrong here they usually send out a bill or invoice/e-mail to say your domain needs to be renewed...maybe you missed it? Or else maybe there is a problem with the server and your web page is temp. down?
 
I presume it's a .com and not a .ie domain name? If it's the latter then you can probably get onto IEDR about it. If it's the former then you may be able to show that you have some entitlement to it but that could take time, money and effort. See [broken link removed] for example.
 
Let us know how you get on please....It seems a worrying situation...I was recently looking up a few domains i own. Thankfully all is in order. I really like the control panel and billing area of their service. But if this is a problem that they are not highlighting to their customers that their domains are up for renewal it is worrying. But as i say i get an e-mail and invoice and a date which it must be paid by in order to renew.
 
ClubMan said:
I presume it's a .com and not a .ie domain name? If it's the latter then you can probably get onto IEDR about it.
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The IEDR will tell you tough cookie.

You might have unregistered trademark rights, but it'll be up to you to get your solicitor involved and prove in court the new domain owner is trying to pass themself off as you.

Expensive and not guaranteed to work.

If it's a .ie domain, send the new owner a pleasant e-mail explaining your situation.
 
Hi guys an update
Letshost were not answering phones, so after trying to figure out the current owner, I eventually ended up on a site where I could bid for my domain name, and was told min bid was 200$. Was getting quite worried at this stage so I signed up to the site (cost $88) and submitted my bid
Lo and behold I later got an email telling me someone was bidding for my site (myself!!)
Seeing as I could not get through to letshost, I rang another company who I was negotiating with to redevelop my website. In fairness, they got onto the US domain owner, sussed out that letshost were resellers for same, got the mobile no of letshost's principle, and resolved the issue for me. Site is now back up and running
I have had a quick look back through my emails (my gmail, which I do not use v often), and there is no warning about impending expiry of registration.. I had set up that they automatically deduct renewals, so I can't understand why the hosting fee was auto renewed (approx 71), but the domain registration was not (approx 9.99 euro)
This was further compounded by the fact that their phones were not ringing, hence my panic
Thankfully the site is back up now, but where I was always favourable about letshost in the past, my confidence in them is quite shaken now.

Also for info - it was a .com domain, the .ie is also registered to me, but it is not due for renewal until later this year

Thanks for the posts
 
.com domains do not automatically renew.

It is up to you to renew them. Letshost are totally innocent in this case.
 
Yes I must now accept that this was all my fault, with no fault attributing to letshost, except the inability to contact them when I was trying to
I reviewed my mails a bit more closely and there is one from 31st July, with the invoice details
I just completely missed it and when I saw an invoice payment processsed email, I made a presumption that everything was paid. I shoul dreally have converted my registered email address to my work email address as that way I would have dealt with it. I only dip into gmail very rarely
I received a decent email from letshost today outlining the background to the issue, so I'll stick with them, as perhaps I was unfair earlier
I suppose I was really panicked at the situation and the fact that I could not get through to anyone
 
Yeah - I understand on the panicing - I would be the same!

Letshost are a good bunch, I think you're right to stick with them.

Suggestion - you can purchase .com domains for X years. You don't need to buy them for just one year. Why not go get your domain for 10 years?
 
Is someone now squatting on the domain? Are they trying to extort money to transfer it back to you?
 
bond-007 said:
Is someone now squatting on the domain? Are they trying to extort money to transfer it back to you?
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Presumably not?
amgd28 said:
Hi guys an update

...

they got onto the US domain owner, sussed out that letshost were resellers for same, got the mobile no of letshost's principle, and resolved the issue for me. Site is now back up and running
Click to expand...
 
amgd28, I admire the way you accepted this was your fault. It should great strength of character.
 
My faith restored also....Must say that i find lets host is a very well run business. Dont miss a payment though (they take no s**t!) similar issue to yourself with missing e-mail it was my fault for not updating to my work e-mail.
 
money man said:
Will you get your money back for registering to bid? 70 quid or whatever?
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No- that's a completely separate organisation. I'll chalk it down to experience I suppose.....Less haste, more speed in future methinks;)
 
Flax said:
Suggestion - you can purchase .com domains for X years. You don't need to buy them for just one year. Why not go get your domain for 10 years?
Click to expand...

You bet, I am absolutely going to do that. I don't want to experience this morning's panic every again! And I'm normally fairly cool about things :eek:
 
You can generally specify the length of time that you wish to register a domain name at the time of registration up to 10 years. Shop around as different hosting companies offer different levels of service, discounts, pricing etc. Also remember that the information that you use to register a domain such as email address, name, address and tel number are publicly available through "whois" - So I would recommend you use a secondary email account etc just for this purpose. I'm surprised that letshost let their phones ring out - our own company iccmhosting.com offers notification of .com, .net etc domain renewals as well as all other renewals as part of the basic service, this just seems like good business sense (as well as good customer service) - and we would certainly assist the customer in regaining their previous domain if a similar problem occured
 
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