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Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

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Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#31

Post by strictnein »

gruez wrote: post #27
inerte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you grab a can of Coke in the grocery store, shelf sticker says 49c. When you pass on the cash register, it clearly shows $5k in the cashier's monitor, and the point of sales screen, so you're charged $5k. Ooops, says the grocery store: Coca-cola raised the prices, not me.

Have you used amazon subscribe and save? What you described is basically how it works. You're agreeing to auto-buy at whatever price amazon sets on that day. The only exception when you first set up a subscription, in which case the first delivery's price is locked in.

Amazon will tell you the price 7 days before it auto-renews and then jack the price up 100x three days before it renews?

The price will fluctuate, but this is on another level, and deceptive since they had already stated what the price would be.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#32

Post by shrinks99 »

thataccount wrote: post #30

Had a thing with Hostgator once where they wouldn't accept any proof of who I was other than an expired credit card that had long since stopped being used. The site went up for sale, and someone bought it and had it up for resale for around $5,000. Turned me even sourer on the domain system of the normal net.

Heh yeah, I've recently had another site succumb to the same thing (that domain wasn't managed by me). I've long accepted that domains are kind of a racket, but haven't actually been on the losing end of the money until now!

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#33

Post by gruez »

strictnein wrote: post #31
gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used amazon subscribe and save? What you described is basically how it works. You're agreeing to auto-buy at whatever price amazon sets on that day. The only exception when you first set up a subscription, in which case the first delivery's price is locked in.

Amazon will tell you the price 7 days before it auto-renews and then jack the price up 100x three days before it renews? The price will fluctuate, but this is on another level, and deceptive since they had already stated what the price would be.

>Amazon will tell you the price 7 days before it auto-renews and then jack the price up 100x three days before it renews?

Yeah probably? [edit: no, see below]

You go on amazon 7 days before renewal, check your subscriptions, see it's $10. 7 days later it's no longer sold by amazon and the only other seller selling it is a scalper that charges $30. The only difference the order of magnitude, not whether price changes can happen.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#34

Post by ajb »

rglullis wrote: post #6
ontoillogical wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is extremely unexpected behavior for an "auto-renew" feature. If I'm told that I will be autorenwing something in 7 days and am told about a price, that price changing within those 7 days feels like something the consumer should be protected against!

How?! Hover is just a proxy between the customer and the real TLD owner. It could very well be that the TLD system saw that the domain was about to expire and decided to jack up the price then. Maybe Hover could've bought the domain themselves when close to the expiration date to secure the lower price, but then if the customer decides to let the domain go it would be they holding out the bag.

There can be a difference between whose the fault is, and who is accountable. Usually, the entity you paid is the one legally accountable to you. This is not just a trivial detail: you will have no luck with the law attempting to hold the other entity to account, even if they are at fault; while you can hold your counterparty to account even if their action was dictated by someone else; they have to act correctly with you- it's not your problem if their relationship with some other company is put into contention. This may not apply to domains, FWIW. usually, buying a domain means you have a contract with the registry too. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

This can big companies too, FWIW. Cisco were in violation of the GPL over the WRT54G, which resulted eventually in the release of OpwnWRT. Well, Cisco weren't the entity which actually caused that fault; the chip vendor was, as they were the ones who used the linux kernel without releasing the source. That is not a valid reason to violate a licence.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#35

Post by ceejayoz »

gruez wrote: post #33
strictnein wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon will tell you the price 7 days before it auto-renews and then jack the price up 100x three days before it renews? The price will fluctuate, but this is on another level, and deceptive since they had already stated what the price would be.

>Amazon will tell you the price 7 days before it auto-renews and then jack the price up 100x three days before it renews? Yeah probably? [edit: no, see below] You go on amazon 7 days before renewal, check your subscriptions, see it's $10. 7 days later it's no longer sold by amazon and the only other seller selling it is a scalper that charges $30. The only difference the order of magnitude, not whether price changes…

No, that's not what happens. They lock in a price when they alert you to the upcoming delivery round.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

> The price of the item may decrease or increase between deliveries, but will never be higher than the price shown in your reminder email.

I sometimes get "item available" cancelations for this reason. The items are always available, just not at that price.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#36

Post by 8organicbits »

wjnc wrote: post #5

Register a complaint with the creditcard company with proof of last years $38, the auto renew message with price of $38 and the amount they put on your card. Pretty clear and cut? You can’t offer X and then take Y. It’s Hovers problem what the price behind the door is. Did you read the ToS? The ToS states they renew at prices mentioned on the website. I can find .xyz to renew at $19.99. Now get your screenshots and g…

> It’s Hovers problem what the price behind the door is.

This feels key to me. If .sexy is changing fees with very short notice, and Hover doesn't have enough time to inform their customers before renewal, then Hover should stop offering .sexy domain names. None of that is a problem for the customer.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#37

Post by throwawayffffas »

shrinks99 wrote: post #28
joshstrange wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are burning your bridges with a chargeback which is why you should threaten it to support first and only after they say no do you transfer all your domains, wait a few days, then file the chargeback. You somewhere between 60-90 days to issue a chargeback so OP has plenty of time.

Yeah, I already transferred everything else to Cloudflare in advance of this so that part should be taken care of.

I'd say don't wait, just do the chargeback, if you threaten all they will do is try to stall you out of the chargeback window.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#38

Post by james_pm »

I work at Tucows Domains/Hover and we're digging in on what happened here. I've reached out to the OP already via email. tl;dr our support team didn't handle this well at all and we've already issued a full refund.

We are still looking into where the price mismatch found its way into the picture, but that domain is a tiered price domain but it is also "legacy" priced meaning it should renew at something very close to the standard price for a renewal but didn't.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#39

Post by tossandthrow »

joshstrange wrote: post #25
gruez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are many other registrars out there if you are willing to transfer and for $3K I'd be transfering my domains and then filing a chargeback. If what hover said is true (ie. "the .sexy registry (Uniregistry) sets prices as it sees fit, decided to jack up the renewal cost at the last minute because they can"), trying to transfer to another registar won't fix the issue, because they'll just charge the same price.

True, but you can abandon that domain (OP already said it was mostly a joke website) and transfer all the ones you do care about. If this .sexy domain is their only domain there then it's even easier, just chargeback and be done with it.

Charge backs are generally not for returns.

If the charge was legal and within contract and customer regulations, then Hover might very well just challange the charge back.

Re: Ask HN: My domain registrar rug-pulled me for $3000 [fixed]

#40

Post by ktm5j »

gruez wrote: post #24
joshstrange wrote: post #13

Thankfully a chargeback is possible here. While a chargeback is almost always "possible" it can be dangerous if the company you are charging-back is the only provider of a service. I'd be wary about doing a chargeback on the Google/Amazon's of the world but Hover? There are many other registrars out there if you are willing to transfer and for $3K I'd be transfering my domains and then filing a chargeback. BUT, befor…

>There are many other registrars out there if you are willing to transfer and for $3K I'd be transfering my domains and then filing a chargeback. If what hover said is true (ie. "the .sexy registry (Uniregistry) sets prices as it sees fit, decided to jack up the renewal cost at the last minute because they can"), trying to transfer to another registar won't fix the issue, because they'll just charge the same price.

It will fix the problem of having paid $3000. Just want to add that while Hover might not be at fault, I don't think OP is either. I would have done the same thing (read the first renewal email and ignored the rest). I think Hover should change something, like adding PRICE CHANGE to the email headline or something similar.
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