Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's both. It's normal business practice in the German-speaking countries (a.k.a. DACH) that would be considered a scam anywhere else. Basically, in most countries paying money is something that requires continuous enthusiastic consent - if you don't pay, that's the business's problem and they should stop serving you, and they may only recover payment for goods they've already given you and not received payment for.…
> You went to Austria and did Austrian business with an Austrian company, you should be aware that Austrian rules and norms apply. The consumer purchases a domain name from their registrar. Neither the consumer nor their registrar are in Austria. The registrar is the one providing the service of registering the domain with the NIC. The NIC can't just say "we have a contract directly with the consumer". The registrar…
I agree domain registrars should display a warning. They often display other warnings, like that certain TLDs require verified addresses or that they don't allow WHOIS privacy.