Nominet threatening to delete domains I bought through caught.co.uk unless I pay for them again.

[DJ]

Hi all,

I received the below email from Nominet a couple of days ago:

Dear DJ Wood

We are contacting you today as the registrant for the list of domain names attached as we have not received payment for the registrations.

These domains were registered on the CAUGHT/BOWLER tags between February and April 2024 and have been transferred to the UNFORGETTABLE tag, however the invoice for these transactions remain unpaid.

As a result of this and as per section 5.2 of the Terms and Conditions of Domain Name Registrations for Non Payment, we will cancel these domains on the 30th July 2024, if payment is not received. The total amount outstanding is £219.96.

If you wish to make payment for these you can do so by contacting us directly by phone and making a card payment or you can make a BACS payment using the following details. Please use the “Unpaid domains/ UNFORGETTABLE” as your reference.

Name: NatWest Bank plc
Address: Chatham Rcsc, Western Avenue, Waterside Court, Chatham Maritime, Chatham, Kent, ME4, 4RT
Sort Code:60-10-28
Account Number: xxxxxxxx
Account Name: Nominet UK
BIC/SWIFT - NWBKGB2L
IBAN - GB82NWBK60102886488511


If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to contact your Registrar or you can contact us directly for advice on +44 (0) 330 236 9480 between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday or email support@nominet.uk if you would like to discuss this further. We are also available on live chat at www.nominet.uk/contact-us during these times as well.

Kind regards,

Tiffany Palmer
Payments Administrator

For context this email was sent to me as an individual not a registrar.

I replied advising them that I had paid for the names and that invoice would be between Nominet and the Registrar Chris Bowler and not myself. But they sent another reply stating that I was responsible and if I didn't pay the names would be deleted.

I sent a subsequent reply again advising that I had paid for the domains on full and in good faith and that I could not be held responsible for Nominet's failure to obtain payment for invoices from one of their registrars, especially as some of the names there are wanting me to pay for date back around or over 6 months. I stated that I would be taking legal advice, which I am, and asked them to cc in their legal department also, but I haven't received a reply.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar and are Nominet correct in asking me to pay for something which I have already paid for again?

How would they approach this on a larger scale, say if GoDaddy didn't pay an invoice?

@whois-search any help would be appreciated as this seems right up your street.

Cheers,

DJ

p.s. sorry if any mistakes, on my phone at the moment as in Margate for a couple of days with shitty reception.

 

[Hook]

Hi all,

I received the below email from Nominet a couple of days ago:



For context this email was sent to me as an individual not a registrar.

I replied advising them that I had paid for the names and that invoice would be between Nominet and the Registrar Chris Bowler and not myself. But they sent another reply stating that I was responsible and if I didn't pay the names would be deleted.

I sent a subsequent reply again advising that I had paid for the domains on full and in good faith and that I could not be held responsible for Nominet's failure to obtain payment for invoices from one of their registrars, especially as some of the names there are wanting me to pay for date back around or over 6 months. I stated that I would be taking legal advice, which I am, and asked them to cc in their legal department also, but I haven't received a reply.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar and are Nominet correct in asking me to pay for something which I have already paid for again?

How would they approach this on a larger scale, say if GoDaddy didn't pay an invoice?

@whois-search any help would be appreciated as this seems right up your street.

Cheers,

DJ

p.s. sorry if any mistakes, on my phone at the moment as in Margate for a couple of days with shitty reception.

Is caught.co.uk defunct? You also have a contract with them, so you can recover losses from them - i'm not sure what rights you'd have for losses against Nominet as they were not part of the original purchase.

what does the TOS say about registrants paying invoices owed by registrars? It seems absurd that you, as a registrant, would be on the hook for what is an invoice owed by a 3rd party? I read 5.2, and it seems vague and doesn't take into account someone transferring ownership of a domain - however reading it would seem they are within their powers to cancel the domains, but seems unfair.

as for caught:

If I remember rightly, did the 3rd party misrepresent that these domains were paid for? At the time of purchase, did you have knowledge that the domains we unpaid? If you knew they were unpaid, would you still have entered into the contract? (this is fraud by misrepresentation between you and Caught.co.uk)

From here, you can recover any losses you suffered with them, rather than Nominet

 

[Kaleido]

I got the same email. The domain in question is on my tag and renewed until 2025 so I didn't know what Nominet was on about. Now I do. Ta for posting.

 

[rob]

Has anyone heard from Chris? Hopefully he is ok.

Does seem strange one - and the 'heres our bank details send us some cash' email doesn't feel up to the usual Nom standards.

 

[GreyWing]

I think maybe it's the cyber guys moving into Registry and cleaning it up a bit. I usually leave mine until last minute, just habit now. Guess they were the old rules and now they want paying on the invoice due dates instead of the due date plus 30ish. It may have just caught Chris by surprise.

By Nom's rules @DJ , unfortunately they'd always go after the registrants after the registrars don't pay. Been that way for years. Doesn't make it right I guess. Hopefully Chris is able to return asap and sort it out.

 

[Lee]

This policy is 100% wrong and always has been. It is up to Nominet to chase the TAG who registered/renewed the domains to pay. If they can't recover the money it should be written off like any other company would have to. It was Nom who gave the tag holder the credit facility in the first place.

Not fair on the customer and does nothing to give .UK domain owners confidence in buying domains!

Imagine going to the supermarket and buying some baked beans, pay at the till and then a few weeks later Heinz contacting you saying you need to pay again as the supermarket has not paid the invoice for the beans!

Hope you get the problem sorted @DJ and it does not end up costing you again.

 

[diablo]

Not good from Nominet. Also looks like they gave the Registrar a few months to pay, but you have to pay within a week or lose the names. What if you were away when you got this email?

 

[username]

What is it about Nominet and them being such arses?? It's really not a good look. One minute they can't stop a name from deleting, then they're asking for money for someone else's invoice...

 

[astutiumRob]

By Nom's rules @DJ , unfortunately they'd always go after the registrants after the registrars don't pay

I can 2nd this has been the policy for many many years.

Nominet did (eventually) allow us as the gaining TAG to confirm we'd pay for a raft of names transferred in for 1 client after a registrar got far behind on their invoices, so if you've moved it to your you own tag it might be worth trying that.

 

[ukbackorder]

Can you imagine this being applied to any other industry?! There would be riots. You buy a car and the dealer goes bust - then the car manufacturer chases you to pay again. You buy food, the supermarket goes bust, then all the food manufacturers chase you to pay again. How is this even legal?

 

[username]

I take it that they're not asking you to pay for the whole invoice that just happens to include the domain in question?

 

[CD]

What would they charge non members? Used to be £75?

 

[astutiumRob]

if the names have an "value" to the registrant then I'd suggest just paying

At least it's better than some ccTLDs who simply delete them if the registrar fails to pay- I have seen a more than a few problems with that over the years !
(and it's even happened with gTLDs when regfly went bellyup)

 

[GreyWing]

Knowing how Nominet operates, they likely fear creating precedents. While £200 is nothing to them, if they accommodate @DJ, they might worry that if a big registrar goes under and they start deleting domain names, registrants might look up this case and say, "Well, you did XYZ here."

However, as I pointed out on the Nominet Community forum, if the worst happens with a big registrar, the PR disaster for Nominet will be immense. Recovering money from hundreds of thousands of domain owners, many of whom don't even know who Nominet is, will be challenging. Dealing with people whose domain names were deleted because they thought the emails were a scam will be even harder.

I suggested that Nominet consider taking out an insurance policy to cover the costs of a big registrar going bust. If the policy covers registrars failing over £20,000, the costs would be low, but it would allow Nominet to show goodwill to individuals like DJ without setting a widespread precedent. I believe this issue is an early warning for what is likely inevitable in the future.

 

[Nigel]

What is the point of Nominet allowing Registrars credit facilities if they are not prepared to honour those credit facilities. I think they would be on shaky ground indeed if they went ahead and cancelled a tranche of domains that a previous registrar hadn't paid for. Indeed, as Graeme says would they really carry out that threat if a major Registrar collapsed - I doubt it very much. They would face numerous law suits from customers who had their businesses ruined. Where on a Nominet whois search does it state that the current years renewal is still outstanding? So how does anyone know if the fees have been paid to Nominet? In addition Nominet sit on a huge pile of cash - dishing it out regularly to causes they deem worthy - by the millions. So they'd just have to divert a small portion of their 'worthy causes' fund to such a scenario.
But coming back to DJ and his predicament they'll probably carry through their threat if he doesn't pay - so he hasn't got a lot of choice.

 

[diablo]

I'm not sure how this would stand up in a court of law. I think it would be very difficult for Nominet to enforce this policy.

It's certainly not reasonable to assume that the average person registering a domain name would be aware of section 5.2 of the Terms and Conditions of Domain Name Registrations for Non Payment by a Registrar.

It is also a reasonable assumption that Nominet would do due diligence before extending credit terms, and should be willing to write-off losses as any other business would have to do when goods aren't paid for, but have already been sold on (unless done so with the intention of defrauding). |That said, domain names are never "owned", like say a tin of beans. You only buy rights.

@GreyWing is correct: Nominet should sort this before a public-facing Registrar collapses.

The problem for DJ and others is that Nominet are in the position of being able to easily reclaim the goods sold. That's the reality. As such, if the names are worth more to you than the registration fee, it's a bill that will need to be paid as @astutiumRob said.

 

[ben]

@DJ @Kaleido I suggest you approach Domain Name Wire with this, they will be all over it. This is an awful policy from Nominet, what on Earth. Legally speaking, the person/tag/entity who registered the domain should be liable for it?

 

[Kaleido]

My reply to Nominet.

Here's an idea. Instead of chasing the registrant who's already paid the registrar, howsabout chasing the registrar who hasn't paid their invoice?

Nominet reply to me.

Thank you for your reply.

Firstly, I would like to assure you that we are not saying that you are liable for the outstanding balance fee for the registration of your domain name **************.uk

Unfortunately, the outstanding invoice has not been paid and as per our Terms and Conditions of Domain Name Registrations for Non Payment, our process would be to cancel or reverse any transactions in relation to this. We are simply reaching out to the Registrant of the domain to see if they wish to pay the outstanding fee to prevent you from the losing the domain.

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact me.

The domain was due to be deleted today, so to avoid pistols at dawn I've coughed up £4.68 under duress.

I called Nominet to pay over the phone and make my feelings known. I just got the standard response, but at least while I was on hold I was treated to Gimme Shelter which is my favourite Rolling Stones tune.

 

[ben]

Gimme Shelter is a banger, to be fair.

Fuck Nominet, go public with DNW. This can't be allowed to happen. Who cares if they can't afford to pay the invoice, the fact is, is that now becomes unrecoverable debt, or is handled another way. They can't just go around deleting peoples domains that are paid for.

If I went to ASDA and got some chicken nuggets, but on the way home, ASDA closed down, would someone come to my door and say, "Excuse me, Sir, we are going to have to remove these nuggets from your possession, as ASDA did not pay the supplier"?

 

[Jeff]

I've coughed up £4.68 under duress

From the height of ecstasy to the depths of despair in just a few hours.

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