123-reg

Be wary of 123-reg, once you enter credit card details they store them for future use.

Even if you want to let a domain name lapse they ignore this and renew it and charge your credit card. If you send a support question they don't answer your question they just tell you how to delete a domain name.

The effect is that you either pay for a domain name or you tell them it should expire, which will then give them the chance to analyse the domain name and if it has any web value they could allegedly register it for themselves to sell on or put it through a third party to auction, I have been told that you can't do this with .co.uk domains as it would be against Nominet rules but it is possible with .coms.

Their contact number is an 0871 at least at 10p per minute and they are always busy which means that the call will cost you into the £££s. It's a great business model when you look at it. Create a service which people want to complain about knowing that the lines will be hot for at least 8 hours a day. If they only make 5p per minute that is £3 per hour which pays half the wage of somebody.

07-03-2010