After years and years of working with domain names (buying, selling, configuring, etc), today was the first time that I needed to recover an expired domain name. I thought I didn’t need it, but I was wrong. I needed it, I needed to unlock it, and I needed to transfer it to another owner.
Not even seeing the domain in my GoDaddy account sent me directly to the knowledge base search. Gladly, I wasn’t the only one with this problem, so a helpful article describing how to unlock an expired domain has been created previously. When I tried the instructions, I found the domain alright, but I wasn’t allowed to unlock it.
Assuming that I need to renew the domain for at least a year, I tried that option. Now came the big surprise – the redemption fee. Can you guess how much it was? Here’s a hint:
64 EUR fee for a 9 EUR domain… WOW! Given that all these processes are fully automated and don’t really require any manual labor or other extensive resources, I think that’s a bit too expensive. About 60 EUR too much, I’d say.
Obviously, that’s not an option now.
@mamchenkov There’s a grace period after expiration, where you can transfer/renew without the fee. The fee comes from the registry. ^NF
I have heard that a redemption fee is expensive but I had never deal with it. And to be honest I believe that even 9 eur for domain too much. :)