Register.com
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So I found out today that without my permission, Register.com has been using my debit card to bill for thirty domains automatically every year. This has, it turns out, cost me thousands of dollars over the years. They secretly turned on an automatic renewal system that I never approved and used a credit card I did not approve them to use to do it. If you go into their website, they don't allow you to turn off the safe renew or to change the credit card to an expired one - although they make it look like you can so it acts like you have disabled the feature sort of but they continue to bill you anyway.
So, after fifteen years of working with Register.com, this morning I am beginning to migrate all of my domains to GoDaddy with whom I have worked now and then. Previously I had only used GoDaddy for TLDs that Register.com did not support. But GoDaddy is cheaper, their interface is better and I have felt like I was being scammed. So Register.com has lost a loyal customer. Few people are more loyal to their vendors than I am, but this is not a good relationship. I can't trust them with my credit card info, apparently.
On the up side, customer service was very gracious once I called in and told them to turn off all of the locks so that I can move to GoDaddy.
So after all these years, I can't, in good conscious, recommend using Register.com. They aren't cheap, they aren't easy to use and they are not to be trusted with your credit card details.
Register.com is a part of web.com
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You didn't notice thousands of dollars of unexpected transactions on your bank statements? How rich are you?
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I can't say why I don't really like GoDaddy.. I just don't Maybe because it seemed like there were some limits and CMS software that didn't run well.
I've been using Host Monster and Blue host and have not had any surprises from either.
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@scottalanmiller said:
So I found out today that without my permission, Register.com has been using my debit card to bill for thirty domains automatically every year. This has, it turns out, cost me thousands of dollars over the years.
This is just wrong... while I know it is unlikely that you will get any of it back... I think this is very poor business....
Hope you can dispute it, and recover at least a portion of your funds.
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Are they domains you have purchased in the past? Auto-renew is pretty standard, and I don't know of a website that lets you set credit card info with an expired card. All sites have the option to turn off auto-renew, although some are REALLY good at hiding it...
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I'm fairly disorganised and have a terrible memory, so auto-renew is a life safer for me.
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Are you sure they "secretly" turned it on and it's not just the case that you didn't notice/realise at the time you setup the account?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Are you sure they "secretly" turned it on and it's not just the case that you didn't notice/realise at the time you setup the account?
I agree with this. Most have it on by default, and some sites don't even offer you the ability to turn off auto-renew at checkout. You have to do it after in your account settings.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
You didn't notice thousands of dollars of unexpected transactions on your bank statements? How rich are you?
No, I didn't. It wasn't all at once. $15 here, $15 there. It was over a number of years.
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@thanksaj said:
Are they domains you have purchased in the past? Auto-renew is pretty standard, and I don't know of a website that lets you set credit card info with an expired card. All sites have the option to turn off auto-renew, although some are REALLY good at hiding it...
Yes, I purchased them. They hid the auto-renew and had it automatically grab unauthorized credit cards. Even after I unauthorized it today, it would find a valid card on file for something else and authorize against that!
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm fairly disorganised and have a terrible memory, so auto-renew is a life safer for me.
It would be for me, but then there is no way to disable it
If I had control of it, it would be an awesome feature. -
@Carnival-Boy said:
Are you sure they "secretly" turned it on and it's not just the case that you didn't notice/realise at the time you setup the account?
I had them off originally. Several specific ones I checked and knew that they were going to "time out". Instead, I found them today with new expiration years on them.
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@thanksaj said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
Are you sure they "secretly" turned it on and it's not just the case that you didn't notice/realise at the time you setup the account?
I agree with this. Most have it on by default, and some sites don't even offer you the ability to turn off auto-renew at checkout. You have to do it after in your account settings.
It's not available in account settings with Register.com.
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@JaredBusch said:
Anything that is part of web.com is crap.
They didn't used to be. Maybe it was the buyout that made the change.
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Wow...okay then...
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I had a similar experience with xbox live. They turn on auto renew by default and if u don't turn it off before a specific date (15th of) each month, then you get billed for the following month but no xbox live.
There was some lame excuse for this but it was really crap and I don't remember exactly what it was, so I wont post what I think they said.
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Just had register.com refuse to renew one of our domains so that they could turn it off, then charge us an ADDITIONAL $25 to renew it after it had expired!! These people are crooks. Never, ever do business with them!! They hold expired domains hostage so you have no choice but to pay.
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@g.jacobse said:
I can't say why I don't really like GoDaddy.. I just don't Maybe because it seemed like there were some limits and CMS software that didn't run well.
I've been using Host Monster and Blue host and have not had any surprises from either.
Domain Register only. Not hosting. No one in their right mind would uses Godaddy as a host.
