eNom’s popular expired domain service can be a headache when participating registrars leave the program.
Frequent users of Club Drop know that domains caught by the service are rarely actually registered by eNom. Instead, they are a registered by partners but the domains can still be managed through the eNom account interface. This makes managing domains at the various partner registrars easy.
But what happens when a partner decides it no longer wants to participate in Club Drop? If a partner decides to leave the program you must transfer your domains to eNom and renew–or risk losing access to the domains. This happened to me twice last year. Each time, I received an e-mail from eNom notifying me that I had to transfer my domains to eNom within a short period of time or I would lose access to the domains. One of the domains had been registered for fewer than 60 days so it couldn’t be transferred right away. The 60 day mark was the last day available to transfer the domain before losing access, so I had to log in on that exact day to transfer the domain.
Apparently a number of partners are leaving the program right now. So far today I’ve received two e-mails from eNom notifying me that I have domains at different partners that are leaving the program. I have until March 26 to transfer the domains to eNom or risk losing access to the domains.
This isn’t a big deal in most cases. After all, the current arrangement requires you to transfer all domains to eNom after the initial year’s registration is over in order to renew your domains. But what if you just recently won an expired domain and you’re not sure if you want to renew it next year? You may be forced to pay for a renewal and transfer after just a few months of ownership.
Leave a Comment