Don’t do business with registrars that make it difficult to leave.
Yesterday, I received a notice from the Wall Street Journal that I needed to update my credit card. I logged into my WSJ.com account and was surprised to see that I’m paying about $40 per month for my digital subscription.
It’s more than I’m willing to pay, so I decided to cancel my account. I found the automatic renewal “button” in my account and tried to click on it:
It turns out that’s not a button. You can’t click on it to change your renewal settings. The only way to cancel your account is to pick up the phone and call them.
My hold time was 20 minutes. And we had phone problems once I connected with the rep, so I have to call again to cancel.
Here’s my position: if a business makes it hard for me to cancel services then they don’t deserve my business in the first place.
The same can be applied to domain name registrars. Some registrars make it easy to get bulk access to transfer authorization codes. Other registrars require you to request them one…by…one.
No matter what those registrars offer, they don’t deserve your business. Don’t use a registrar that’s going to make it painful to leave regardless of what special pricing they offer to win your business in the first place.
I would say THE WORST I have come across in my many years of dealing with Registrars, for making transfers OUT hard is Network Solutions. The only way I got them to move once was email to ICANN who then contacted them.
As for Newspapers. The Times Newspaper in UK operates in the same way you describe. They offered a “special deal” and can then cancel they said if don’t want to carry on. However they made it very very hard to UNsubscribe so I now don’t subscribe to them anymore.
Public Domain Registry PDR, Blue Host and HostGator, make transfer difficult.
I had to request the EPP code and wait for them to approve the transfer of my domain to another registrar.
I don’t know if currently Namecheap remains bureaucratic, but when I went to remove my domain from there, I had to request the EPP code from support and explain why I was leaving Namecheap, because they wanted a reason.
I always put reason “technical” then in the detail section put “technically its none of your business” I’m kind of a smart-*** that way. At least there system immediately emails you the auth code rather than waiting several names like Network Solutions.
Apparently a way around this is to change your address to a California address, and then the button will work. As in California, you have to provide a way to unsubscribe online.
Interesting, thanks – https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says
You are much more patient than I. I wouldn’t have bothered to spend the time on the phone with them, I would just not update my card, eventually when my next payment is due and they can’t charge me they’ll figure out how to cancel my subscription for me. Can’t stand sites that do that.
We offer bulk features to register, transfer-in, restore and update domains as well as delete and transfer-out domains – just fair.
Thanks, Michael. I think people should trust companies who make it as easy to leave as they do to join.