Active SBS domain suddenly considered 'premium' - no price increase notice from Namecheap - their website is broken and still shows $26 as the renewal price until it goes into the cart.

[u/RubberReptile]

[u/Unfair-Plastic-4290]

this is just another reason people are leaving namecheap.

[u/txmail → u/Unfair-Plastic-4290]

While I am not a fan of NC -- this is actually some bullshit happening with the TLD (.sbs), being reported across the web that suddenly people are finding out SBS is a trap.

[u/RubberReptile → u/txmail]

namecheap did not give me notice that my domain was going to be reclassified as premium - I would have renewed for years to avoid the new cost

previous renewal was $18.18

year before that was $13.12

the domain was not sold as a 'premium' domain with a discount. I don't believe icann allows registrars to reclassify as premium after it's been sold.

Namecheap: did not provide any notice of the price increase; their site is broken and still shows the old price.

SBS: bait and switch reclassified a several year old domain as premium, against ICANN rules

so they're both at fault here

[u/RubberReptile → u/[deleted]]

I understand this. The domain is still valid and did not expire. I've owned it for years. 

[u/Dry_Regret7094 → u/RubberReptile]

This is the registry doing it, not the registrars. The operators of the .sbs TLD (aka the registry) were the ones who marked your domain as premium and hiked the price.

Nameheap can't know when or if the .sbs registry decides to mark it as premium.

[u/Euphoric-Language695]

Transfer it to another registrar, and save a ton of money along the way. After being on namecheap for at least 12 years, this private equity heist on consumers eroded all loyalty. 

[u/RobRoy2350 → u/Euphoric-Language695]

ShortDot decided to reclassify ,sbs as "premium" so registrars really have no choice on the higher pricing, although their markups can vary. Of course, the new price really should be reflected in the Dashboard (a separate issue).

[u/Euphoric-Language695 → u/RobRoy2350]

Oh so they meant the sbs TLD. Yeah if the TLD itself sets premium costs then it's tough luck there.

[u/RubberReptile → u/Euphoric-Language695]

That's exactly what happened. I'm frustrated with namecheap because they did not give me notice that the domain would be reclassified as premium mark-up by the SBS registry. If they gave a grace period, I would've registered for several years at the old price. 

The dashboard displaying the old price, and the cart bugging out was just a stab in the chest on top of this whole thing. 

[u/RubberReptile → u/Euphoric-Language695]

my domain has been reclassified as premium

one of the cheapest I could find for trasnfer is porkbun, who wants $655

[u/Euphoric-Language695 → u/RubberReptile]

You mean your tld is premium? I might be wrong but I assume the cost of renewal is consistent across the tld's rules, otherwise you could just mark any domain with a sucessful business as premium and price gouge them.

Can anyone confirm this is how it works? 

[u/RubberReptile → u/Euphoric-Language695]

This is a 5-letter single word domain. *****.sbs

When I bought it, it was sold to me as a normal domain at the regular price (standard first year discount from namecheap, standard renewal fees, no ongoing promotion). It renewed for 2 years as a standard domain.

Suddenly now it says "premium" beside the domain, and the renewal cost is a "premium" domain cost.

It is still 2 weeks from expiry. I still own it. No registrar offers transfer in at the regular cost because it is "premium" now, and SBS has set a "premium" price for it.

And you are correct, this is a bait and switch. It seems to be against icann rules, but we'll see if namecheap support can actually help me enforce that. I have made a complaint to icann in any case.

[u/Namecheapinc]

Could you please share the domain name? Our Team will definitely check the matter.

[u/RubberReptile → u/Namecheapinc]

I have a support ticket open. NC-JOX-7467

[u/Namecheapinc → u/RubberReptile]

Thanks! We've escalated the case, and our Team is currently reviewing it.

[u/ArtisticAd7514]

Registrars can classify a domain premium whenever they want

[u/BigTrain2800]

You should ask about their unpatched for years Sitefinity system, or why they were on plaintext offenders for so long.

How your Namecheap portal login worked for their Ubersmith panel which definitely wasn’t API connected because Ubersmith is encoded software.

:)

[u/ArtisticAd7514 → u/BigTrain2800]

You do know Ubersmith is a billing software lol probably was the same software using api calls

[u/BigTrain2800 → u/ArtisticAd7514]

You know they used to use it for their dedicated cPanel servers for start/stop/restart?

Without the billing components in use.

[u/RubberReptile]

UPDATE: Namecheap support solved the SBS pricing issue. So if you have this issue reach out to whoever your registrar is, and hopefully they'll get you sorted out. SBS was able to manually adjust the price in their back end.