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Author Topic: Domain renewals strategy  (Read 4628 times)

Weaver

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Domain renewals strategy
« on: February 03, 2020, 12:25:22 PM »

I have so many domains - dozens - whose renewals I have been having to keep track of, and I have been finding this increasingly difficult so I’m starting to wonder about strategies for improving things.

John suggested moving them all to one registrar - which is a sane plan good advice. I’ve decided to keep it down to two registrars - dynadot because they’re cheap and AA for the most critical ones because they cannot possibly go wrong as there’s nothing for me to do at all, AA handle the renewals completely and they just add the cost to my bill.

I thought about doing multi-year registrations but then wondered whether that is going to help at all guard against my own screw-ups with renewals. I think it won’t, it will just push the renewal problem further into the future.

I had one idea though. See what you think.

Dynadot allows you to put your account into credit with a positive balance by making a kind of advance ‘top-up’-like payment and then you can set a domain to auto-renew and set a flag saying ‘use balance’ or something, which tells it it can dip into this fund for the renewal rather than praying that it will be able to charge it to some credicard which has probably gone bad, locked up or has expired anyway. This latter problem is even worse for multi-year renewals where there’s no chance of a stored card still bein good by then.

So, what if I make an automated bank payment annually to top up my Dynadot balance and then set all domains’ flags so they can use that balance ? Then there should never be any charges to credit cards. Zero risk of failure.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 01:27:10 PM by Weaver »
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chenks

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2020, 12:29:06 PM »

well all you're doing is moving the risk of failure to another point - ie the automated bank payment.
what if the bank account changes or runs out of funds.

there is still a risk of failure in what you propose.
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d2d4j

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2020, 12:54:17 PM »

Hi

Ultimately the responsibility of domain renewals lies with the owner

Be careful over funds deposited as if you leave, the provider T&Cs may not allow refunds of monies.

Each provider sets their own policies for domain renewal and how they handle failures.

We do but we also contact our clients by phone, it’s easier but more time consuming and we renew without payment upfront under certain conditions.

Some forums users should be able to confirm this

So whichever way you do it, there would always be a failure point.

I would also advice in your situation, to add your wife to email alerts, which should help but remember to whitelist the provider domain email addresses

Many thanks

John
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Weaver

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2020, 01:18:00 PM »

Chenks makes a good point. - thanks

I’m thinking that we have calendar alarms set on two machine n times a year, repeating annually, and in those days we just lay everything ahead of time. So we never relay on reminder emails.

Yes, we need to whitelist those email senders. What I could do is set the addresses that they use for reminder emails to be addresses that are redirects in our mail server, set to fork the email and redirect it to two addresses, to me and to Janet.

Do I also renew for n years at a time ? What do you think ?

If you think that prices are going to continue to go up then it’s perhaps worth it despite the loss of interest on the money paid further ahead of time. You don’t seem to get any discount these days for n year multiple renewals. That’s a shame. I can’t remember now, but I seem to vaguely remember many years ago that there were multi year discounts back then?



Why did I think you can’t see IPS tags ? Indeed you can see them in Whois - just as a helpful fellow kitizen told me earlier

Any idea on the time delay in the whois output though? How much out of date are those displayed values? - I can see a ‘last updated’ in the whois data.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 01:35:31 PM by Weaver »
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chenks

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2020, 02:09:38 PM »

i think you are making this way more complicated than it needs to be.
trying to create a solution for a problem that doesn't exist springs to mind.

i have a domain, and it simply auto-renews. i get an email shortly before advising that it will.
the auto renew uses the card it has on file.

previously the domain was with 123-reg, it's now at Google Domains.
with google domains i can turn auto-renew off, or turn it on for up to 9 years at a time (paying for them up-front).

this seems like the easiest solution. ie let the company you have the domain parked with handle the auto-renewal.
all these extra processes and manual solutions to deal with a fairly simply process is just a recipe for disaster.



interestingly enough, domain locking isn't available for my domain within google domains.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 02:14:10 PM by chenks »
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Chrysalis

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2020, 05:35:02 PM »

It isnt immediately obvious but you can actually auto renew using a debit/credit card with dynadot as well.

I only discovered this about 6 months ago I have used them for years.

I know you have concerns about cards expiring, but this is probably the most sane way, paypal would also be awesome if they support automated paypal payments given paypal accounts dont expire and can use multiple funding sources including bank accounts.  So try and see if you can setup a paypal agreement with dynadot that allows automatic payments for auto renewals, if that works, then that will likely fulfill your requirements since paypal can use bank accounts as a funding source.
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Weaver

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2020, 05:56:44 PM »

PayPal is the best agreed. Cards go bad all time; they get cancelled for security reasons, new magic runes issued so stored cards no longer work.

I already do auto renew but it has failed on me in the past already because the missus has given me flaky inconstant credit card details.

AA is definitely the perfect solution as there’s nothing to do at all, the cost of renewal payments just gets added to my bill.
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vic0239

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2020, 05:58:27 PM »

Is it not the case that in certain circumstances merchants can obtain updated credit card information from the banks for expired cards. Authorisation is usually for access to the credit card account rather than a specific valid card.
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Weaver

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2020, 06:07:56 PM »

I’ll ask my wife, only she knows such things.
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j0hn

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2020, 07:02:39 PM »

Is it not the case that in certain circumstances merchants can obtain updated credit card information from the banks for expired cards. Authorisation is usually for access to the credit card account rather than a specific valid card.

Absolutely.
A recurring payment or CPA (continuous payment authority) can continue to work after a card has expired and a new card issued.

More worryingly in some instances they can continue to work after a card is reported lost/stolen.
You need to contact the retailer or card issuer (your bank) and request the CPA be cancelled.
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Chrysalis

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2020, 07:10:21 PM »

ahh yes I remember such an incident many years ago, an unauthorised CPA, that continued after I reported the card lost.  Card company initially was awkward telling me to get the entity taking the payments to voluntarily stop them, when I told the card company they can continue to authorise but I wont be making payments, they soon changed their tune and cancelled the CPA.

Question is though, do domain renewals fall under CPA, or is it a new authorisation every time.
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d2d4j

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2020, 07:26:11 PM »

Hi

Under new 3DS2 rules, these should only last for 2 year maximum before a payment is made using the CVV as a requirement.

The risk is held by the company using auto payment and not the bank/card provider for auto payments now and would involve charge back fees if any complaint received

So it is a lot stringent then it used to be

Many thanks

John
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Domain renewals strategy
« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2020, 12:24:43 AM »

Absolutely.
A recurring payment or CPA (continuous payment authority) can continue to work after a card has expired and a new card issued.

More worryingly in some instances they can continue to work after a card is reported lost/stolen.
You need to contact the retailer or card issuer (your bank) and request the CPA be cancelled.

I think its worse than that in some cases.  My Barclaycard got charged after it was stolen during the Boomerang Rentals hack.  I'm almost certain those details had expired as I hadn't been a customer in years yet they were able to make charges to my account.

You'd think under data protection, a business would be required to delete your CC details after a couple of years, even if they do not delete your account.

Yet when I joined Plusnet it wouldn't let me use alexatkin, as they almost certainly still have my account on there from when I worked with them 17 years ago!
« Last Edit: February 04, 2020, 12:28:35 AM by Alex Atkin UK »
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