How Can ENOM Charge Me $3K A Year For A “Premium” .TV That Would Sell For A $435 One Time Payment?
Out of the “landrush” of .TV domains a couple of weeks ago one of the biggest remaining issue is the disparity of those “premium” .TV domains registered before Enom lost its exclusive rights with Verisign, the .TV registry, to sell .TV domains, compared to all those domains sold after March 18, 2010.
I have one such of these domains, Great.TV
I have had that domain for several years paying $3K PER year for the rights to own the domain.
A quick e-mail to Enom confirmed what others were already saying on NamePros.
If you have the misfortune of having one of these Pre-landrush (March 18th 2010) domains, you will have to keep paying the annual premium fee to retain your domain.
If you fail to pay the renewal fee, the domain will drop and become available to anyone else.
However, and here’s the kicker, it seems the new owner won’t have to pay the annual outrageous renewal fees you’re paying.
Instead the domain, will be available in most cases for a one time payment, similar to what we saw two weeks ago.
So what would great.tv sell for if I let it drop and it became available for re-registration?
According to Name.com $435.
Right a one time payment of $435 would get you the domain Great.tv which I’m paying $3K per year to own.
After the one time payment of $435, it would then be subject to a normal renewal fee around $20 a year.
So how can Enom charge me $3K to renew a domain that would SELL for a $425 one time payment to someone else?
No logical reason.
It can’t be justified.
Nothing that would stand up in court.
Yet they are dead set on taking this impossible position.
For me its only one domain.
Other domainers have 5, 10, 20 or hundreds of previously “premium” domains they have invested thousands, ten’s of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in, only to see equally or better domains go from a previous $50K per year renewal fees to a $1,500 one time payment.
Its great if you made the $1,500 one time payment to get the domain on or after March 18th, but if you spent a LOT of money renewing these “Premium” domains, year after year, before that date, only to realize if you let them drop they would be available to be purchased by someone else for a one time payment, of just a small percent of what you have been paying as an annual renewal fee, you have to appreciate it would piss you off.
Big time.
How about the poor guy who owns porn.tv.?
If he dropped the domain it would become available for re-registration.
What would the cost be?
$1,158
A one time payment of $1,158 would buy the domain porn.tv.
What do you think that guy has invested in annual renewal costs since 2000 when it was first registered?
Must make the owner of that domain extremely unhappy
Can anyone say class action?
Don’t take my word for it check out Name.com:
