back to article Beleaguered 123-reg customers spot price hike

Customers of domain biz 123-reg – which last month accidentally deleted the data of hundreds of customers and took their websites offline, and yesterday broke its own email systems – have complained the biz has doubled its fees. One customer got in touch this week regarding the increase. "I've got a few domains with 123-reg. …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have the misfortune of having a few domains I look after registered with 123, I'd like to move them away but where too? It seems that all the (larger) companies dealing with domain names are as bad as one another.

    I never understood why we couldn't just register domains direct with the relevant body (e.g. Nominet). It's a completely computerized system (or it should be) there's no need for a separate registration companies.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      I'm in the same position, but I also recall there is now a charge levied by 123 Reg if you want to transfer your domain away from them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I've been using namecheap for more than a decade with no problems. Their support is pretty good. I'm not being paid for saying this, unfortunately.

      2. djack

        "I'm in the same position, but I also recall there is now a charge levied by 123 Reg if you want to transfer your domain away from them."

        Not as far as I can see, I've just gone through the whole process (up to the point in specifying the recipient registrar's IPS tag) and there is no mention of a charge.

        They are running a two for one offer of some description. It may be that they are (reasonably IMO) asking you to pay for the 'free' registration before moving it away.

      3. Richard Winslow 123-reg

        123-reg do not charge for domain transfers out. You can login to your control panel and change an IPS tag (UK domains) to another registrar for free of charge. The change is almost instant. No fax is required, no extra hurdles, plain and simple. Not all of our UK competitors can say that.

        We did several years ago under alternative management make a change in this process, but since I took control that was reverted very quickly, after only a short period of time being active.

    2. Timmay

      I've been with Easily.co.uk since I registered my first domain name in 1999, never had any problems with them at all. Sure, they may not be quite as cheap as the cheap-as-chips competitors like 123-reg, but you're talking a difference of a pint of beer over the year (or two) registrations.

    3. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

      Vidahost here - they'll also offer a 'dns only' free deal (no hosting package) if you want to do that, but you have to e-mail and ask so they can twiddle the appropriate things.

      1. Richard Winslow 123-reg

        All 123-reg accounts include the DNS only aspect, you can buy a domain for the price shown on the website and change your name servers straight away, or use the free DNS management within 123-reg to alter A/MX or other more advanced settings free of charge.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I never understood why we couldn't just register domains direct with the relevant body (e.g. Nominet).

      You used to be able to, but apparently they want to stop doing that now. Had a client who left a domain in there as an ultimate emergency measure in case the other registrar went down and they wanted ninety fucking quid to renew a .co.uk for a year. Ninety! Shitheads.

      EDIT: I like vidahost for hosting; but I always keep hosting and domains separate. Makes it much easier to move hosts

      1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

        @moiety Hadn't realised they had stopped it.

        Company I worked for had originally registered all domains direct with Nominet, around 9 years ago I think we were being billed £80 per nominet domain name.

        I think mainly this was because we were contacting direct instead of using Nominets automated systems (automaton system I seem to remember was done via email at the last ISP I worked for).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I don't know for sure that Nominet have stopped it. Last time I looked, the renewing and buying new domain controls were nowhere to be seen, not that you could ever find what you needed on their bloody site anyway. It is possible that they are still in business and I didn't see the controls through the red mist. Ninety fucking quid! *thinks tranquil thoughts in a dark room for 10 minutes*

          Anyway...

          £90 for a $7.58 domain (note currencies!) seems like pretty clear discouragement to me. If they are in business punting out domain names, then there are probably better ways of going about it.

          Back in the day, a lot of people used Nominet -had some there myself- they were a bit more expensive, but they were the authority, right? But they didn't really offer anything for the money and their website -I seem to remember- was always a pain in the arse.

    5. g e

      LCN.com for me

      Been using them for ages, decent straighforward UI, auto-renew if you want it, good notification of upcoming renewals so you can check price if you want, etc.

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: LCN.com for me

        Likewise for me. Been using them for years (and easydns for my external DNS needs)

    6. Deej

      I am in the process of migrating all my domains away from 123-reg to Gandi.

      To be fair to 123-reg, they don't charge to transfer away, but even before the price hike they were (in my opinion) very expensive. I've been meaning to transfer for ages but laziness got in the way; however the problems they have had this year had given me the final incentive to get my backside in gear :)

    7. GregRobson

      Hover.com is good

      Hover.com is a subsiduary of Tucows.

      I moved my domains from 123-reg last year (I had to pay to unlock them... that tactic didn't sit well with me - turned out my hunch was right about their strategy). Hover has loads of domain suffixes and a clear "get it done easily" dashboard.

      They sell domains and some email services... that's it. Domains are registered fast, the DNS updates are near instant. I had an issue where I couldn't log in recently, but I was able to get support quickly and found that I could renew a domain without logging in which saved by bacon!

      I've used Namecheap for SSL certs, their support and dashboard seems to be just as good.

      I love it when companies do fewer things and do them exceedingly well :-)

    8. Detachedaudio

      I was asking the same question yesterday since i havent been able to open an email in 24 hours... I think ill be switching. I got a response from a friend whom ill quote for simplicity purposes.

      "hit me up next time u need hosting or web services, was my prev job, i'm a right geek wen it comes to this"

      "can always offer time for advice mate, even if i cant build a website for ya, happy to help you setup something like WP shop safley (IT and Data security was more specifically my job, involved web design)"

      "you can get dataflame hosting, which includes CPanel, which allows you to install lots of different CMS, web shops, etc etc with just a click of a button; security taken care of."

      So im going Dataflame

      https://www.dataflame.com/

      1. Vic

        "hit me up next time u need hosting or web services, was my prev job, i'm a right geek wen it comes to this"

        Someone so clearly challenged when it comes to linguistic accuracy would not be getting my business for something that so clearly requires getting textual settings right...

        https://www.spamflame.com/

        First post, spamming us a link to a commercial organisation. That smells a bit funny...

        Vic.

        1. Spasticus Autisticus

          Express Hosting is where I keep my sites - fantastic service.

    9. Fonant

      Mythic Beasts, a proper UK business that supports good causes and open source projects.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This isn't news. I have a single 123-reg registered domain and I was emailed about this months ago.

  3. Alister

    I can't believe I'm about to type these words, but:

    "to be fair to 123-reg"

    the domain renewal price rises are a consequence of Nominet's (and ultimately ICANN's) policies, and all registrars have had to increase their pricing by quite a large hike.

    What is slightly disingenuous is that a lot of registrars seem to be keeping the price down for initial purchase, but stinging you for renewals.

    1. Richard Winslow 123-reg

      Thank you for the fairness!

      To be open, 123-reg do run domain promotions, however are very clear on the costs. When you buy a domain for a reduced first year rate you can see the renewal rate in the order process (as the discount shown). Then before we renew a domain name we email you a month in advance with the domain name and renewal price, you can then login to the 123-reg control panel and turn domain renewal off, or at any time from the point of registration. We try to be as open with promotions as possible and ensure domain holders are able to manage their domain names openly in advance of any renewals to ensure the domain is indeed wanted.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahahahaha!

    For those prices you can get a decent registrar like Gandi or EasyDNS.

    1. GarethB

      Re: Ahahahaha!

      +1 for Gandi

      They have a nice easy to use and well documented API which makes things easier if you have a lot of domains to manage.

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    .....the biz has doubled its fees.

    You'd almost think that half their customers had suddenly buggered off for some mysterious reason and they have to cover costs.......

    1. Richard Winslow 123-reg

      Nope, the registry increased their prices on March 1st, 123-reg then increased their prices. We knew about this and informed customers months in advance. Some others in the UK increased customer prices before way before March 1st, when their costs had not changed. The pricing we charge is in line with the core UK domain providers.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why is the American date format being used in this article? It's not an American company, presumably the author is not American, and the Reg itself is .co.uk site.

    We need to be encouraging the Americans to use a sensible date format, like the rest of the world. Not pandering to their stubbornness

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      "Why is the American date format being used in this article? It's not an American company, presumably the author is not American, and the Reg itself is .co.uk site.

      We need to be encouraging the Americans to use a sensible date format, like the rest of the world. Not pandering to their stubbornness"

      Nigel Farage a.k.a Anonymous Coward,

      You'll get your vote in a few weeks to take the country away from the foreigners so that you can ban anyone who is not English from coming in to the UK. Until then, pipe down.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        What on earth has the Euro Vote got to do with date formats? My comments apply to the majority of Europe too as they use the same format as the UK does.

        The point being the use of MMM-DD-YYYY is a date format predominately only used by America. You would expect a story that is about a UK company, by an author that does not appear to be American, hosted on a site which is again not based in America to use the standardised date format.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Yankdates

          Bloody impossible to work out.

          Had lots of moans about reports not working while testing software, because none of us could get our heads around the dates.

          "Why is 24/04/16 an invalid date?"

          "Why is a report from 01/04/16 to 01/05/16 empty? I put on loads of orders for today."

          Was a simple code change but a nightmare to test.

          Imperial was easy in comparison. Just a matter of scale. And making sure all rounding was consistant. Putting floating point mm into integer mm pushed to wrong 1/16".

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Yankdates

            I find both SAP & Oracle reporting to be a royal pain in the backside when you try and manipulate it from a CSV or XML dump to Excel.

            Excel seems to mess around with the data by recognising it's in the wrong format, so thinks it's being helpful and changes some of the date formats (1-12), however then leaves the others behind. I find the Text to Column function helpful here as you can recode the data format, but would prefer not to have to mess around in this way.

            It's a big frustration that these big companies do not set their formatting as YY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YY, either/or is fine when it comes to manipulation. Makes me wonder if changing the data format within SAP & Oracle data is extracts is even possible.

        2. Michael Habel

          The 'Merikans have yet to marvel at the wonders of the Metric System, and your winging on about Date Formats?

      2. Triggerfish

        I have to say, as someone who works with a lot of Americans and people in the UK on joint projects, the date format and the fact they like imperial is a right pain in the arse.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Well

          Our Yank customers do accept that any software they get works natively in mm and converts for edit and view.

          25.4 is now the number

    2. Michael Habel

      You mean like <YEAR><MONTH><DATE> or <DATE><MONTH><YEAR>?

      1. Wommit
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The 'mericans should at least be consistent, and change their time format to minute:second:hour

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Domain Monster

      Been there for many years since 123-reg had an all weekend dns outage. Think I've only had one issue of any significance whilst I have been there and their support is good. Their control panel could do with a few more features (which I've suggested).

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I actually run with Lunarpages

    Free domain with basic hosting and the extra domains don't cost too much. I've been happy with my service for a good number of years. Ideal for a lightweight like me, and they don't blink an eye about my adult site content either. (no, I'm not giving you the URL)

    Yes, there's unlimited things on the plan, but I don't take the mick.

  9. Allan 1

    Got to be fair

    Ive used 123 for a long time now, and while their fees are creeping up, there does seem to be fewer "hidden" costs than there were with the old management. They used to charge to transfer your domain out, the new management abolished that.

    Their customer service, while a little on the slow side, is remarkably knwledgeable too.

    1. Richard Winslow 123-reg

      Re: Got to be fair

      Thanks Allan, glad you have noticed the improvements. I have a lot more planned for this year to build our service teams, so you get to the great help the teams can offer with less waiting and extending the hours available. Any suggestions you have, please send my way (richard.winslow@123-reg.co.uk).

  10. Duffaboy
    Trollface

    Customer always pays the

    Overtime bill.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nominet rules require that the registrant contact details be correct and belonging to the registrant. So if you are determined that you don't want to give 123-reg any fee for transfer out, if they did it, then you can just do a force transfer through Nominet which is like roughly £10 one off.

    So if 123-reg want to be dicks about it, just leave with a middle finger.

  12. Richard Winslow 123-reg

    You can register domain names directly with Nominet, but they charge a lot more (£80 / year), see this page here : https://secure.nominet.org.uk/flows/register-domain.html

    The pricing for most hosting companies within the UK for domains is similar. If you are happy with 123 Reg to manage your domain names, then moving for price is not likely going to give you any further advantages. If you are unhappy with 123 Reg, then please email me directly and I will see if I can address your concerns (richard.winslow@123-reg.co.uk).

  13. batfastad

    Namecheap

    +1 for namecheap.

    IIRC 123-reg still charge a fee for outbound transfers though. Mid 90s registrar mindset with a control panel to match. Even before their recent mega-fail I was surprised to hear they still existed. Even worse than Fasthosts IMO, and that is saying something.

    1. Ne body

      Re: Namecheap

      Another +1 for namecheap, been using them for years.

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