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I just got kicked out of Namecheap and may lose all my domains ๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜‚

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@cryptosharon
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Soooo, I hadn't read my e-mails in a long time, like since July lol. And I have around 12 domains registered in Namecheap. On August 19, they messaged me and told me I had 72 hours to transfer all my domains out of Namecheap.

This brings out a few problems

  • To all who don't know, you need to pay the renewal fee of every domain you transfer (it is renewed for a year) + taxes + ICANN fees + other stuff sometimes.
  • Not all registrars have the same TLDs. .art, .sh and .me domains are rare and few registrars allow transfer of those to their service.
  • I didn't read the e-mail, so I missed the 72h deadline and my account was suspended, with no way to go to the Namecheap dashboard and unlock my domains!

The "reason"

Apparently, since the US government sanctioned certain Venezuelan institutions, chiefly the government and government-associated companies and individuals, Namecheap took the "easy" route and just banned a bunch of unsuspecting Venezuelans from their service.

I guess it's easier to kick out all Venezuelans instead of spending money on researching which ones could be associated with the government...

Some were not banned, though! I checked with others who still use the service and have "Venezuela" as their country on their profile.

I don't know what their selection criteria were, but they unfortunately discriminated against me and carelessly suspended my account without having unlocked my domains for transfer. They did send me the authorization codes but that's not enough since the domains are set up to not allow transfers without owner authorization (i.e. me)

I'm contacting support, but I'm not hopeful. Even if I convince them to allow me to transfer my domains easily, it will be messy, expensive and unpleasant.

Possible solution

The only possibility I'm seeing right now is paying around $150-200 out of pocket for the renewal of a bunch of domains, some of which are more expensive than the others.

As I have a varied assortment of TLDs, I will have to look for multiple registrars unless I find a good one that supports all with all of my TLDs. I know Bluhost probably supports them but I've only heard criticism from their past clients.

So I may have to go for some domains to Google Domains, for others to Cloudflare, or to some other registrar, maybe 101domain.com...

Lessons learned

  • Check yer darned e-mails, Sharon!
  • Use a VPN and claim you're from abroad ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜ญโšฐ๏ธ