The 123 Reg Fail Blog

We were approached by a customer who came to us a while back for some help with hosting. We ended up copying their domain name to our 123-Reg account so that we could manage it with ease.

The time has come to renew their domain, and they wanted two more buying at the same time. We logged in to 123-Reg and searched for the new domains, they were available – so i added to the basket and clicked “ok, lets continue”

It then asked me about WHOIS privacy – i always usually opt out of these things as i dont think its a good idea to publish info on the WHOIS for everyone to see, especially if the domain name contains dodgy content.

I clicked next, and it stuck two £9.95 charges on the domains. Pay for WHOIS privacy? What the hell? I have never had to do this before, and i only bought some domain names last week!

I did some google searching and i found a few other people with similar problems. One guy even said;

“The idea of paying for whois privacy doesn’t sit right with me. It’s like those registrars are saying “pay us more money or we will give your personal details to anyone who wants them”

I kinda agree to an extent – why should we have to pay ten quid to opt out of something that has been free forever. I bet its people like 123-reg shooting themselves in the foot by selling domain names for so little.

Hopefully the other registrar we use hasnt started robbing people, too.