Is Register.com an online Hotel California?

Here’s the scenario. In 1998 I registered a domain with the American company Register.com, I don’t know why I used this particular registrar, they probably came out on top on Hotbot or Lycos. The years went by and I’d annually fork out around $60 to keep my domain, thinking that this was how much a top level domain cost.

Not so. I was amazed to see that a U.K. based registrar that I also use offered to host a top level domain for around a tenth of the price I was paying in the U.S. (A fiver to be precise).

To repeat an overused and increasingly annoying phrase, “It’s a no brainer”.

First of all I had to contact the company I worked for 13 years ago to get my email address reinstated, this enabled me to change the email contact at the registrar. That done, the next step was to approach my current registrar and ask them to release my domain.

I log into the portal and am immediately told that a domain needs renewing, so I follow the process of being sold various mobile apps I don’t want before being informed that I can renew for one year for the bargain price of $81.

Too expensive, so I go to get my authorisation code before being offered a renewal for $20 (Offer doesn’t last long!). Now a little insulted I decline their kind offer and continue, more sales before a message telling me that I’ll receive an email in 4-5 days.

4-5 days? How come it takes so long when everything they want from me can take seconds? Further, they know as well as I do that their email will probably  got lost in my junk and they’ll  end up getting their money anyway. So in that sense in their desperate clamour for cash they’ve ended up like the Hotel California, everything’s fine – you just can’t leave.