I guess this is a cautionary tale.
I was recently having issues with my Gmail account that’s tied to my Epik ( a domain registrar ) account, so when I was supposed to renew my domain, I didn’t receive any e-mails about it. When I decided to randomly check on my website, it seemed to be down. So I checked Epik and a domain that usually cost £15 a year to renew now cost £400 to renew as it was expired.
As a teenager who does not have £400 to spend on a domain, I decided to just wait until the domain fully expired and buy it for a cheaper price.
After some time, the domain fully expired and GoDaddy decided to buy it as soon as it did, and charged me £2,225 to renew the domain. I don’t understand how a price that large is justified, considering that my website gets barely any visitors and I basically only use the domain for hosting stuff. No idea how hiking prices this much is legal
I knew GoDaddy is somehow involved as soon as I saw the title.
network solutions does this too, search a domain on their site, comeback a month and now they own it and will sell it to you of course. not sure if they still do,but I know for fact they did years back.
GoDaddy (and all other domain squatters) should be rounded up and summarily executed. Don’t even try checking through GoDaddy if a domain is available, because they will pull stunts just like the OP’s case.