: Domain taken hostage I am making a website for a local firm in my hometown & we would like to use the a .be webadress. However, the owner of the store has already contacted a webdevelopment

@Lee4591628

As Martijn mentioned, any other courses of action could easily cost more than €105, and the idea that they're recouping costs isn't so far a stretch (though I'm not a huge fan of that argument).

Having been there and done that on the agency side, I can help break down what it's actually costing them. Imagine an agency charging 75-100 per hour, whatever the work; whether it's coding or design or just project management time, that's their rate. They don't want to have to go to the trouble of actually tallying every minute of "just" a domain transfer, so they'll have a fixed cost knowing that it may or not entail the following:


Time on the phone/email discussing what you want/need


That includes arguing over the costs

Time looking up past records to find what was done for you in the past
Time confirming that you are actually entitled to represent the same business


There's data protection, avoiding lawsuits for giving it to a competitor or angry ex-employee, etc.

Determining the new registrar and which steps to take for transferring to them


This can be surprisingly inconsistent
Every TLD has a different process to keep track of

Chasing the client to approve/accept the transfer


Can include having to explain every step, sometimes to clients who can barely operate email

Contacting the new registrar on behalf of the client because something (inevitably) goes wrong
Explaining to the client why suddenly their emails stopped working because they didn't have the right DNS settings with the new registrar


Those are only the ones off the top of my head. They may not all apply every time, and there may be more complications any time. If everything goes right, then you've probably spent around a half hour in total. If anything goes wrong, it's an hour minimum and up to a few days maximum. So you make a call as a business, call it a flat rate of an hour or so, and hope it balances out.

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@Deb1703797

To be honest, I was surprised it's only 105 euro's. Yes, it's more that the €3 is cost them, or the €10 it would cost you to register it.


You could get a lawyer, but that would be more expensive
You got get some professional to look into it, but that would be more expensive
You could try contacting/persuading them, but that'll cost you more time/frustration than it's worth.


I don't think €105 is that much at all (especially for a bussiness). They've spend time on appointments and making an offer, but didn't get the deal. This is a way to regain a some loss, not that uncommon.

Call it a learning experience and proceed. You could try the following, but be prepared for a 'no thanks':


Hi. We think €105 is a bit much for just a domainname, but we understand that you've spend some time to make an offer for [clientname]. We're prepared to pay €75,- and call it a deal.


That might save you €30 euro. If you're lucky they're not in the mood to hussle and just go for it.

Remember: They've allready spend money on your client which won't see again and you want something they have. Its's not very polite, but nevertheless bussiness. Respond accordingly.

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@Vandalay111

Last night, i saw some news about Apple bought back icloud.net from a chinese. So, yes, buy the domain may cost 9€ but if you are not the owner then they can charge higher.

Can you check out whois and see if you can access the DNS provider login admin? Like reset the login if the owner has their email there. Then change the NS to another server.

Second alt, post on their facebook. Just let ppl to see how bad they are.

We usually tell our customers that we don't want to own the domains because of this. We too transfer domains to owner if you move from us. Charge just like a new domain, 9€.

Good luck

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