Namecheap canceling domain registration

General Chat Tech & Gaming
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Seeing @ndrw’s post about a John Lewis order being cancelled due to “security checks” reminded me of a recent experience with Namecheap, a domain registrar.

Long story short: I bought a domain off them. It all worked very well: I paid via Monzo (virtual card - this’ll be relevant in a bit) and I was up and running quickly.

I wanted to use it for email, so I sorted out the configuration and was feeling pretty pleased with myself. I intended to use it as my main email account, including Monzo.

Fortunately, I didn’t immediately transfer everything other immediately. A couple of days pass, and I receive a message:

Unfortunately, your Namecheap account was flagged by our fraud screening system and was locked. As a result, your order was canceled and refunded.

If you believe that this is a misunderstanding, please follow the instructions below to get your account verified:

  • take a color photo of the credit card used for the payment at [redacted]

Please make sure all of the edges of the credit card are visible, and that we can clearly see the card holder’s name, expiration, and last four digits of the card number. If the submission does not meet these requirements we will request that you submit this information again.

A couple of days later I received a refund. Which, due to currency fluctuations meant I lost a couple of pennies.

My account was locked out. Instead, they created a ticket on their incident system, so I dropped them a note to complain. They cancelled on me in November and haven’t had the courtesy to reply.

Compared to the John Lewis example, I can understand the potential for harm here (phishing, spam etc). Although my domain wasn’t anything that (I think) resembled any firm or entity. I suppose my main gripe is that they went nuclear (what’s wrong with a suspension?) before asking questions. Then asked for a copy of something that a) they shouldn’t (in my view) ask for, and b) something that was impossible anyway.

Grumble over.

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Completely agree with this, but seems to be a common practice when a merchant sniffs something funny. When this stuff goes hand in hand with dreadful customer service, you’re not going to get anywhere.

Doesn’t happen too often thankfully, but I do note it tends to be more common with merchants that attract a higher rate of fraud. Namecheap being one of those companies that, as a kid, I could go nuts with, setting up countless domains, for little cost, to experiment with, so it wouldn’t surprise me if overtime, they’ve attracted a significant number of bad actors.

When I had plus, I did notice some retailers get a little iffy with the virtual cards, so I suspect that may have been the flag in your case.

I use these incidents as a lesson in which companies to avoid buying goods and services from, and the trend between them, as there are quite easy tells, in that their offer is absurdly cheap compared to the expect usual cost elsewhere.

I wouldn’t recommend namecheap to anyone. For just domain stuff, Gandi or Hover are best in my experience

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I’m surprised you got caught up in this because for practically every Phishing scam attempt we receive at work either directly or to our customers, are fronted with Namecheap Domains and Web Servers. So I’m surprised they do any checking at all!

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I use them as my website is on the .moe tld that has very few registrars and they throw in whois privacy so the site shows up as owned by a company in panama so my address is not public.

Fun fact the first .moe domain registered with them belongs to someone I know.

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Personally, I’ve used Namecheap on and off for years, from back when they launched as an Enom reseller, and I can’t say I’ve ever had a terrible experience with them.

Support has been variable over the years, but generally above average as domain registrars go. My recent interactions with them have been mostly positive and quickly handled.

That said, I’ve mostly moved away from them now due to them being priced higher than others and there being nothing special to keep me with them. They also, as noted by @Chalky, have a habit of keeping bad company which I’m not a fan of.

I’ve mostly been using Porkbun but I’ve heard bad enough things to not really recommend them (though I’ve had no issues). Also use NameSilo and Name.com which I’ve never had any issues with.

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I have a few domains with them and one with Google domains, I’ve never had to contact support so can’t rate but I do intend to move my important ones off namecheap

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Yeah I use Namecheap for a lot of domains, even the one in my bio and my IRL email accounts. Never had an issue.

Perhaps you could push on their live chat that it is a Virtual Card but you can evidence it is yours.

Best of luck

PS: Try push it through on social media once you have the ticket number so they can speed it up

I concur with @admdly in that Porkbun is decent enough, never had a bad experience myself though

BUT

I do not recommend Namecheap for Shared Hosting due to congestion (buy a VPS, I use Hetzner) or Namesco/Lcn/Register.it for domains, cheap lure prices, then jack it up with £10 transfer out fee.