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Ask HN: Registrar won't honor premium status domain incorrectly listed

3 points by simplecomplex ↗ HN
I purchased a domain through a reseller. The domain was listed as non-premium in the WHOIS DB. The registrar is now saying that they listed a premium domain by mistake, and do not want to honor the sale. The reseller is in negotiations with them. The registrar is stalling as its been almost a month now.

Does anyone know what the rules/law is surrounding this situation? How can I ensure I get the domain I purchased?

4 comments

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elmerfud
Most of the time sellers aren't required to honor sales of incorrectly listed items. You would have to check the jurisdiction that this falls under to know for sure. A lawyer could assist with this.

If they notified you of the error, refunded your money then most likely there's nothing you can do. The sale wasn't completed if you never took ownership of the domain. You have no actual loss you just didn't get what you wanted.

If you happen to be able to show that they backed out of the deal because they gained knowledge of what your intended use was then perhaps you have standing, but that's still unlikely.

Tomte
"To have standing" does not mean "a chance to win". Either he has standing to sue, or he doesn't. The details of the transaction don't matter.

And yes, he has standing, and no, he should probably simply forget about it.

elmerfud
No, he might have standing. If there jurisdiction requires that incorrectly priced items be sold at the marked price then he will. If they are like most places where the seller cannot be held to sell at an incorrect price then he does not.

Since we don't know which is the case saying for sure the he has standing is misleading. The information we have now is, "but I want to more sir". Compelling items to be sold isn't a common thing. Sellers can choose to decline sales.

He would have a far better case if the situation was that the offer to sell was withdrawn after they found out it's intended use. That does not seem to be what happened here. It was a simple pricing mistake.

anfilt
You have probably have standing both legally, or through bureaucratic labyrinth that is ICANN. (If I recall a registrar can't do what you describe) However, it probably would cost more than domain is worth. Especially since you mention "premium" domain. That probably means it's from one of the newer gTLDs. They for most part don't have much value.