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I was recently asked to assist a client of ParkLogic in a domain sale of com.au domains. Unlike .com domains com.au domains have some very peculiar rules about them that if broken could end you up in hot water via the governing body AUDA.
 Many registrars take advantage of these rules to exploit their customers and generate huge fees for little to no effort. Knowing this in advance I worked out a deal with the client's existing registrar to stagger renewals and change of ownership of the domains over the following 12 months. I was assured by the more than helpful account representative that this would not be a problem and that the change of ownership would be done at no cost when the domains were renewed. All was good!
On the day of signing the agreement I thought that I'd just double check things with the registrar and that's when all hell broke loose. Suddenly the price rose by 285% to $66 per domain! I was told that this was a discount from the normal charge of $99. Our client had 367 domains to transfer which was then going to cost $24,222. All was not good!
After making a few phone calls I discovered that some registrars were charging $200 per domain to change ownership. Yes, you read that correctly. They were then blaming AusRegistry (the Australian registry) for the fees. I called up AusRegistry who informed me that they could only charge what was in place by AUDA and that they did not charge anything for change of ownership other than the standard renewal fee.
Now let's think about what had to happen at the registrar. Essentially it's a database change that takes (from their own admission) about five minutes per domain. This means that the registrars are charging up to $2400 per hour to change the ownership of a domain and this is without any sort of automated system.
In comes the white knight for my client. I gave the team at drop.com.au and Fabulous (as they now own drop.com.au) a call and asked if they could help my client out. It took them about 10 minutes to come back with an answer and it was an answer that made the deal go through with smiles all around.
On behalf of ParkLogic's client I want to personally thank Mike Robertson and George Pongas for coming to the party and working in a proactive manner to resolve this situation. It's great working with you guys!
What this whole experience has highlighted is that many registrars in Australia are completely uncommercial when it comes to domainers that own more than 2 domains. To be paying up to $200 for a database change is crazy and was going to cost my client $73K+ This situation alone is likely to inhibit the infant com.au aftermarket....which is a real shame.
My recommendation is that if you are in the com.au namespace then give the team at Fabulous a call as I'm sure that they will look after you.
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The team at drop.com.au are by far the best .au registrar with the speed of resolving issues, their great pricing, special bulk deals, and even helping doing all the work in domain transfers. Hats off to them!!
I just wish I could say the same thing for the Fabulous domain parking team... taking months to add a few domains to accounts... (well maybe a few more than a few, but still adding domains)..
Seems like that they do not want parking business anymore, but are more focused on their registrar side of things... I suppose I should not be greedy as we do at least get one great service out of them.
Cheers
David