Do I still own my domain name in some way or is WordPress holding it hostage? Needs to be transferre
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The domain I purchased for my blog was part of the WordPress.com Premium plan I purchased. While that plan continued I connected the domain to my Squarespace account. The premium plan has since lapsed because I did not wish to keep it and would prefer to keep the domain in-house with my Squarespace account. Unfortunately my domain name and ownership of it lapsed with it, too, though I tried to transfer it. The automated e-mail I received from WordPress.com about this stated that if I renewed my plan I could then ALSO renew the domain. I have used WordPress many times with free and paid iterations (with company sites and blogs, specifically), but is WordPress now keeping the domain hostage unless I renew my plan? I would prefer to NOT renew the plan but still want to own the domain (and renew ownership as needed to transfer to squarespace). I immediately tried to also purchase the apparently ‘expired’ domain on squarespace, but it says the domain is taken…but I don’t see anyone else owning it at this time with the WHOIS searches. Can the awesome support community of WordPress please throw me a bone here? I need the domain and my site and am also currently unemployed (read: financially destitute, especially when you factor in COBRA). Much love and thanks to any assistance, completely at my wit’s end here. Clearly I effed up or my understanding is messed up but I’m still annoyed that I’m being offered the domain only if I give more money to WP for a paid premium account I don’t wish to have!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Celia,
The domain I purchased for my blog was part of the WordPress.com Premium plan I purchased.
That’s correct, yes. Renewing a plan also renews the domain. However when your plan lapsed, the domain registration did too.
celiacarver.com expired on 2017-01-03 and is currently in the redemption period.
There is more information about expired domains here:
The good news is that you can still try to recover your domain as it has not yet been deleted, purchased by someone else at auction or sold on back-order. A late renewal fee of $80 will be added to the regular domain renewal cost ($18) and private registration fee ($8).
If you agree to these costs I can generate a payment request for the amount. Once that has been paid, we can start the process of trying to get your domain back. Should the recovery fail after you’ve paid the redemption fee, that fee is refunded in full.
If you do not want to pay the fee, you can wait until the domain is released and try to re-register it elsewhere, but you may not be able to get it back if it is purchased at auction during this time.
Acting quickly is important if you do want to try and recover the domain, so please let me know what you would like to do as soon as you can.
Let me know if you have any questions.
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Hi,
Thanks so much for responding to my question!
This has never been clear to me because my communications from WordPress about this were inherently (and I’m copying and pasting the wording):
“Renewing WordPress.com Premium for another year costs $99.00. When you renew, your blog will again be available at “celiacarver.com”.”
But it wasn’t really explicitly clear to me how the domain would be affected, NOR how I could purchase the domain name/renew it as owner if I chose NOT to renew my premium account. The wording of the e-mail reminders (and further, the marketing of the premium account renewal) made it seem like only a package deal and for $99, but are you now telling me I could have opted OUT of the premium ($99) to only pay $18 for domain renewal and $8 for private registration fee for a total of $26, which could then have been transferred to Squarespace?
So is my option now to still go without the premium but now actually pay a late renewal fee (only for the domain) of $80 plus regular domain renewal cost ($18) and the $8 for private registration fee of the domain?
So it will cost me now $106 dollars in total, plus any tax that may be included, to get this domain name renewed and registered to me and then have it fully transferred to my paid Squarespace account? That seems obscene to me if that’s the case since the renewal itself would have cost less than that, as completely unnecessary as I felt a premium account renewal was for me.
Please confirm this is true and the costs are accurate. I will then confirm if I want to proceed, but trust that I’m extremely frustrated by this. Of course I’m frustrated by my own apparent ignorance of these things and my own personal time wasted trying to fix this myself when I realize now I should have just posted directly to the support groups (though I typically like to learn to do things by myself when possible, and hate being a burden to others)! I’m not so naive to think my own misunderstanding and web/tech ignorance isn’t at play here. But I am also upset about the way this was marketed directly to me and with the wording chosen by WordPress, which directly affected my own interpretation!
I am currently unemployed after major life changes in December when I had to leave my city and relocate. That’s as concise as I can make my own sob story without a lot of annoying detail.
I am now working toward building a freelance career and because of my own misunderstanding built from what I feel was misleading copy and info, I can either choose to lose the domain with my name, or pay to renew it with an added late renewal fee of $80 that I might not even currently have finance-wise.
Anyway, thanks for your patience and explanation. Please indeed confirm the renewal and registration (and late renewal as much as that pains me) is only for the domain and at what exact cost. I can then confirm if I want to proceed.
I would of course prefer to have that late renewal fee waived for about 8,000 different reasons, chief among them kindness about my misunderstanding based on WordPress’s wording and also respect for me as a customer since I’ve personally given money to WordPress for my own needs in addition to having started or worked on two different company sites and blogs still operating via WordPress to this day. I would welcome an e-mail about that if anyone at WordPress is receptive to considering this.
Sincerely and thank you.
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Hi Celia,
I’ve sent a follow up email to the email address on your WordPress.com account. We can go through your options in more detail there :)
Speak to you soon!
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