perhaps i am wrong but australia seems to be the only market where you pay for transfers ??

maybe i am wrong about that , will they ever go away do you think

I feel the market would grow if we didn't have to deal with these fees

.....discuss

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If auDA removes the restrictions then yeah it could happen. But I can't see it on the agenda any time soon!

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I agree with spacey that this seems really odd - you can transfer between registrars you just can't change the registrant.

Does auDA charge registrars to modify the registrant information? Compared to the price to purchase a new domain, $150+ in most cases to change is a tad high.

Yes they (auDA) require that you renew for another 2 years not simply transfer the name holder. The extra $ is to handle the paperwork which is also required by auDA - pretty sure you need a signature so this process cannot be automated.

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they are legally ripping off people

It is bad in my opinion, for Australian domain name investment and trading.

I'm not going to snap up a few bargain domain names to flip or develop for fast resale knowing that on top of the domain price I'm going to be up for a couple of hundred more in fees. I would have a hard time selling these low value names with the added fees too - suddenly your $50 bargain name is now a couple of hundred dollars.

I think these fees are stopping eligible overseas domainers dabbling in the Australian domain market - and that has to be damaging prices/sales.

Has there been a change since the new year?

I was helping a hosting client who managed to get scammed by their webmaster. I had them move their domain to my (reseller) domain registrar as they were with the scamers reseller company and they had access to the domain.

I expected there to be a transfer fee or at the very least a new registration period but it seems the whole transaction was free?

Sounds like you are talking about a 'transfer of management'. Thats a different thing and sound ALWAYS be free of charge.

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no, sorry - I didn't explain fully
- the domain had been registered in her webmasters name not hers - she contacted them to have it put in her name and transferred to my reseller registrar.
I'm thinking perhaps as I cant find any posts about change of rules anywhere on the net that her webmaster ate the fees knowing it should have been in her name in the first place and it wasn't free after all.
Damn, got my hopes up there for a minute

Hmm yeah OK. Think I had a similair situation where I registered a name for a client using their eligibility details (ABN) but using my details as the contact information.

The client was able to split the domain from my account without my authorisation (which was fine with me). NetRegistry sent me an emial after the domain was removed from my account.

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