Blacknight.ie - Charging me without my agreement and wont refund me

jetski

I got an email today to say I have been charged 30 odd euro to renew a domain by blacknight. I asked for a refund and they said....

Note I never turned the auto renew on? surely they cant get away with doing this to people?

"Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately the renewal of this domain has completed with the Irish Domain Registry and they do not allow cancellations at this stage. The auto-renewal of this has been turned off now and the domain will expire on its expiration date in 2012."

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Try your card company for a refund.

ch750536

I had the same thing with another company. Stated they were in breach of CC rules as I have to opt in to any renewal. They offered part refund, more stampy feet from me, eventually got the full refund when I showed then a draft of a letter to the CC company.

dudara

Moved to Talk to Blacknight

dudara

mneylon

If you haven't done so please contact our accounts department

We send out multiple renewal warnings and notifications

We also provide clear instructions on how to cancel services and / or remove auto-renew.

jetski

I have contact accounts as per my original post.

I was told by blacknight.....

"Any attempt to charge back the payment made with your credit card company will be challenged by us."

I would have prefared if this was left in Consumer Issues, as blacknight have no intention in returning the money they took.

testicle

jetski wrote: »

I have contact accounts as per my original post.

I was told by blacknight.....

"Any attempt to charge back the payment made with your credit card company will be challenged by us."

I would have prefared if this was left in Consumer Issues, as blacknight have no intention in returning the money they took.

Did you ignore all the emails telling you that your domain was going to renew automatically and if you didn't want this to happen to go into your Control Panel and do something? God knows they send out enough of them!

mneylon

jetski wrote: »

I have contact accounts as per my original post.

I was told by blacknight.....

"Any attempt to charge back the payment made with your credit card company will be challenged by us."

I would have prefared if this was left in Consumer Issues, as blacknight have no intention in returning the money they took.

When you signed up you agreed to our terms and conditions:
http://www.blacknight.com/acceptable-usage.html

I would draw your attention to the section there with respect to payments.

We would have sent you multiple notifications regarding the renewal and the charges.

We have now paid for the domain name's renewal with the respective registry.

Mad_Mike

Interesting thread
I was also of the belief, that legally, an auto renew was affecting your statutory rights and unless you specifically choose manually to auto renew, that any charges if contested, will be rewarded to the consumer.

Again, I am not 100% sure on this, and would like to see how it turns out

ch750536

I am 100% sure of this, I contacted the CC company. Your 'positive' authorisation must be given where both the charge and the practice are clear.

Basically, stating your account will be auto renewed is bull & the CC company will give you your cash back, well mastercard would anyway.

Not having a reply to an email is not a positive response. Hiding something in the T's & C's is not a positive response. You should have the agreement to the T's & C's then an additional query of 'Do you want to autorenew, this means that €x.xx will be charged to your card numbered XXX on the date of XXX each year. To cancel this at any time you need to blah blah blah.

Its an underhand way to obtain cash then make it as difficult as hell to give it back.

ch750536

From your T's & C's <a few thousand words of it...>

'A renewal invoice will be sent to the administrative email address, prior to expiration of the domain.'

That implies an offer to renew will be sent then the service will cease until action is taken.

ch750536

Blacknight wrote: »

We have now paid for the domain name's renewal with the respective registry.

your choice, you were not instructed to do so.

dublin daz

Did you get this resolved? Also the title is somewhat misleading 'scam' its a bit over the top.

The renewal would have seen you benefit from a years service, granted you may not have opted in to auto-renew, but I can't see the scam myself.

Why don't you disable this in the control panel like I did.

Malice

I also think scam is over the top. The OP bought a domain and agreed to the terms & conditions. Presumably they used the domain. If they didn't want the domain did they inform Blacknight of this? Did the OP manage to miss all the billing notification e-mails that get sent out? If they did want the domain then where's the problem with auto-renewing?