User charged $3,000 to renew domain after registrar gave no clear price-change warning

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A user who registered the domain 'onlyfans.sexy' six years ago for a lighthearted fan-photo project was shocked to find a $3,000 renewal charge on their account. Early reminder emails quoted the usual $38 renewal fee, but later notices — sent three days and one day before renewal — reflected the sharply higher price, which the user overlooked. When the customer contacted Hover for a refund, the registrar said it was powerless to override pricing set by the .sexy registry, Uniregistry, and cited a strict no-refund policy. Hover explained that registry-determined premium domain prices can change at any time and that renewal fees are charged to the registrar immediately and non-refundably. The incident has prompted discussion about whether registrars have an obligation to more prominently alert customers to sudden, significant price changes before auto-renewal proceeds.

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