Source
r/webdev•
Emfx

Not sure where to post this, but be careful ordering from NameCheap unless you're 100% sure of your purchase. Charged my card for my cart without confirming order.

Discussion

I just ordered a few domains off of NameCheap, and while I was at the Order Confirmation page (so the order was still pending until I hit the Confirm Order button at the bottom), my phone lit up and said I had made a successful payment in the full amount to NameCheap, yet I hadn't confirmed my order. I was going to purchase them anyways so I hit the button, it did a "payment processing" animation (even though the payment had already processed in full on the previous page), and there were no other hiccups... but I know some people deal with multiple-thousand dollar transactions on here that will edit their orders before confirming, and this may bite them in the ass and add unneeded headache.

I contacted them via Live Chat, but they told me there is no known error, so it was either a one-time thing (no clue how that would happen), or it's a new bug.

TL;DR: Something caused NameCheap to charge my card for my cart before I confirmed my purchase. Everything works fine, but be careful if you have a bloated cart of undecided purchases.

Posted Mar 1, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

18645
wspnut•

Have a couple dozen domains I've bought on NameCheap over the past few years and never had this issue. Could be a new bug, like you said - but will definitely keep an eye out for my next purchase.

152
EmfxOP•

Yeah I've made probably 20-30 purchases with no issue in the last few years, so this was definitely out of the ordinary.

22
StackWeaver•

Never had an issue in 10 years of Namecheap. I'm sure they'll fix it up.

11
akash227•

Same here bought several domains and hosting from them never had an issue

4
emcee_gee•

Just a thought - maybe it was a preauth?

36
EmfxOP•

The funds transfer was finalized according to my bank app, nothing was pending, so I have no clue what it was. Like I said to another comment, this is the first time this has happened in the 20-30 transactions I've had with them in the last few years.

6
Charles_StoverCharlesStover.com•

according to my bank app

Debit cards don't support authorization like credit cards do. An authorization on a debit card will withdraw it from your bank. That is not a choice made by the authorizing party; it is just a limitation of debit cards.

8
HackerCrackerSlacker•

This is one of the reasons why I will never use a debit card online. Credit card only. Free month to pay and you are in a much stronger negotiating position if there is fraud or other problems.

4
mminar•

it happened to me too yesterday! I was ordering new .dev domain and at first I thought it was just a 1 dollar card auth thing, but it charched the full amount before the last step like you described...

27
TrackieDaks•

Wait, aren't they like $10k?

1†
virtualmadden•

No, $14.98

18
[deleted]•

[deleted]

18
midder•

Google Domains is not available globally yet, though

5
y0y•

That was during the pre-sale. They're around $14 now unless you're trying to buy a premium domain (eg: common word, 3 letters, etc.) in which case the price varies from $100-$1000, give or take.

10
emnudge•

3 letter domain names containing a number is still $12 though. UE4.dev was still $12, but someone sniped it right when the early access payments went down

5
akaliant•

I've placed a few orders with them over the last month in which they took the money from my Paypal account, and then came back with an error saying the domain could not be purchased.

It seems they don't validate the domain until after payment is received. It was super annoying, since it happened multiple times, and in each time I had to suffer through live support to get the charge refunded. Their system surprisingly did not auto-refund the purchase when the domain failed.

I'll just use AWS next time and pay a slightly higher fee.

14
jeromymanuel•

Yeah I did a search on there for a very short url that another domain service told me was available. I couldn’t believe it, a 3-letter word TLD for $8!

Until it came time to check out. They then wanted $1800 for my “premium” domain. Didn’t care that I had screenshots and proof of what they advertised it as.

Wrote it off as a glitch.

11
boxxa•

I’ve been with them for years and never had this issue. Their domains I’ve even returned because I knew I spelled it wrong and they gave me credit back for doing it so fast.

6
fuckin_ziggurats•

I've had Chrome's credit card saver charge me about $1 when I picked it in the credit card autocomplete just before I confirm paying. It took a while before I noticed that it's not the actual paying that's being accepted too early but that Chrome's charging me for verifying and auto-completing my credit card details.

I've never had any issues with NameCheap, it's always turned out to be something else I hadn't noticed.

6
peterpamps•

Using Namecheap for domains and hosting and never had an issue; hope this is only a misunderstanding and that they resolve it fine. Anyway, I will keep alert as all my work is there.

5
GlowInTheDarkDonkey•

And don't order .au domains through them. They have no clue what they are doing nor the rules for au domains. It's a cluster fuck.

4
gruso•

Yep. Namecheap continues to be my go-to, but the one time I bought a .com.au there was some cluster with the renewal that left us locked out from being able to renew, and having to let it lapse and re-buy.

Rule of thumb now is Crazy Domains for au, Namecheap for anything else.

1
BawdyLotion•

Same for other country codes. Tried to do some .ca domains through them and they kept throwing all sorts of fun rejection errors without explaining how to fill in the info properly to meet the TLD criteria. Ended up just googling it and it was fine but their site definitely isn't streamlined for country code specific registration details.

1
gketuma•

Wow, this happened to me yesterday as well when I tried to buy some dev domains. It did not go to a confirmation page and straight processed all transactions using a stored CC number. I thought it was weird but the transactions went through. Not a good user experience for sure.

4
KiratLoL•

There was one friend who i tried to pull from godaddy to namecheap, this happened on his first purshase from namecheap (it was a year ago), it was difficult to argue for namecheap after that since support was useless and no fund returned.

I still use them though

3
the_goose_says•

I’ve bought a dozen domains through them (I have an addiction) and have never had a problem . I assume it’s a temporary bug. I appreciate the heads up though!

3
UtesCartman•

I was ordering a .dev domain yesterday and funny enough this exact thing happened, but my bank froze my card.

Ended up getting it unfrozen and getting my first name (relatively) cheap through google domains.

2
K_Rains•

You just ask their support to help you.

Something like that happened to me to, but they fixed the issue immediately.

As for the service and support, it's the best registrar I dealt with.

2
PmYourFavouriteColor•

It may be worth speaking to them about this OP, as it may be a bug.

I’ve been using Namecheap for probably the best part of 10 years and they’ve always been fantastic; their support is friendly and responsive, their dashboard is easy to use, and they’re... well... cheap!

I’ve looked at moving to Hover a couple of times, mainly based on the recommendations of others, but I’ve never really seen the point as Namecheap do everything I need for a good amount cheaper.

2
TheDarkSwordsman•

I had a smiliar issue with a .dev domain. I guess since it was short it was a premium domain, and namecheap failed to get the premium price. Therefore, I checked out at $15.16 and it charged my card, and it even gave me a receipt, but it said it had trouble and I didn't actually get the domain. They said it'd take 2-10 days for the refund of $30.32 because I charged it twice.

I knew not paying $720 through Google was too good to be true.

2
SgtQuack•

I honestly just experienced this two days ago with a renewal. I was charged before I even hit the pay button on pre checkout.

2
imbdb•

Happened to me too.

2
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
majdman•

This happened to me aswell last month. Opened page to renew but cancelled because I didn’t want to use that card on file. Left it for a while and then got an email with payment receipt

1
taoster•

I was renewing domains with them yesterday and the shopping cart was having issues, couldn't get it done until a few hours later. Haven't had any other problems before though.

1