Now you need to have at least 100$ in your account in order to bid on Namecheap Auctions

[Yanosh]

As I always do , I tried checking namecheap marketplace in order to find some domains.

To my surprise I found out that now , in order to Bid on Namecheap auctions , you need to have at least 100$ in your namecheap account.
Until today , like any other registrar , you only needed to pay the 5$ annual subscription fee.

I personally love Namecheap , but I think they should have at least sent an email informing their customers about this.
I also understand the reason behind it : the goal is to stop people from winning auctions and then not paying for the domain. ( Like it happened on Sedo for about half of the LLLL.com domains auction)
The issue is : what about the domain auctions going over 100$ ?
My guess is that in this case they can freeze the funds on your account as a deterrent.
I tried contacting their support and at the begging they knew nothing about this new policy.
After some research they found out it was true : you need to have at least 100$ on your account and you can withdraw the money when you want.
However , they do not refund top-ups by cryptocurrency.

What’s your thoughts about this ?

 

[D Haynes]

I wasn't aware of this. Think I've only ever bought 1 name from them (pretty low quality expired stream). I don't remember ever paying 5 dollars membership fee either.

Guess I'll stop looking now. I'd rather let them have my credit card on file.

 

[D Haynes]

Received today.

 

[Yanosh]

Yep
Me too, couple minutes ago

I also found out that , in order to withdraw your money from your namecheap account you have to go through their support.
You can’t do it by yourself

 

[jideofor]

I think this for new users and not old account.

 

[Naming]

If you redirect your domain to marketplace listing cheapname disable it

 

[Sperry8]

yup, this policy just stopped me from buying a name. I have no intention to buy $100 worth of names - just wanted one. With 3 dozen names at NC - you'd think that'd be enough to have them know I'm a real customer. But nope, $105 to get started. Not worth it for me