I don't understand why there is a $15 domain name change fee and why you can only change it once every 6 months free. It doesn't cost IPB anything for me to change my domain name. To me this is the equivalent of an ATM fee when you withdraw money, except in this case from your own bank.

For those worrying about fraud or anything else, as long as only one domain is tied to that license it shouldn't change anything. 

So yeah, this is one thing I don't understand, see it as nothing more than a money grab from IPB, and serves no real benefit to the consumer and serves no benefit to IPB other than financially. IPB is the only forum software that I see that does this. I may be missing one, but most don't charge to change the domain. 

Charging twice a year if you want to keep downloading things and keep certain features of your forum going is expensive enough. But if you decide to change your domain for any reason, now it costs you an extra $15 for literally no reason other than for the sake of changing it. If some are still worried about potential fraud or hijacking or something, other things could be put into place to prevent it. 

This I think is probably one reason people go more to Xenforo and others is because of this. Some people change domain names often while they struggle to find something that works for them. With them you don't get charged to change a domain. Period. You can renew today, then in 5 days or a month or 3 months if you choose to change your domain you simply change it. You don't get charged $15 every time you change it. 

This is a hindrance. It serves no tangible benefit other than to make money. IPB never did it for years with no problems. But in recent years started to. And considering how much people already pay for renewals, I don't think it's too much to ask to remove the $15 fee. Period. 

It's literally one of the most pointless fees I've seen on here. I love IPB, but that is one thing that absolutely needs to go. No one is handling the domain change other than the consumer. Unless customer service needs to handle it, there should be no fee for it. I'm literally getting charged just to change my domain. Absolutely insanity. 

And like I said prior, if some think it's a way to prevent fraudulent actions, there are plenty of other ways to do that. As well, after the 6 months your domain would be open to be changed anyways which changes nothing in regards to possible fraud. 

So yeah, it's really gotta go. It's just a pure money grab and is something no one else does. So what's the logical reason for it here? Costs keep going up, as forum popularity keeps going down. I don't think those 2 will go hand in hand very well. So we need to be mindful of things like that this are really pointless fees and serve to benefit no one other than IPB.

Edited August 30, 20204 yr by whitetigergrowl

I’ve never met anyone that needs to change a domain every 6 months let alone every couple of months... It really doesn’t make sense. Be sure on what you want to do and not give up on something because it’s not working.

Sorry, but for once I side with IPS, it’s a preventative measure to insure piracy concerns as explained on the page.