Frequently Asked Questions

After you have created an account and logged in you will need to create at least one registrant for any backorders you catch. You can then place backorders on whichever domains are in the drop cycle.

If yours is the only backorder placed there will not be an auction. The domain will be allocated to you at the fixed backorder price of £55.

Otherwise, on a successful catch the domain is put into a 5-7 day auction with the earliest bid being the starting bid. At the end of the auction the highest bidder wins the domain.

All auctions will finish at a random time of up to half an hour after the final known bidding time. Nobody knows the exact end time. This is to discourage sniping as a bidder can never be sure that their bid will be the final one. It is recommended that, if you haven't done so, you place the maximum you are prepared to pay before the close.

If you placed the only backorder there will be no auction - the domain is yours.
However in the event of an auction the increments during normal bidding time are:

Price Bracket	Increments
Up to £2999	£10
£3000-£4999	£25
£5000-£9999	£50
£10000+	£100

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If the auction is in the last 30 minute period of extra time (ie ending soon) the increments change to:

Price Bracket	Increments
Up to £2999	£50
£3000-£4999	£125
£5000-£9999	£250
£10000+	£500

This increment change is to discourage bid sniping as it costs more to bid in the last moments.

You can go to ukdroplists.com to get full 30 day droplists along with all relevant statistics and filters.

You can remove a backorder up to 2 days before the domain drops. After that in the case of a mistake or other reasons email us as soon as you can and we will do whatever we can to help resolve any issues. Don't place orders for domains you might not want.

It is important that you understand this answer to avoid problems with other registrars. If you have any questions or doubts contact us at info@ukbackorder.uk and we'll guide you through the best process.

Once caught the registrant details will not be in your name. They will be in the name of the catching tag. As such you can do a free tag change but you will be responsible for changing the registrant details after you have changed tag. Some registrars do it for free, others charge a fee. This is not our responsibility and once a domain has left our tag there is nothing further we are able to do with it. Do not perform a tag change until you know how you're going to deal with the change of registrant details. If in doubt ask the registrar you will be using.

If you wish to do a full registrant and tag change at the same time via nominet, contact us and let us know the email address to initiate transfer to. You will receive instructions from nominet on how to proceed and will be subject to a fee of £10 + vat (payable to nominet - not to us). They typically complete the whole transfer process in less than an hour.

Note: some people have had problems in the past due to not understanding the transfer procedure. If you change the tag of a domain some registrars have a problem ascertaining ownership and, although you can resolve this by contacting them, it can cause unnecessary delays. If in doubt request a full transfer.

Also please note that we do not support transfers to the registrar 'porkbun'. Only backorder if you can transfer to a different tag.

Verifying your phone adds another layer of identification which helps keep away people trying to use multiple accounts, banned users, and non-payers. Your number is used for verification purposes only and is never disclosed to anyone.

If an auction has started you did not have the only backorder. Every auction will start with one bidder who placed the backorder first. The other people who placed a backorder later will obviously not show up unless they bid. If you have the only backorder there is no auction.

Invoices are sent on the day a domain is caught in the event of no other backorders, or after the auction ends in the case of multiple backorders, and they contain a link to payment. You can also pay via your account. If you have verified a card it will automatically be charged and, if successful, the invoice issued marked as paid.

We accept all major credit cards, google pay, and apple pay, via our payment gateway Stripe. We also accept BACS/Bank Transfer on request. Please bear in mind it can take a few days for money to arrive via bank transfer. Also note domain sales over £3000 must be by bank transfer. We cannot accept bank transfers from some countries in Asia so, if this may apply to you, please contact us first.

We never have any access to your credit card information. This is directly with our payment processor, Stripe, and they do not share that data with us.

If you want to backorder a domain, or take part in our caught domain auctions, you need to verify a card. This is partly due to past clients not paying for catches, but also for convenience in billing. Your card is not charged anything in this process and the information is not with us. As mentioned above only Stripe, our payment processor, has that information. Also if you are only intending to bid on user auctions you don't need to complete this process.

All transactions are in GBP sterling (£)

No VAT is charged to clients outside of the EU.
If you live in an EU country you will be charged VAT at the local rate of 18%.
When creating a registrant you can enter a valid EU VAT number, if you have one, and the VAT will be reverse charged, ie zero and not payable to us.

Not to us. However if you need a nominet transfer you will have to pay them (not us) £10+vat for their transfer fee.

We ask that invoices are settled within 72 hours. Domains cannot be changed to another registrar until after payment has been effected. After a week of non-payment accounts will be suspended. In the event of deliberate non-payment your account will be terminated and we may take further legal action in some cases or the domain will be kept or sold on. In cases of an auction payment the domain may be offered to the next highest bidder, auctioned again, or kept on our tag, or otherwise sold on.

Payment of invoices via credit card are made directly to Stripe via a provided SSL encrypted secure link.
We do not gather, store, or have access to any credit card details.

You can create an auction for a uk domain you wish to sell. These work like normal auctions except UKBackorder is not involved either as buyer or seller and the listing process is completely FREE.

At the completion of a successful auction the buyer and seller emails are sent to each other and it is then up to both parties to deal with the sale and transfer.

Important - you cannot edit or delete your auction once started so make sure everything is correct before you create it.

To complete the listing process initially you must change the domain nameservers to :
auction.ukbackorder.uk
bid.ukbackorder.uk

This is to confirm that the domain is yours, and you have control of it, and are therefore able to complete a successful sale.
Once the auction is started you can change the nameservers to whatever you wish. You do not have to keep them pointed to ukbackorder for the whole auction duration.

There are no fees at all to UKBackorder for listing or at the end of the auction.
It is expected that the end price is the price the buyer pays. Therefore the seller must include any VAT or transfer/bank fees within the price.
The only exception to this is if the buyer opts to pay by escrow. In this case it is expected that the buyer covers the escrow fees.

Your account has a starting maximum of five auctions at once. However you cannot list more than two to end on the same day. On completion of a successful auction this amount will be raised by one up to a maximum of ten auctions. If an auction has a reserve, and does not sell, this will be reduced by one. There is no penalty for auctions with no reserve that don't sell.

The lowest starting bid anyone can make is £55 but you can set a reserve if you wish. However be aware that if you set a reserve, and the price does not reach it, your maximum amount of running auctions will be reduced by one. For this reason please make sure, if you really need a reserve, that it is realistic and likely to be reached.

We don't want to get involved with user auctions more than is absolutely necessary. If it has been at least 10 days and the auction hasn't finalised, and this was not agreed to by the buyer/seller, let us know and we will try to help with the process.
However we will terminate accounts where the buyer or seller wilfully refuses to honour the auction sale.

We will add SEO stats to any auctions if they are high enough and clearly not spam. However this is a manual process so please be patient. Although most will be dealt with quickly in can take up to 24 hours for them to appear.

No. UKBackorder reserves the right to remove any auctions if we deem them unsuitable. For example brand typos, phishing, obvious trademarks, illegal products or services etc. In all these cases we will inform the auction seller of the reason.

We can be contacted via email at info@ukbackorder.uk for general queries. Complaints or reports of abuse will be responded to within 5 business days.

The below information is not to be used with any queries about our services. These links are provided if you wish to correspond with the uk registry (nominet) about our tag (UKBACKORDER).
Nominet terms and conditions
Nominet Registrar Complaints

2 Santa Margherita,
Triq il-Gjacinti,
San Gwann,
SGN 1321
Malta

Although we are not a public facing registrar with domain control panel or management, and you are expected to change the tag of any successful catches immediately, we will inform you 30 days before a domain is due for renewal if it is still on our tag.