The incoming club leader was persistent though, and called NameCheap support. He convinced them the domain registered in my name and address really belonged to his club, and with no verification or validation whatsoever, NameCheap changed my password, and changed the email address associated with my account. All because someone simply asked nicely on a phone call.
Meanwhile in the background, someone advised the new club leader who I was and we were able to connect and get things transferred over. Ultimately I was happy to give them access or even ownership if they wanted (student club turnover being what it is, it’s likely a domain doesn’t get renewed and gets gobbled up by a squatter, which is why I was keeping it current for them).
But NameCheap had no way of knowing any of this. As far as NameCheap was aware, this was a personal account of mine. They demonstrated they were perfectly able to pick up a phone and call me (to verify my initial support ticket) but when someone calls them and says “but I really want access to that account” they don’t bother?
I’d hesitate to even call this social engineering. It’s clearly a massive vulnerability. I’ve already moved a dozen of my most critical domains out of NameCheap after seeing just how easy it is for a third party to completely take over a NameCheap account: just ask nicely.
It would be nice to have a nonprofit registrar so jumping every few years isn't necessary.
Domain privacy protection is a feature that Namecheap provides for all valid domains. Its included by default at no extra cost.
The poster didn't indicate if they had this feature enabled or not for the domain. It would have prevented the college club person from even seeing their email address to initiate a password reset.
This clearly isn't an answer for NC's customer support personnel and company policies.
But I've been a happy customer for many years and I discourage others from immediately reading other comments and rushing to jump to other registrars without doing your due dilligence.
Remember that in any situation, the people most likely to leave negative comments and reviews are the people that have had genuine bad experiences or feel like they've been slighted, even if unwarranted.
I was a happy customer right up until this incident. And I certainly agree that due diligence is a must for something as critical as a registrar.
But then when one attempts to pay for a domain, after one has already provided all of one's credit card information to Namecheap ... Namecheap up and refers its customers to something called Link, which forces Namecheap's customers to create an account and become Link's customers - providing all that confidential credit card information, all over - leaving the customer wondering why Namecheap collected it and what they are going to do with it.
Link forces you to authenticate via SMS so that they know where you are.
This all happened less than 24 hours ago and I was already getting ready to put domain service shopping on my list of things to do but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.
I nominate Paul Vixie as a possible candidate for CTO or even CEO of a hypothetical nonprofit DNS domain service.
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I can't even log in to most web sites anymore without doing a side-trip to my E-mail inbox, "for enhanced security," but these clowns let you just take a domain by asking nicely!
Had an account where I managed multiple clients. One of the clients had their "IT guy" contact the registrar for a DNS change. The registrar promptly gave the guy full access to my account, changing the password and locking me out in the process.
As soon as I regained access I moved everything off there.
This is unacceptable and such companies should change their policy or be out of business.
It can be called social engineering, however one can also put it in category of account recovery by verifying content control on the domain.
The part where it gets hairy is if your credit card was associated with the account, thats probably a recipe for disaster?
In the meantime, been with NameCheap for I don't recall how long with no issues whatsoever.
The call center employee making third world minimum wage doesn’t give a shit who the real owner of the domain is. They want to end the call quickly and get 5 stars from the customer on the feedback form.
I have made it a point to move off services that force SMS-based 2fa for this exact reason. Recently even changed banks because of this.
No wonder people are leaving tech to go be goat farmers.
I don't have a crystal ball, but NearlyFreeSpeech was recommended to me in 2010 and I've been using it since 2012. I don't think it's changed at all in that time.
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/respect
> September 2025, CVC Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in Namecheap for an undisclosed amount, valuing the company at $1.5 billion.[3][4] Kirkendall stepped down as CEO on December 16, 2025
But prior to this they have had many incidents. Switched all domains to porkbun a few years ago
They locked my account so I couldn't log in. To be clear, my whois information was fullly legally compliant, and I was happy to also update my namecheap profile, but when I sent them an email they didn't get back to with an response email until there was just an hour left.
Things had been going down hill slowly and lots of my peers have already moved on to porkbun, etc, but I think now things are going downhill quite fast. I did manage to save my account (and so domains) but now I will be moving to a new registrar.
I think I have one domain left with them. I haven't received anything yet, but it's a good reminder to move on.
What if their email got caught in a spam filter? What if you only check that inbox a few times a week or after business hours?
I'll be moving my personal domains after doing some research.
Did they mention what prompted this?
Are you aware of anything?