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gb12345

Ant555 wrote: »

Its not definite but its possible that it was renewed for 2 years in November 2012 which means someone, somewhere is paying for it.

Another possibility is that multiple years have been paid for upfront. Don't know about 1&1, but when I've registered through some other registrars you can register it for multiple years (up to 10 from memory) upfront for a discount. So it is possible that the OP initially paid the friend's husband for a multi year registration. The last updated date on the WhoIs may give an indication of this as it will show when the record was last updated.


With the domain still being registered, but access to the email account being blocked, two possible scenarios spring to mind -

1. Someone (the registered owner?) has changed the login details to block the OP from accessing the account - possibly to hold them randsom to release the domain to them.
2. The domain and registration renewals are out of sync and the hosting has now expired.

@OP, as Ant555 says, you need to get the domain back in your name. As it stands at the moment, the registered owner could do anything they wanted with the domain (such as building a site advertising your competitors).