one.com wont refund Domain and DNS charge

mdmuddin

Hi
I have 10 domains with one.com. They automatically charged me £230+ for the renewal for the period 13th September 2025 to 12th Sep 2026. They might've sent me an email previously but I only noticed when the payment was taken.

I then contacted them and asked them to terminate 6 of them and I transferred 4 over to another company.
This has all been executed and there are still 3+ days left for 13th.  They won't now give me a refund. He also said that if I get a bank reversal, they'll just charge me again as it's due. 

I find this unjust to charge me for a service I never even began using. Can anyone advise what is likely to happen if I ask Starling Bank (I have a sole trader business account with them) to reverse the charge, or what the best process is here?

Here are some of the things they've said:
"Please note that in our terms & conditions, it states that a cancellation has to be requested at least 30 days before the renewal date.

If no cancellation is made and you've enabled auto-payment, we charge and renew it.
Once we do that, the payment goes to our registry partner, not us. Hence we can't just refund it immediatly.

I'm afraid I'll have to consult our admins first."

Regarding cancellations and refunds:
"Sorry to clarify you can definitely cancel any time. Whether on time or late.
But in regards to refunds, we have our policies."

Regarding payment reversals through the bank:
"From what I know, if already paid, the fee will generate again since it's already been renewed.
Though you're free to try that. But from my end I really cannot request a refund unless our admins approve."

Here's what was written on the invoice:
"In case you do not want to renew your web space, it is important that you cancel your web space before Aug 14, 2025. For further

information, please refer to this address: https://help.one.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005587909

If your account is passed to a Debt Recovery Agency then further charges will be incurred and payable by you."

Aylesbury_Duck

Seems straightforward to me.  You have a B2B contract, so it's the contractual terms that prevail, and they don't entitle you to a refund because you were too late to cancel.

Aylesbury_Duck

Seems straightforward to me.  You have a B2B contract, so it's the contractual terms that prevail, and they don't entitle you to a refund because you were too late to cancel.

mdmuddin

What's likely to happen if I try to get Starling to reverse it?

Where could this escalate to? Are there risks of any litigation here?

Sorry, I'm pretty a newbie to all this so will appreciate any dumbing down anyone can do. 

Aylesbury_Duck

Starling won't simply reverse the charge without asking why, and when you tell them I suspect they won't do a chargeback.  If they do a chargeback, the company says they'll challenge it and the chargeback will get reversed because you breached the contract, not them.

Ultimately, you owe them the money, and they've already said they'll take action to recover it if needs be.  That would almost certainly end up costing you more than the charge as it is now, whether through legal action or from engaging debt collectors or from selling on the debt.

flaneurs_lobster

I believe the correct legal term is "bang to rights". You've signed up for the service with an auto-renew unless you give the provider 30 days notice.

Would just have taken a calendar reminder set up at the time.... 

mdmuddin

I guess I'll have to live and learn. 
If something like this ever went to court, would there not be any sort of consideration of what's logical and fair, or what's considered normal?
As acknowledged before, have little experience in this and hence in my mind I was just thinking that with most things I've ever subscribed to you can cancel until you've started using it and often even after you have started, and then get some sort of pro-rata refund or something. 

eskbanker

mdmuddin said:

I guess I'll have to live and learn. 
If something like this ever went to court, would there not be any sort of consideration of what's logical and fair, or what's considered normal?
As acknowledged before, have little experience in this and hence in my mind I was just thinking that with most things I've ever subscribed to you can cancel until you've started using it and often even after you have started, and then get some sort of pro-rata refund or something. 

If you were acting as a consumer then you'd potentially benefit from the rights afforded by legislation that's designed to recognise the power difference between inexpert consumers and expert traders, but when you're running a business, you don't have such rights and are expected to have adequate knowledge of how to contract with other businesses.

MattMattMattUK

mdmuddin said:

I guess I'll have to live and learn. 
If something like this ever went to court, would there not be any sort of consideration of what's logical and fair, or what's considered normal?

It is logical and fair and it is considered normal. You signed up for a business service, it had a cancellation policy, they almost certainly emailed you in advance, you ignored that email, you ignored the renewal date, they renewed according to the terms and conditions and you have been charged, sounds logical, fair and normal to me.

mdmuddin said:

As acknowledged before, have little experience in this and hence in my mind I was just thinking that with most things I've ever subscribed to you can cancel until you've started using it and often even after you have started, and then get some sort of pro-rata refund or something. 

Business contracts are very different to consumer contracts, if you have anything else under business rather than consumer then double check it, but cancellation terms are usually much stricter. 

powerful_Rogue

You have used it though, as the 10 domain names you purchased have been registered to you and are no longer available for anyone else to purchase.

mdmuddin

Thanks for the insights. 
By the way, the domains are registered to me as an individual, it's just that the payment went from my sole trader account. Does this still make it B2B?