100% Australian owned and operated
The short version
- What it is: a transfer code you can only get by phone or ticket, a transfer-out fee, a retention call, or a lock only support can remove.
- Why it works: every extra step is a chance to give up, and moving a domain already sounds risky.
- How to beat it: for a .au name, you can request the domain password from auDA yourself. For a .com, the registrar has to give you the code.
- At Chill Domains: no transfer-out fee and no retention call. Sign in and reveal your transfer code any time.
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What does it look like?
- 1The code is behind a phone call, in business hours, to a team whose job is to keep you.
- 2A fee to leave, where signing up had none.
- 3A lock you can’t switch off yourself, so one more ticket and one more wait.
Why does it work on us?
Every step between you and the door is a chance to give up, and moving a domain already sounds risky: will the website go down, will email stop? A retention call adds a discount and a person to say no to. Some people stay with a registrar because they’re happy. Others stay because leaving looked like hard work.
Where else will I see it?
Gyms that need a form in person, phone and internet plans that make you call, subscriptions you can join in an app but only cancel on a website, and loyalty schemes that make points hard to cash out. Our ad The Breakup is about this one.
How do I move my domain anyway?
- For a .au name (.com.au, .net.au, .au), you can request the domain password from auDA at pw.auda.org.au. It’s sent to the registrant contact email on record, so keep that address current. Lost access? See getting your .com.au domain password.
- For a .com or other gTLD, ICANN’s transfer rules require the registrar to give the registrant the transfer code, and ICANN takes complaints if it doesn’t.
- Ask in writing (email or ticket), not just by phone, so there’s a record.
- Moving the registration doesn’t have to move your website or email. If the DNS stays the same, they keep working. Our guide to transfers and locks walks through it.
What does the law say?
From 1 July 2027, a new Australian law bans unfair trading practices in sales of things people buy for personal or household use, and commentary on it names getting in the way of people using their rights as one example. Its subscription rules also say cancelling must be straightforward, and if you signed up online you must be able to cancel online. The domain rules matter too: auDA’s domain password system and ICANN’s transfer policy exist so a registrant can move a name.
What does Chill Domains do instead?
At Chill Domains. No transfer-out fee and no retention call. Sign in and reveal your transfer code any time. As a safety check, you type the domain name to confirm, and we email the registrant to say the code was shown. Coming the other way? See transfer a domain to us.
Questions people ask
Can a registrar refuse to give me my transfer code?
Will my website or email stop working if I transfer my domain?
What is a registrar lock, and should I keep it on?
Sources
- Deceptive Patterns: Hard to cancel, Harry Brignull’s catalogue of deceptive design.
- Deceptive Patterns: Obstruction, Harry Brignull’s catalogue of deceptive design.
- Australia’s new unfair trading practices laws (Ashurst, 2026) and the Parliamentary Library’s Bills Digest: the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026, passed in July 2026, with its new rules starting on 1 July 2027.
- auDA domain password request, for .au names.
- Chill Domains pricing and our promises: our own prices and terms, as at 27 October 2026.
General information, not legal or financial advice. We sell domains, so read this as a seller’s view.
Keep reading
- Dark patterns in the domain business: every pattern we’ve written up, and the case files.
- Domain transfers and locks: how a transfer works, step by step.
- The Breakup: our 28-second ad about retention pop-ups.
- Confirmshaming: the “are you sure?” screens that come with leaving.