Many people ask why our price is greater than other places they have seen advertising domain names. The answer to this is:
1. We pay for and maintain Dedicated Servers to use for the Name Servers
2. We will make changes to, and maintain the records on those Name Servers (others expect you to do this yourself)
3. We sanity-check requested changes, and use our knowledge to ensure MX record changes are handled properly.
4. We will buy and then invoice, whereas others will demand payment before supply.
5. We soak-up the spam (both email and snail-mail) which comes with owning a domain name (other provider charge extra for this)
6. We will talk to you on the phone, even call you back. (Many "cheap" options will not even give you a phone number)
This tale came to pass this Christmas (2013).
Customer: I have a domain name with someone else, and they do free email hosting for me as well. But the email has stopped working...
Goldhosts: I'll try to help, but the domain and hosting are not with us.
Customer: I have lost a contract, which needed to be done over the Christmas period, but I never got the email, now we have lost the job...
Goldhosts: Let's try to recover the Domain Name, and get you on our hosting. It does cost more, but you can call my mobile over Christmas.
Customer: The other supplier does not even have a phone number, and I cannot retrieve my login-password, as my email account is not working.
Customer: Sounds like your service would work out thousands cheaper...
(This is an edited, but true story 28th December 2013)
This tale came to pass just before Easter (2014)
Customer: My email has stopped working, can you take a look?
Goldhosts: Of course, let me have a look at your domain. (Goldhosts run a DNS check against the domain.)
Customer: Email suddenly stopped coming through yesterday, but we can still email each-other...
Goldhosts: The MX Record are wrong, I'll do a whois lookup...
Goldhosts: Your domain expired the day before yesterday; it is in your own 123-Reg account... You need to renew it...
Customer: Oh, I don't think I have the email address I used for that anymore. And I am busy away from the office all this week.
Goldhosts: Lets get it renewed (Goldhosts renews domain for customer).
Customer: Can you renew this for me in the future?
Goldhosts: Yes, it costs a bit more, but you won't lose it...
(This is an edited but true story April 2014)