NameCheap send out their reminder emails telling you a domain is about to expire in the format: "Your domain <somedomain.com> expires on MM/DD".
Several times I had domains expire or almost expire because, being in Europe I naturally read 'MM/DD' as 'DD/MM' which, under certain circumstances looked like a domain was expiring several weeks in the future, when it was expiring imminently.
I emailed NameCheap customer service on a couple of occasions about this. Pointing out that, for their customers outside the US, their expiration notice emails were liable to be mis-read and I suggested they either use 'DD/MM' when emailing customers in Europe or --even better- just spell out the month name, so there's no possibility of confusion.
The first time I got no response at all. The second time, I got an email back from NameCheap Customer Service saying "We're an American company. We use American date format"
So I thought 'Fuck you then. You'll not be wanting non-American customers, in that case.' and immediately transferred all my domains elsewhere.
I'm currently using gandi.net. Not as cheap as NameCheap but no complaints so far.
Oh. And to address something raised by the OP: there's no way you should have to pay $150 [or anything for that matter] to revive a domain that expired the day before. I'm not sure what the grace period is. But, in the past, I've renewed domains that had expired a week or more previously and never had any problem. Nor have I ever had to pay any 'fine' for doing so.
GoDaddy are shysters. I'm actually surprised someone fitting the HN demographic uses them. I thought their reputation was pretty well known in techy circles and most savvy people actively avoided them.
I'm guessing that's a low level person and they closed it with that.
There's a post here where the CEO wrote how they had about 1000 people in Ukraine being affected by the war.
Found it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506813
I've stumbled upon them a couple of times before.
It sounds like someone may have gained access to your account or there may have been some other issue. It's usual for them to have ask for video proof that you're the domain owner.
Putting aside the fact that it is just an insecure and undignified way of transferring data. Why not host the 'video proof' site on namecheap domain? so you know who's watching. And why not ask for photo ID instead of credit card? I mean anyone can send an email "go to [whatever] domain and show me your credit card, or I'll stop your [whatever] service" and NameCheap users will be conditioned into falling for this scam. Its reckless and unprofessional.
And i don't know how else to define took some of my money and registered a domain.. then kept it cause that's what happened. You have a deadline to do your cam show, which is shorter than the time their support service takes to answer an email about your concerns; After that you lose some of your money and your domain.