We've now had 2 domains drop despite being set to auto-renew with 123-reg.  Contacting support they sounded initially like they were going to blame nominet, but I reminded them that one of them wasn't a nominet name. 

Totally stunned by how little of a shit they give that they have lost names.  1 we literally publicly re-registered as if we were buying a new name. Amazing that a domain that has been live since 2000 with nearly 4k external backlinks didn't get snapped up.  Got 1 domain (that we know of) still in limbo.

If they are to be believed the problem affected domains due to renew in Sep. The past renewal date without renewing and then drop off the control panel so you can't see them. 

Thought others might want to check.

>Amazing that a domain that has been live since 2000 with nearly 4k external backlinks didn't get snapped up.

Wow, you are very lucky.  I wonder if they could have been found liable if you had to purchase the domain back from a squatter.

They were a company I used to recommend many years ago. About three years ago I moved a pile of domains away from them and found out the hard way that they didn't accept requests by email. I had to phone them - being kept on hold for ages - only to be given the operator's GMail address when she realised I wanted to move more that a couple of domains. 123-Reg aren't the company they once were. You're better off out of there. On the flipside, Heart Internet have been great for domain management.

yeah - I nearly lost one recently - they have major issues - moving stuff away as fast as I can now

To add insult to injury - they really don't give a shit.

We have one domain that they dropped  - client is going bat-shit because their site and email is down.  The domain is also heading towards dropping quite quickly now.  Reported it on friday. Had one response over the weekend asking what domain it was (this was in the original ticket). Phone yesterday and they promised a speedy response - today nothing has been done.  They haven't even updated the ticket.

Who do you now recommend?

We're nominet members anyway, so for us it's time to pull fingers out of our bums and remove the middle man.  Who else??? No idea.

Update: Domain now retrieved.  You need to start talking about lawyers to make it happen.

Heart are Ok - good management tools, bulk changes etc... but when checking my expired lists they often show domains as not available for purchase, when they actually are.

Domainmonster... I have nothing bad to say about them - not needed support, but they have called me three times when someone reported one of my domains as e-mail spamming (hacked accounts on Hostnine) - seem like nice people.

most of my domains are with fasthosts.

A few with 123-reg, on the basis that spreading risk is a good idea.

Just had fun & games with 123 trying to update a credit card for auto-renewals (just a new expiry date and CV2). Customer support was spectacularly unconcerned and more interested in telling me on multiple occasions how I must have input my address incorrectly, despite me being able to renew domains manually with them with the card that they were apparently unable to accept.

(Finally solved by one of the support staff who intervened and 'fixed' the problem that was allegedly being caused by my error.)