That was so shitty coming back round to reality and everything broken. Still upset about it. To this day I have no idea why the card didn't pay as always.
Can you elaborate? As a Namecheap customer, this is concerning.
> To this day I have no idea why the card didn't pay as always.
One can infer that the credit card did not auto-pay, the domain expired, and Namecheap immediately resold the domain to a squatter rather than first reaching out to jamiek88 to confirm that the non-renewal was intentional.
No I don't see how their post allows one to infer that Namecheap "immediately" resold the domain. Their policy is a 30 day grace period, and within that 30 days the domain should become non functional, so if you're actively using it then you would know something is up.
Sounds like jamiek88 was squatting on a somewhat desirable domain and is just sad they couldn't follow some basic instructions.
I have no idea what the "because of COVID" thing is about.
I think the lesson here is prepay for a domain for several years ahead if you plan to keep the domain long-term.