I went to a small business conference recently and heard some horror stories about 1 and 1 here in the UK.

The chief one being that even if you're 1 minute late with a renewal your domain will already have been sold on. The new owner will ask (quite legally) for several hundred pounds to sell it back to you!

One poor woman found it cheaper to have all her stationery reprinted!

I'm with one of the ICANN accredited registrars and I get days even weeks before a site is actually lost.

regards
prixat