I have never heard of anything like that.

Although it looks like that the redemption fee does not go into effect until 45 days aftyer the domain actually expires - but is still listed in their registry.

It sounds like Dotster is trying to scare people into thinking that if they wait until it is deleted from Dotster's registry that someone is going to snatch it up right away - so paying an extra $99 gives the customer that extra piece-of-mind in case they happened to let their registration lapse. Sounds like a load of crap to me!

- trs