I lost my domain because ChatGPT gave me confidently wrong advice. Here's what happened.

The incident happened to me

I want to share a painful and expensive lesson I just learned, because I haven't seen it discussed enough: AI chatbots can destroy your infrastructure with confident, detailed, completely wrong answers.

"It told me that Namecheap keeps the domain’s DNS during a transfer to OVH, but that’s not true. OVH reset the DNS zone, and now I’m stuck with Blogger."


I was migrating my domain from Namecheap to OVH. Before doing anything, I asked ChatGPT whether my DNS zone would be preserved during the transfer. The answer was clear and reassuring:


"During a domain transfer, only the registrar changes. Your DNS configuration stays with Namecheap and remains active. Your site will not be affected."


That was wrong. Completely wrong.


When OVH completed the transfer, it created a brand-new, blank DNS zone on its own nameservers — and overwrote everything. My DNS records were gone. My custom domain stopped pointing to my website. I was stuck with a default Blogger page as my homepage.


What actually happens: When you transfer a domain to OVH (and many other registrars), the new registrar resets the DNS zone to its own defaults. You must manually recreate all your DNS records at the new registrar before or immediately after the transfer — not assume they carry over.


The real danger here isn't ignorance — it's misplaced confidence. ChatGPT didn't say "I'm not sure." It gave me a specific, authoritative explanation that felt like it came from someone who had done this a hundred times. I trusted it. I paid for it.


If you're planning any domain transfer or DNS change: do not rely on an AI chatbot as your primary source. Read the official documentation. Export your full DNS zone before touching anything.


AI is not a sysadmin. Treat it like a smart friend who sometimes makes things up — and always double-check before you click confirm.