Domains sold by forum member repossessed by GoDaddy

[draco]

I bought two domains, 28924.com and 82742.com, that were advertised by Omer Doron on NamePros.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/82742-com-28924-com-350-each-sold.1101500/

I paid with PayPal and the domains were pushed to my GoDaddy account. Three weeks later, I was notified that the domains were repossessed by GoDaddy. They told me,

"The original purchases of the domains in question were charged to an invalid payment method, resulting in the repossession of products and subsequent refund for initial cost. If the seller reverses charges for the services they purchased on your behalf, we “repossess” the purchase meaning the products are removed from your account. The original price of the domains must be paid in full before they may be returned to your account. We offer you the option of purchasing the domains for the original price of $761.34. This price is the cost of the original receipts connected to these domains which has been refunded.".

The Seller is claiming that they bought the domains from someone, and they weren't the ones that paid with the invalid payment method or did the chargeback. The $761.34 GoDaddy wants is actually more than I paid for the domains. The Seller claims I'm trying to get a refund from the wrong person, because they didn't do anything wrong. I feel it's their responsibility, since they sold them to me. They should go after the person they claim they bought them from.

Originally he said he would give me a refund after he verified the information with GoDaddy. Then he said he wouldn't do it because he thought they were stolen. Then he asked me to post here anonymously and he would issue me a refund if he was convinced it was 100% the right thing to do. When I asked him what it would take to be 100% convinced, he wouldn't answer.

I opened a dispute with PayPal. He lied in the response, claiming GoDaddy told me there was something wrong with my account. GoDaddy never told me there was anything wrong with my account. They just gave me the option to buy the domains back from them. It's an option, not a debt I owe them.

 

[golan]

And I would like to clarify whether a domain that is subject to a payment dispute is classified as stolen. Namely this:

A valuable painting is stolen. It is resold several times through various dealers and middlemen. I buy it from a reputable dealer. Then the owner finds I have it and I have to give it back, because it is stolen goods. No argument there.

But lets say instead the owner had sold it to a dealer A, who sold it on to Dealer B, then a whole chain of dealers before it reached me. But then it turns out Dealer A's payment to the original owner failed - stolen card, cheque bounced (some international cheque scams work because they take over 4 weeks to bounce and banks wrongly give you the funds before that), or chargeback. Now is the painting I bought technically stolen goods, or is it legitimately mine - and the original seller just has a payments problem and has to try to recover funds from Dealer A?

I wonder if @jberryhill can advise?

Good question. I never bought a valuable painting, but i think everyone who are buying arts or real estate gets an insurance which covers cases of bad ownership clearance... In domaining, maybe we should find similar insurance? (It doesn't imply i even for a second agree with nasty deed Godaddy made in this case.)

 

[Joe Styler]

@draco I do not know the whole story about the purchase of the domains you have mentioned here since you did not use our platform we do not have all the details. Without knowing them I cannot comment on the sale either way. I can comment on the email you received from us. What that is saying is the person who purchased the domain names from us didn't pay us. They bought them either with a stolen payment method or charged back the purchase after the fact etc. It does not have to be the one you bought the domain names from. It could have been another person who sold them, gave them, whatever to someone else. We do not know as I said without transactions happening on our platform. What we do know if the person who bought them from us didn't pay. It is in our terms of service that we can take the domains if the money is no good, no matter what account they are in.
I really think this is a bad situation for you to be in. I am sorry to hear it. I never like to hear of someone buying stolen domains and losing money.

 

[Joe Styler]

Well how did you guys get scammed for $740, what checks were in place to make sure the payment was good. Because you did not take domains back from the person who scammed you, you took it from someone two steps later.

I did not say who stole the domains from us. That is not public information. As I stated above the email is saying that the payment was bad which means they used an unauthorized payment (eg stolen credit card or hacked paypal account etc) and the actual owner contacted the payment company when they realized it or someone did a chargeback after they bought something from us with their credit card. Those are the options for the issue described in the email.

 

[draco]

@Joe Styler
Did you miss this post?

If you have all this, why don't you go after the person that bought the domains from you with a stolen credit card or did an unauthorized chargeback? Wouldn't that be theft by deception?

Yes we do which is why you should use a platform like ours. So if you use us and sell a domain and it clears our checks we pay you. But scammers beware if you are trying to sell stolen goods on the auctions you are stealing from us and we will pursue it via other payments you have or the local authorities. We have a local presence in many countries and work with local law enforcement around the world.

 

[meslam479]

@draco I do not know the whole story about the purchase of the domains you have mentioned here since you did not use our platform we do not have all the details. Without knowing them I cannot comment on the sale either way. I can comment on the email you received from us. What that is saying is the person who purchased the domain names from us didn't pay us. They bought them either with a stolen payment method or charged back the purchase after the fact etc. It does not have to be the one you bought the domain names from. It could have been another person who sold them, gave them, whatever to someone else. We do not know as I said without transactions happening on our platform. What we do know if the person who bought them from us didn't pay. It is in our terms of service that we can take the domains if the money is no good, no matter what account they are in.
I really think this is a bad situation for you to be in. I am sorry to hear it. I never like to hear of someone buying stolen domains and losing money.

so if draco decided to transfer domain before you decide to take it from him what would you have done?
Godaddy need to reconsider changing their policy, as that's unacceptable abuse from your side too.

 

[equity78]

I did not say who stole the domains from us. That is not public information. As I stated above the email is saying that the payment was bad which means they used an unauthorized payment (eg stolen credit card or hacked paypal account etc) and the actual owner contacted the payment company when they realized it or someone did a chargeback after they bought something from us with their credit card. Those are the options for the issue described in the email.

Right Joe but you did not take the names back from the person using the bad credit card, how are you justified to take from @draco he did not do a transaction with you. Why isn't GoDaddy eating the loss?

And where did I use the word stolen? I said you were scammed and you were.

 

[equity78]

@draco I do not know the whole story about the purchase of the domains you have mentioned here since you did not use our platform we do not have all the details. Without knowing them I cannot comment on the sale either way. I can comment on the email you received from us. What that is saying is the person who purchased the domain names from us didn't pay us. They bought them either with a stolen payment method or charged back the purchase after the fact etc. It does not have to be the one you bought the domain names from. It could have been another person who sold them, gave them, whatever to someone else. We do not know as I said without transactions happening on our platform. What we do know if the person who bought them from us didn't pay. It is in our terms of service that we can take the domains if the money is no good, no matter what account they are in.
I really think this is a bad situation for you to be in. I am sorry to hear it. I never like to hear of someone buying stolen domains and losing money.

Joe what would have happened if @draco transferred the names out when he bought from Mr.Doron? Would another registrar work with you to take @draco's names?

 

[uglydork]

This has been my point all along - it happened and Godaddy should eat the $700 as good will. How do you know this isn’t destroying someone’s finances for the month? You also risk alienating customers. Is $700 worth all of this? It’s not a good look and all my names are with you

I just won 3 Godaddy auctions yesterday and I’m afraid to pay for them- what if you decide they were stolen and you take them back? Do you not see how this looks @Joe Styler

 

[Andish]

Even with NJ shill bidding I have not felt such outrage and utmost disgust with a stance of a 'reputable' company as in this case. They really deserve to go bankrupt.

 

[Joe Styler]

This has been my point all along - it happened and Godaddy should eat the $700 as good will. How do you know this isn’t destroying someone’s finances for the month? You also risk alienating customers. Is $700 worth all of this? It’s not a good look and all my names are with you

I just won 3 Godaddy auctions yesterday and I’m afraid to pay for them- what if you decide they were stolen and you take them back? Do you not see how this looks @Joe Styler

If you buy a domain on our auction we would eat the loss. If you make transactions outside our platform you do so at your own risk.

 

[equity78]

If you buy a domain on our auction we would eat the loss. If you make transactions outside our platform you do so at your own risk.

But Joe how would anyone know they were taking that kind of risk? I don't want to see you guys eating losses but how would someone know a domain that sold a couple months back on GoDaddy is at risk of being repossessed?

 

[Andish]

If you take over domain that you previously sold, and take it unlawfully from a third party account just because the victim was careless enough to put it there without reading all the small print, you have to face the consequences. Unspeakable arrogance - to fail in once own safety procedures, and to try to carry the damages onto innocent party. The transaction was legally done on another platform, how dare you take what is not yours! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

 

[uglydork]

If you buy a domain on our auction we would eat the loss. If you make transactions outside our platform you do so at your own risk.

@Joe Styler - I love Godaddy and Cory is amazing to work with - he finds me amazing deals - I’m not leaving
I’m just trying to get you to see what a bad PR move this is. It just looks horrible over $700! That is nothing to your giant company but it is huge to a small investor not to mention all the bad publicity this is gaining in the community where people buy from you
You have a chance to spin this and make it look good

 

[Keith]

I’ve read over this and it’s blatantly obvious that GoDaddy should eat the loss. It’s their fault for not safely processing the original payment. It’s simply not ethical to confiscate property that doesn’t belong to you. In this case, GoDaddy got duped but wants someone else to take the hit!

Imagine if this was a 5-6 figure domain...

 

[BRANDERX]

..

 

[Joe Styler]

The problem is here since we were not involved in any of the transactions we do not know what happened. The transaction we were involved in, we were not paid for. If we are not paid we take the products back, end of story. We are within our rights to do so as stated in the terms of service and this is not an unusual position for a company to take. Almost any company will do the same.

I understand what everyone is saying but we are not setting ourselves up as a court or a judge. We are a company. We do not know who is telling the truth here and we are not set up to hear a trial that is outside our scope.

If we do not take the domains back there is a potentially big problem for us. All someone has to do is buy names with stolen funds and move them to another account in another name and claim they bought them legitimately every time and we wind up eating the cost every time. That is not something we are willing to do. It is not unreasonable for us to take something back we were not paid for. As a company that has always been our policy. We cannot say in this case things look ok but in someone else's case they look more criminal, making those kinds of judgments opens us up to very big liability. We will not do that.

We also understand that the buyer here may not be the person defrauding us. This is why we offer the option to allow them to make us whole on what we lost and retain the domains. This is the best option we can give without opening ourselves up for more fraud or liability in making judgments.

As I said this situation is unfortunate and I do not like to see anyone purchase goods that were not paid for correctly.

 

[Internet.Domains]

Absolutely amazing and very disheartening. The original merchant (Godaddy) had a chargeback, for whatever reason it is classified as such by merchant services and the issuing bank. Chargebacks are very common with online orders and have an arbitration process for the merchant (Godaddy) to pursue if it elects to. There are other safeguards and protections to a merchant as well, without getting into detail.

A merchant trying to reconcile a chargeback by taking from an innocent third party is both illegal and higly unethical.

Having multiple online ventures with a merchant account I have learned this first hand. It is the cost of doing business when you accept credit cards online. I have had to eat plenty of chargebacks that surely included fraudulent transactions. I remain mystified by the response.

 

[Joe Styler]

But Joe how would anyone know they were taking that kind of risk? I don't want to see you guys eating losses but how would someone know a domain that sold a couple months back on GoDaddy is at risk of being repossessed?

You can do some due diligence as much as possible and use a reputable marketplace that offers protection for something like this. As I stated we would eat the loss if it was transacted on our marketplace this is some of the reason for our commission fees. You can use a marketplace that offers similar protections or pay with a method that covers your transactions if something like this happens.

 

[BRANDERX]

@Joe Styler

I love Godaddy, but this "What we do know if the person who bought them from us didn't pay. It is in our terms of service that we can take the domains if the money is no good, no matter what account they are in. " is mean.

@equity78 asked a "spot on" question, Joe what would have happened if draco transferred the names out when he bought from Mr.Doron? Would another registrar work with you to take draco's names?

 

[Keith]

The problem is here since we were not involved in any of the transactions we do not know what happened. The transaction we were involved in, we were not paid for. If we are not paid we take the products back, end of story. We are within our rights to do so as stated in the terms of service and this is not an unusual position for a company to take. Almost any company will do the same.

I understand what everyone is saying but we are not setting ourselves up as a court or a judge. We are a company. We do not know who is telling the truth here and we are not set up to hear a trial that is outside our scope.

If we do not take the domains back there is a potentially big problem for us. All someone has to do is buy names with stolen funds and move them to another account in another name and claim they bought them legitimately every time and we wind up eating the cost every time. That is not something we are willing to do. It is not unreasonable for us to take something back we were not paid for. As a company that has always been our policy. We cannot say in this case things look ok but in someone else's case they look more criminal, making those kinds of judgments opens us up to very big liability. We will not do that.

We also understand that the buyer here may not be the person defrauding us. This is why we offer the option to allow them to make us whole on what we lost and retain the domains. This is the best option we can give without opening ourselves up for more fraud or liability in making judgments.

As I said this situation is unfortunate and I do not like to see anyone purchase goods that were not paid for correctly.

You’re basically saying that GoDaddy cannot guarantee domain sales. What happens if I sell a $50k domain on your platform, money and domain change hands, and the buyer disputes payment or does a charge back?

If you are selling something it’s imperative that you protect all parties.

 

[Andish]

GD is entitled to take back it's product from the buyer if payment is not cleared. That would be just, sound and legal. But what we have here is a company trying to put it's losses on innocent client who entrusted them with their legally bought asset. We cannot change your policy, but we can refrain from using your services just to protect ourselves from fraud. I will not take the risk of moving any assets to GD any mor since there is no way to tell if a domain was not once sold at GD, and if GD did not fail at it's security procedures again.
That is not a critique of the comapny Representative, who is surely a person of integrity, but that is a standpoint on a company policy. That policy puts all the risk of GD business on the unsuspecting and innocent client. I will not accept any service with such terms.
GD is a company operating at a risk, and mitigating such risk is part of it's business. But you can not charge another client for what some other person owes you.

 

[Joe Styler]

Absolutely amazing and very disheartening. The original merchant (Godaddy) had a chargeback, for whatever reason it is classified as such by merchant services and the issuing bank. Chargebacks are very common with online orders and have an arbitration process for the merchant (Godaddy) to pursue if it elects to. There are other safeguards and protections to a merchant as well, without getting into detail.

A merchant trying to reconcile a chargeback by taking from an innocent third party is both illegal and higly unethical.

Having multiple online ventures with a merchant account I have learned this first hand. It is the cost of doing business when you accept credit cards online. I have had to eat plenty of chargebacks that surely included fraudulent transactions. I remain mystified by the response.

We would have exhausted all efforts before coming to this. The original purchaser would have also been contacted for another way to make payment. It could also have been a stolen card or another issue where the payment was pulled back. I am not a lawyer but we have a lot of them on staff and since this has always been our policy I doubt it is illegal.

Also we do not know if the person who has the domains is an uninterested 3rd party. Of course it seems so in this case, but we are not a court. We do not know. We also cannot set a precedent that if someone buys a domain using bad funds and moves it that the gaining party can claim ignorance to the fact that the domain was not paid for and keep it. If so we open ourselves up to a tremendous amount of fraud. All I would have to do is open a bunch of accounts with stolen credit cards and sell the names to myself using aliases and simply claim I bought it legitimately outside GoDaddy somewhere. We are not willing to do that. As everyone knows on this forum domains are valuable. It does not take many "sales" of this kind to impact us significantly.

We do have a couple teams of experts who verify payments. Very few bad payments slip past us. This is a rare occurrence. We do a lot of work up front to make sure the payments are good, and almost all of the time they are.

 

[equity78]

You can do some due diligence as much as possible and use a reputable marketplace that offers protection for something like this. As I stated we would eat the loss if it was transacted on our marketplace this is some of the reason for our commission fees. You can use a marketplace that offers similar protections or pay with a method that covers your transactions if something like this happens.

But Joe if Draco did not get screwed Mr.Doron would have and he did buy on a legitimate platform @Undeveloped.

Again could you answer this, if @draco transferred names out when he bought from Mr.Doron, would you have asked that registrar to give you the names?

 

[uglydork]

The problem is here since we were not involved in any of the transactions we do not know what happened. The transaction we were involved in, we were not paid for. If we are not paid we take the products back, end of story. We are within our rights to do so as stated in the terms of service and this is not an unusual position for a company to take. Almost any company will do the same.

I understand what everyone is saying but we are not setting ourselves up as a court or a judge. We are a company. We do not know who is telling the truth here and we are not set up to hear a trial that is outside our scope.

If we do not take the domains back there is a potentially big problem for us. All someone has to do is buy names with stolen funds and move them to another account in another name and claim they bought them legitimately every time and we wind up eating the cost every time. That is not something we are willing to do. It is not unreasonable for us to take something back we were not paid for. As a company that has always been our policy. We cannot say in this case things look ok but in someone else's case they look more criminal, making those kinds of judgments opens us up to very big liability. We will not do that.

We also understand that the buyer here may not be the person defrauding us. This is why we offer the option to allow them to make us whole on what we lost and retain the domains. This is the best option we can give without opening ourselves up for more fraud or liability in making judgments.

As I said this situation is unfortunate and I do not like to see anyone purchase goods that were not paid for correctly.

If you are in possession of the names pay @draco for them - plain and simple

@Joe Styler - you are only making this worse by arguing company policy without any flexibility- way to rigid in your stance.

 

[equity78]

We would have exhausted all efforts before coming to this. The original purchaser would have also been contacted for another way to make payment. It could also have been a stolen card or another issue where the payment was pulled back. I am not a lawyer but we have a lot of them on staff and since this has always been our policy I doubt it is illegal.

Also we do not know if the person who has the domains is an uninterested 3rd party. Of course it seems so in this case, but we are not a court. We do not know. We also cannot set a precedent that if someone buys a domain using bad funds and moves it that the gaining party can claim ignorance to the fact that the domain was not paid for and keep it. If so we open ourselves up to a tremendous amount of fraud. All I would have to do is open a bunch of accounts with stolen credit cards and sell the names to myself using aliases and simply claim I bought it legitimately outside GoDaddy somewhere. We are not willing to do that. As everyone knows on this forum domains are valuable. It does not take many "sales" of this kind to impact us significantly.

We do have a couple teams of experts who verify payments. Very few bad payments slip past us. This is a rare occurrence. We do a lot of work up front to make sure the payments are good, and almost all of the time they are.

Let me flip the script, and let me make clear I do not think GoDaddy would do this, I am not suggesting they ever did. But there are less reputable registrar's out there.

I asked you earlier if @draco would get the name of the person who scammed you? You said no. OK, that's up to Draco to pursue.

But with that mechanism in place I could be a registrar that says hey we are repossessing this beautiful 4L CVCV.com from you, because the person who bought it from us, 3 owners ago, used a bad credit card, we can't and won't tell you their name, but trust us they used a bad credit card.

This would be an easy way to scam people without transparency.