Trouble in Paradise (GoDaddy)

They are very secure. However we are not an escrow company. This means legally we cannot hold payment on a domain sale unless there is a complaint. This situation can happen on a small % of the domains that are sold on the auction. Most domains sales do not follow this path and are automatically moved. If you read the terms of service this is clearly spelled out both the process for payment and the responsibilities of the buyer and seller. In all domain sales on our platform you are ultimately responsible for making sure the domain winds up with the buyer. This is why you receive their contact information in your account and why we tell you this clearly in an email when you sell a domain with us. If they do not contact you, you should contact the buyer or support and get the ball rolling. As I said this only happens with a small % of our names, most we have a system to help move, some we cannot for various reasons automatically move. Those domains you need to move. I can understand you overlooking this since most transactions happen automatically.
This has been the way the process worked from day 1 of the auctions until now and over time we have automated more and more of the transaction in any way we can and still be compliant with laws and regulations.
But at the end of the day if you sell a domain you need to be the one to make sure it moves. If you do not then you can lose your ability to sell with us.
I don't think the buyers are very frantic. As soon as they contact us we contact you, the seller, we also freeze the funds and step in to help move the domain. For you to get paid without issue no one contacted us. Again this is part of the regulations we need to follow. Hope that clears things up.

Glad it was cleared up. Thanks for making clear how unsecure your system is. Making mental note of NEVER again using Godaddy to buy an aftermarket name.

Thanks for the headsup Stub.

promo said:

Glad it was cleared up. Thanks for making clear how unsecure your system is. Making mental note of NEVER again using Godaddy to buy an aftermarket name.

Thanks for the headsup Stub.

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It is not unsecure. I can count on my hand the number of domains we have had delivery issues with this year and we have other ways to resolve that which is also laid out in the terms of service to make everyone whole which happens. Worst case scenario we take the hit not the customer. That is the beauty of using the platform. The money or the domain gets to you. If you use something else you may have an issue with the buyer or seller either not moving the domain or doing a payment reversal etc.

So what happens when you pay seller that has not transfered a name and he subsequently denies transferring the name? You take the hit. How so?

If he refuses to transfer the domain and we cannot move it ourselves using the consent he gave us via the listing agreements (which is rare) we would refund the buyer. This is an EXTREMELY rare situation. So it is rare that we cannot move the domain ourselves automatically, it is rare that a seller would not want to move the domain most people who sell domains or anything else are good people who want to do the right thing, Stub never indicated he wouldn't or didn't want to move the domain, almost everyone does, it is rare that a buyer who wanted to buy the domain would not ask for the domain after paying, It is rare we would not notice the auction internally, etc etc all those would have to take place and if the stars aligned in that way we would pay back the buyer. We would take various actions against to help them see that moving the domain was in their best interest. So it is very rare that a buyer would not get a domain name they purchased from another customer. It is more rare with us than say using a broker or buying a name yourself because we have certain agreements that allow us to move the domains you list for sale in many cases once they sell, we have various penalties financial and otherwise for people who refuse to follow through with the transactions that a smaller company or individual does not have such as banning all use of our services which would deny you the ability to sell on GoDaddy and Afternic and the ability to buy millions of exclusive expiring domains from various registrars etc. And if all that failed which is highly unusual, you would get back your money.

I have used Godaddy, and Afternic in recent times well into 5 figures to buy, and sell domains, and it is very secure.

In Afternic if they sell a domain they usually accept a push into their account at a major register, and they do the legwork of bringing it to Godaddy, otherwise you push it into their Godaddy account.

If I am using Godaddy to buy a domain, whether it be from a major warehouser, or within a godaddy client I always like to see it at godaddy as I can use the premium channel to get an instant transfer, or the buy it now, and they lock it in the account, and start the process.

The situation stated above is what it is, I have no idea to the technical details of it, but from my standpoint godaddy has been firing on all cylinders.

I had a $15K sale close recently, and afternic sent funds day after I pushed it into their account, not sure how much easier they can make it.

Well as long as you guarantee the transaction financially, I am good.

But I am not a fan of letting it be down to the sellers conacience. You should have a way for the buyer to indicate that he received the name.

What happens if a buyer never takes ownership even after repeated requests to do so? I sold li9.net 10 years ago (getting old I know) for 900 usd to someone using your service. To my knowledge he never took ownership and to this day its still in my name. I think I ended up pushing it to you a year after I was paid because I could not get a hold of him. I have no idea who is paying for renewals but I still get notices once in a while on it.

If you can track this buyer down I will buy you a beer at next domaining europe conference.

promo said:

Well as long as you guarantee the transaction financially, I am good.

But I am not a fan of letting it be down to the sellers conacience. You should have a way for the buyer to indicate that he received the name.

What happens if a buyer never takes ownership even after repeated requests to do so? I sold li9.net 10 years ago (getting old I know) for 900 usd to someone using your service. To my knowledge he never took ownership and to this day its still in my name. I think I ended up pushing it to you a year after I was paid because I could not get a hold of him. I have no idea who is paying for renewals but I still get notices once in a while on it.

If you can track this buyer down I will buy you a beer at next domaining europe conference.

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That sounds like a good deal to me. Send me the info. I am happy to help that is why I am here. And yes that is the likely outcome we will take the domain in our holding account and in almost all cases "force" the buyer to take the domain. If not we have taken the domain ourselves and paid the seller those are very rare as well. It sounds like they got the domain from us and then didn't update the WHOIS.

Joe Styler said:

It is not unsecure. I can count on my hand the number of domains we have had delivery issues with this year and we have other ways to resolve that which is also laid out in the terms of service to make everyone whole which happens. Worst case scenario we take the hit not the customer. That is the beauty of using the platform. The money or the domain gets to you. If you use something else you may have an issue with the buyer or seller either not moving the domain or doing a payment reversal etc.

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I can count 2 in the space of 2 weeks. So I think it is more prevalent than you are stating. Or I am really the unluckiest domainer on the planet. With my luck. That is a possibility.

PM sent to @Joe Styler

stub said:

I can count 2 in the space of 2 weeks. So I think it is more prevalent than you are stating. Or I am really the unluckiest domainer on the planet. With my luck. That is a possibility.

PM sent to @Joe Styler

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You would be the luckiest if you are getting paid for domains you haven't delivered.

wwwweb said:

You would be the luckiest if you are getting paid for domains you haven't delivered.

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Not if I lose my GoDaddy Auction Account over it.

I've been on the other end of this where the seller never transfers the domain after I won at auction. Luckily I noticed and godaddy eventually refunded (thanks to my rep). GD probably just ate the cost though since the transactions were less than $100 each.

A little more details from the email I received back in February/March. It took my rep, who is great btw, to step in and get the refund.

Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting Aftermarket Support. As stated in Section 9:DISPUTE POLICY of the Domain Name Aftermarket Membership Agreement, which you accepted at the time of purchasing your membership: "To file a Dispute, you must submit an email to [email protected] . The email must include, Your account number, name and contact information, the order number associated with the transaction, the domain name over which the Dispute arises and a detailed account of the Dispute. Such email must be received within 15 days from the sale date." Reference to the agreement can be found below:
https://www.godaddy.com/Agreements/ShowDoc.aspx?se=+&pageid=DNA_MEMBER

As we are a payment processing service rather than an escrow service, we hold the funds for a specified period of time, and must release the funds at the end of that period unless we as your agent receive a dispute. As a dispute had not been received during the 15 day period described in the agreement, your funds have already been released to the seller. Any request for return of the funds will need to be made directly to the seller. However, we cannot intervene further. Once the 15-day Transaction Assurance period is completed, the window of opportunity to dispute the transaction has closed and we are limited in ways to help.

I have requested that the seller deliver the domain ****** or return the funds so that a refund may be issued to you.

stub said:

Not if I lose my GoDaddy Auction Account over it.

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Doesn’t seem like any malice on your part, could it be your specific register? From my experience most end users are pretty patient when afternic handles it.

Actually godaddy sold a two domains for me today, both happend to be at godaddy, one was premium listing, and it transferred automatically, the other via afternic which I pushed, and they accepted a few hours later, and put my payment date for Monday.

Total of those 2 transactions was $14K, couldn’t be any easier. If you are going to lean on godaddys sales channels maybe easier to keep your domains there.

I am mainly godaddy, and Uniregistry, both are about the same price, and do not put holds on transfer outs like enom, or moniker.

I’m sure Joe can sort things out, he has done a good job of fixing the auction side of things, they are growing quick, lots of growing pains, but if you give them a chance they go out of their way to fix things.

I had some problems a while ago transferring domains TO GDD. It took a while for getting the 2 codes in my email of BULK domain transfer that had to be filled in (and afterwards the authcode).
The opposite (so transferring away from Godaddy, can sometimes go quickly. (ceratinly if going to manage and 'transfer out' and approve the transfer out)), is my experiene.

wwwweb said:

Doesn’t seem like any malice on your part, could it be your specific register? From my experience most end users are pretty patient when afternic handles it.

Actually godaddy sold a two domains for me today, both happend to be at godaddy, one was premium listing, and it transferred automatically, the other via afternic which I pushed, and they accepted a few hours later, and put my payment date for Monday.

Total of those 2 transactions was $14K, couldn’t be any easier. If you are going to lean on godaddys sales channels maybe easier to keep your domains there.

I am mainly godaddy, and Uniregistry, both are about the same price, and do not put holds on transfer outs like enom, or moniker.

I’m sure Joe can sort things out, he has done a good job of fixing the auction side of things, they are growing quick, lots of growing pains, but if you give them a chance they go out of their way to fix things.

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As I've said above, I've PM'd Joe. He seems to have interjected himself into the non-transferred domain. So that should also get resolved, soon.

Transferring my domains to GoDaddy? Grrrr. No way. When they took my account away, with 300+ domains in it, when all I had done was try to correct the status of my account. I had done nothing wrong at all. They just wanted to be b*st*rds. Unnamed grey men in grey suits mentality.They probably told me about 5 times my account was toast with no appeal. Only after about 150% certainty that I had lost my account. But my (6th? and final) appeal, was successful. My Account Manager was a stalwart supporting my arguments. But they wouldn't even listen to him. Until maybe the last time. I couldn't transfer my domains fast enough. I get much better transparent personalized service from my current registrar They actually try to help rather than make decisions about accounts without reasons. I repeat. I had done nothing wrong to get this kind of treatment. I was honest throughout the ordeal. Now I don't have an Account Manager any longer, and no domains at GoDaddy Registrar to boot. I'm much happier that way...

Even if it makes it harder when transferring sold domains back to GoDaddy. Like having to deal with GoDaddy paying me without the domain being transferred to GoDaddy. Did you notice above. They make both parties responsible for transferring the domain. Just so they can blame somebody other than themselves. I would have thought the person who paid for the domain has the ultimate responsibility to see the domain get's into their account. I don't see why a seller should be blamed if the buyer takes no action and doesn't ask GoDaddy's Transfer Concierge for their help. Why should the seller be blamed in those circumstances. When they have not received any requests to transfer.

Perhaps their Transfer Concierge should control ALL domains bought on their auction platform, and being transferred to GoDaddy. I'm sure the regular customers wouldn't object to that.

wwwweb said:

Doesn’t seem like any malice on your part, could it be your specific register? From my experience most end users are pretty patient when afternic handles it.

Actually godaddy sold a two domains for me today, both happend to be at godaddy, one was premium listing, and it transferred automatically, the other via afternic which I pushed, and they accepted a few hours later, and put my payment date for Monday.

Total of those 2 transactions was $14K, couldn’t be any easier. If you are going to lean on godaddys sales channels maybe easier to keep your domains there.

I am mainly godaddy, and Uniregistry, both are about the same price, and do not put holds on transfer outs like enom, or moniker.

I’m sure Joe can sort things out, he has done a good job of fixing the auction side of things, they are growing quick, lots of growing pains, but if you give them a chance they go out of their way to fix things.

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Malice on our part or not, they can close our accounts.

I once sold a domain through GD and the buyer paid but never initiated transfer. I sent the auth. code several times via email and the message option at GD, but they never initiated transfer and I had my auctions account closed after few days because I didn't deliver the domain, I explained the situation and they wanted me to pay $20 or a similar amount to get my auctions account back, I never paid and stopped using GD. I will never pay a fine for something like that, it wasn't my fault. They still had my $150 from previous sales.

Fortunately after a year they opened my account after several requests. I never needed back by account, I just don't like the fact that they had my $150, which they still have but I will get them back when the amount passes the $1000 threshold.

Haris said:

Malice on our part or not, they can close our accounts.

I once sold a domain through GD and the buyer paid but never initiated transfer. I sent the auth. code several times via email and the message option at GD, but they never initiated transfer and I had my auctions account closed after few days because I didn't deliver the domain, I explained the situation and they wanted me to pay $20 or a similar amount to get my auctions account back, I never paid and stopped using GD. I will never pay a fine for something like that, it wasn't my fault. They still had my $150 from previous sales.

Fortunately after a year they opened my account after several requests.

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I hear you what is the solution then do they become like namejet, and dropcatch, and make you bring the domains over to enom, and namebright respectively before listing them for sale, sans the large warehouse companies they work with? There is no real solution to this issue, I agree, having the two parties work it out does not work, because the other side usually takes 1-2 days to respond via email to every request if they are a retail buyer, or they go awol for a long time. Majority of my sales get picked up from afternic, rather than the auction listing channel, which case a broker is involved. I have been on both sides of that outside registry transfer in process to godaddy, and I agree, it is tedious, especially when the other side fails to communicate.

Joe Styler said:

That sounds like a good deal to me. Send me the info. I am happy to help that is why I am here. And yes that is the likely outcome we will take the domain in our holding account and in almost all cases "force" the buyer to take the domain. If not we have taken the domain ourselves and paid the seller those are very rare as well. It sounds like they got the domain from us and then didn't update the WHOIS.

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Nice I need help right now
Problem with Afternic
PM on the way.
@stub - off topic maybe, sorry

DexDN said:

Nice I need help right now
Problem with Afternic
PM on the way.
@stub - off topic maybe, sorry

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No problem, at all. But it would be nice if it was transcendentally related. But you could have PM'd him directly, if not. All my dealings with @Joe Styler have always been polite, knowledgeable and helpful. Like support should always be.

Hand reg. domain a few days ago but the domain is already listed on Afternic, usual problems with Afternic

stub said:

Not if I lose my GoDaddy Auction Account over it.

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We wouldn't ban you for trying to move a domain to a buyer who wouldn't accept it.