GODADDY WARNING: Lying and stealing expired domains

I think it's hit and miss with this company - I think they have a loyal set of backers and a loyal set of detractors (because they've done something misleading or wrong). So it's split, but in my case, so far "knock on wood" they've been generally good.

@ OP: Try exporting your domain list and include the auth code... then initiate transfers
I can confirm that the support staff is definitely incorrect (or lying) as I transfered expired domains literally earlier today (transfer complete after expedited approval)

anantj said:

@ OP: Try exporting your domain list and include the auth code... then initiate transfers
I can confirm that the support staff is definitely incorrect (or lying) as I transfered expired domains literally earlier today (transfer complete after expedited approval)

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Agreed, the sad part is most godaddy customers are not aware of their actual policy and they choose to renew instead of transfer. Including people that had domains stolen via their TDNAM scheme which removes domains at 30 days to satisfy auctions that never should have started in the first place. The blockchain disaster from December is just one of the examples of how this policy and active operations harm customers to make profit for Godaddy shareholders.

DanSanchez said:

The blockchain disaster from December is just one of the examples of how this policy and active operations harm customers to make profit for Godaddy shareholders.

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Hey, @DanSanchez -- care to elaborate on this a bit? Honestly, just curious...

Cheers!

Mary Muse said:

Hey, @DanSanchez -- care to elaborate on this a bit? Honestly, just curious...

Cheers!

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I wonder if that is where the lady dropped hundreds of her blockchain domains, and the family missed the recovery window by a few days?

wwwweb said:

I wonder if that is where the lady dropped hundreds of her blockchain domains, and the family missed the recovery window by a few days?

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No kidding? I saw there was a frenzy from some dropped blockchain names, but nothing more..

Mary Muse said:

Hey, @DanSanchez -- care to elaborate on this a bit? Honestly, just curious...

Cheers!

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Like wwwweb said, a lady actually passed away and godaddy auctioned off all her domains after 30 days of expiration instead of sending them to redemption period. Her son tried to recover them and he was unable to recover most of them resulting in over $100k worth of wholesale inventory loss to her son. Their policies are criminal, no doubt.

I will never use GoDaddy ever again after they burned me on some high-value domains several years ago. Trying to reach out to their customer support team is like talking to a brick wall.

In fact, every registrar had their owned expired-domamin auction system did the same thing now. I had a similar experience to you


I still remember that in the old day, most of the registrars knew they took an unfair advantage over their existing customers by put their domains on auction and make a profit. Therefore, they let the domain owner to renew or transfer out the domain within the registry expired grace period to demonstrate they had provided a fair chance for their customers to transfer out or renew.

But now they no longer feel guilty to took an unfair advantage over their existing customers. Most of them had shorten the expired grace period and they'll telling you it's their company policy




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Let's talk about a little bit about legal.

Protecting the weak party has been one of the cornerstones of the development of contract law over the past century.

When a customer come to an agreement with a vendor or service provider, they have Inequality of bargaining power. The customer always had 'no say' to the term and condition. When bargaining power is persistently unequal, the concept of inequality of bargaining power serves as a justification for the implication of mandatory terms into contracts by law, or the non-enforcement of a contract by the courts. The consequence is the unreasonable term and condition can be voidable.

Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_of_bargaining_power

When the registrar run a expired domain auction business, they are taking an advantage over their customer and therefore the term and condition can be voidable. In order to avoid this from happening, the registrar had to demonstrated they are carry out their business through due diligence and in a reasonable manner.

They have to minimize the conflict of interests with the original registrant in order to demonstrated they are carry out their business through due diligence.

Therefore, the registrar will choose to use some standard deadline which is not controlled by them, in order to showed they are bona fide to deemed their customer no longer want their domain.

The registrar are likely use the registry full grace period as a deadline. It's because it involved an addition restore fee set by another parties (The registry). If the customer didn't renew it within the full grace period, the registrar has a reasonable ground to believed the customer are unlikely to renew it, it's because they had to pay an extra fee to the registry.
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More info in my old post: https://www.namepros.com/threads/dont-buy-icelandic-tv-until-the-problem-solved.1000670/

yes, it happened to me yesterday one of my recently expired domain(auto renew period) not shown in the list, then i can find the domain in different list (Recover Expired Domains) when press the renew it adds addtional 80+ usd to cart totally $116 but my domain in not in redemption period. but when the domain was expired i request AUTH code/ unlocked the domain and found that code in email and immediately transfer out the domain without any addtional cost.

My opinion is take your domain authcode and unlock (even not safe) it once expired. now request auth code for all domains in GD and unlocked all auto renew status domains.

Don't let your domains expire. Problem solved.

D Haynes said:

Don't let your domains expire. Problem solved.

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Sure that would solve the issue, but also not lying to customers about their domain ownership post-expiration is helpful. The bulk of the domains in question expired 2 days ago, it's not like I waited last minute.

just checking another domain still the same(auto renew period), going to transfer out another domain

.ORG Domain Renewal :$19.99
Redemption Fee - .ORG $80.00
Private Domain Registration Renewal: $9.99 1 year
Subtotal $109.98
$18.80
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Total $128.78

DanSanchez said:

Sure that would solve the issue, but also not lying to customers about their domain ownership post-expiration is helpful. The bulk of the domains in question expired 2 days ago, it's not like I waited last minute.

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Nope, sounds like you waited two days past last minute lol.

I hear what your saying though. If a company says they will do something they should stick to their word or if there is an industry specific rule/guideline it should be adhered to. I understand it's a trust thing.

I just don't understand why people let their names expire. Nobody has ever given a good reason for it. Every issue someone has is about expired domains. Makes no sense when it's completely avoidable.

@DanSanchez Have you renewed the domain?

D Haynes said:

I just don't understand why people let their names expire. Nobody has ever given a good reason for it. Every issue someone has is about expired domains. Makes no sense when it's completely avoidable.

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Having thousands of domains under management translates to more determining factors than just "renewing domains before expiration." Additionally, I stopped using Godaddy as my main registrar two years ago for similar schemes.

bsdomains said:

@DanSanchez Have you renewed the domain?

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I'm in the process of transferring all domains now, boycotting Godaddy. Still having issues with receiving some of the non-expired domain auth codes.

Use spreadsheet and add the conditional formatting in the expire date column. If anything that will expire in ten days it will turn to a different color.
I have thousand names two and this help a lot.

I just use an online google sheet for all domains.. so I can access it from anywhere.. versus harddrive excel sheet.. and I sort it all by expiry days.. this way I see oldest expiry domains on top.. very helpful indeed.

as for yoru codes issues.. here is what I learned:

for some odd reason, when I go to my expired section and click SEND CODE once only.. I get it maybe 50% of time! but if I click same domain SEND CODE 2 or 3 times.. I get it fast and 100% of time. but I always get them. up to 30 days expired. then you can forget it. unless there is no bid on auctions and yuou pay redemption fee. cheers.

DanSanchez said:

Godaddy has gone downhill faster than most registrars in recent history, their methods for domain retention and profit are no longer based on the value they can add to a customer, but in simple deception.

Instead of providing authorization codes for expired domains (1-30 days post expiration.) They actively block the authorization codes from ever reaching the registered contact email. In my naive attempts at manually requesting 40 authorization codes, I spent most of the morning going to each domain and requesting one at a time. Nothing ever arrived, it was frustrating, but I discovered their methods of domain retention involve blocking authorization codes by default.

Here are some of the conflicting details I received...



Tldr: #boycottgodaddy.

I'll be happy to help anyone with domains stuck at Godady, I have successfully initiated transfers on all domains.

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Hi Dan. I am sorry to hear about this experience. It is not our policy to block anyone from transferring domains out after they expire. You have up to 30 days to do so. This article states how to do it after expiration. Basically if you request the auth code it will return it to a transferrable state after it expired. You do not have to renew the domain. The support agent was flat out wrong. I will follow up on that with their boss.

https://www.godaddy.com/help/transferring-expired-domain-names-5019?

Joe Styler said:

Hi Dan. I am sorry to hear about this experience. It is not our policy to block anyone from transferring domains out after they expire. You have up to 30 days to do so. This article states how to do it after expiration. Basically if you request the auth code it will return it to a transferrable state after it expired. You do not have to renew the domain. The support agent was flat out wrong. I will follow up on that with their boss.

https://www.godaddy.com/help/transferring-expired-domain-names-5019?

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Thank-you Joe. You're a great representative for GoDaddy.

DanSanchez said:

Like wwwweb said, a lady actually passed away and godaddy auctioned off all her domains after 30 days of expiration instead of sending them to redemption period. Her son tried to recover them and he was unable to recover most of them resulting in over $100k worth of wholesale inventory loss to her son. Their policies are criminal, no doubt.

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That is not exactly the whole truth. We did not know she had passed away. When we found out we stopped the auctions that were still live and renewed some of the expired domains in order to give the family time to deal with it.
I also personally reached out to the family to try and help several times without response.
We did not make a big deal about this publicly but we not only stopped some of the auctions we were still able to, we also gave the lion's share of the profit we made to a charity the person who lost the domains had an interest in and we made the donation in her name. Again this was after trying unsuccessfully to contact the family. I also tried to contact the son who posted in the thread via namepros unsuccessfully.
I have seen and been a part of many free renewals for customers of valuable domains when we know they have passed away, are in the hospital etc and cannot otherwise normally manage their domains. We routinely help people with free time on products when there is a disaster such as the hurricanes last year. We just do not make a big deal about it publicly. We do not do it for PR we do it because it is the right thing to do.
Again I apologize for your experience with chat. That information is completely wrong and you are able to transfer out after expiration as you discovered on your own.

I must say GD has gotten terrible when it comes to their renewal/redemption policy. They are snatching anything they can sell. They are charging crazy redemption fees also.

I have already begun the process of moving my domains from GD because of their cut throat renewal/redemption policy.

Certainly, domains should be renewed on time, but GD has implemented a policy which will surely lead to the loss of many domain name customers.

They used to be so good. Now just horrible. The website is mediocre considering they are a supposed leader. The customer service is less and less knowledgeable, and this expired domain policy is horrible.

Namesilo does the same thing, when I go to the field where it says request code there is no link to click to get auth. code and it says, "
The only domain function for expired domains is to renew.
"
If, you contact them (as you did GD) and are able to bypass this policy props to you it's really up to the register if they want to manually give you codes for expired domains.
So, there are plenty of registers not allowing transfer-out of expired domain. Last, register that allowed me to transfer-out after expiration actually about 2 weeks after was dotster, I moved out because of a NC promo at the time.