Premium Listing Sold on GoDaddy for $99,999.00, My list Price, GoDaddy Nonresponsive

DomainBarracksRob said:

Hence why I stated I have begun and others should ...If you still wish to sell on GD ....ONLY List in Afternic as that price is reflected on both Afternic and GD home page search !

Since I’ve started this it has made things much less confusing price wise for me and ....keeps this scenario from happening which took place with OP! I’m far from the best here but just my own personal opinion at this time .

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Afternic ToS say this:
https://www.afternic.com/legal

B. Additional Fast Transfer Terms and Conditions for Sellers
6. Seller may change the Buy Now Price at any time; provided however, seller understands and agrees that by changing the Buy Now Price, the Listed Domain(s) is subject to a new valuation by Afternic. In addition, due to the nature of e-commerce and the internet, Afternic is unable to guarantee that any change to the Buy Now Price shall be published on Afternic and its reseller sites before an offer is received. Seller is obligated to complete a transaction with a confirmed buyer for the posted price even if seller tried to increase the Buy Now Price prior to the time of the purchase.

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Not sure if that applies to all Afternic listings or just Fast Transfer. If that only applies to Fast Transfer, where are the ToS for price changes on other domains? In any case it does not give a time limit, whereas GD Premium ToS, quoted earlier in thread, allow GD only 24 hours to change displayed prices, though in reality it may take longer.

heartsforhemp said:

My biggest fear is that I will never know what it really sold for...

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I don't understand this part.

You know what money you received, or will receive, from GD and what your previous listing price was. Do those two match up? If not, I can see you would have questions that need answering.

they do not

heartsforhemp said:

they do not

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If the domain sold at a price that was not your old listing price and not your new listing price, that would imply that GD changed the price without your consent or authority and would be very serious.

heartsforhemp said:

they do not

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Why don't you just tell us the old price, the price the domain actually sold for, and the money you got. This will end all these blind argument.

Kachi said:

Why don't you just tell us the old price, the price the domain actually sold for, and the money you got. This will end all these blind argument.

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Agreed!


If the domain sold for the exact old BIN, that's all we need to know - the old BIN price.

But if there was also a floor price, and the domain sold for somewhere between the floor and the BIN, then we'd need to know the old floor and the old BIN.

It would also be useful to know HOW LONG these old prices were in place.

If he's not going to disclose any of that, it's time for me to unwatch this thread.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/unwatch-a-thread-the-two-day-rule.1134340/

Again, my sympathies, but we're all just burning rubber in the dark at this point. Which doesn't sound very good, no matter how you picture that!

I just hope the final sale price is something you can live with, considering you've started making expenses with $99,999 in mind?

Yes, Godaddy is a multi billion dollars company but they exhibit certain characteristics and practices that even a startup won't dare. I won't be surprised if Godaddy sell 99,999 and decided to cash in on their TOS and pay the OP the previous listed price.

I believe I am wrong and hopefully so. But whichever way, GD has a lot to answer.

Should confirmation of the BIN changes be made through email? Will it solve this issue. I don't think presently any registrar/marketplace follows such a practice.

It's however very disappointing to receive a huge cut on a premium listing.

So how much did you receive?

equity78 said:

Certainly not what Keith laid out.

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I was negotiating a sale thru a rep at afternic. There was a bin price set but we settled for a bit less and I was happy to update so the buyer could add to their cart. Before I had a chance to make a move the price was updated and domain sold.

Now say what you want but there should never ever be a rep accessing a customer’s control panel without prior consent. Maybe I told the rep verbally we had a deal but had a change of heart after the conversation. Regardless, it’s up to me to make internal changes to pricing, dns, forwarding and so on. Because of that incident I will never sell via afternic again. I will also never list a domain for sale at godaddy if it’s registered there. Gives them too much power imo.

When I deal with my broker or any broker at Afternic and we’re emailing back and forth in the times when I’ve agreed to lower the BIN or floor I’ve sometimes given my consent for the broker to go ahead and make the adjustments himself. I don’t have a problem with that.

Other times I’ve told the broker that I’ll handle the adjustment myself.

In all times it’s been handled according to my wishes.

I suppose if I told a broker “Wait I’ll make the adjustment myself” and he ignored me and did it himself, I’d be upset - but, how upset? After all I did consent to the changing of the BIN or floor so why should I care that much who did it.

And if I left it silent - as you did - appears you did not affirmatively tell him Not to make the adjustment himself - then I’d have even less to gripe about.

In any case the scenario you describe is not where Afternic went and changed the BIN to any price other than the price you had agreed to. The domain sold for exactly the price you agreed.

But - if you feel strongly about it - by leaving Afternic entirely you’ve ensured that such a thing as selling a domain at your already agreed upon price will never happen, at least not at Afternic. “Problem solved” but sounds to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

xynames said:

When I deal with my broker or any broker at Afternic and we’re emailing back and forth in the times when I’ve agreed to lower the BIN or floor I’ve sometimes given my consent for the broker to go ahead and make the adjustments himself. I don’t have a problem with that.

Other times I’ve told the broker that I’ll handle the adjustment myself.

In all times it’s been handled according to my wishes.

I suppose if I told a broker “Wait I’ll make the adjustment myself” and he ignored me and did it himself, I’d be upset - but, how upset? After all I did consent to the changing of the BIN or floor so why should I care that much who did it.

And if I left it silent - as you did - appears you did not affirmatively tell him Not to make the adjustment himself - then I’d have even less to gripe about.

In any case the scenario you describe is not where Afternic went and changed the BIN to any price other than the price you had agreed to. The domain sold for exactly the price you agreed.

But - if you feel strongly about it - by leaving Afternic entirely you’ve ensured that such a thing as selling a domain at your already agreed upon price will never happen, at least not at Afternic. “Problem solved” but sounds to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

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Agreeing to sell a domain doesn’t mean my account should be accessed by someone who doesn’t hold the password. It’s an invasion of privacy and a danger to customers. Have you ever agreed to sell a domain at escrow.com? How would you feel if they had access to your domain the second you agreed to terms?

There are a lot of posts you've made where you see things differently from me. Doesn't mean you are wrong and I am right; just we don't always see things the same. For example when you created that long thread about how there was some conspiracy against you that defeated your winning the auction at the last second.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/lost-a-hemp-domain-at-the-last-second-of-an-auction.1122356/
I never saw it that way, I just thought you lost because you didn't refresh the browser at the end (or the equivalent thereof, for an app), or that you simply lost because you didn't put in the highest bid before the auction ended in real time - that your perception of when the auction ended was due to your "cached time" versus real time.

I tend to look for the simple explanation, and for example with this Afternic matter, when the end result is the same as what I wanted anyway, I don't automatically assume the worst.

But, since you feel strongly about this Afternic affair, you should do what you feel is right. I think you're assuming that just because the broker changed the BIN to what you told him you would accept, that means that he would change it to some other number you never agreed on. I'm just saying that I wouldn't look at it that way - I'd just look at it that I told the guy to sell the domain at a certain price and he made it happen. At worst, I'd tell him later that - hey, I woulda rather you let me change the settings myself. I am sure if you had told him specifically, "Wait - I will change the BIN myself" he would not have touched it. But you didn't tell him that, did you? Again, that's not to say that your interpretation is wrong, just it isn't mine.

Wow .. while I can understand the sale at the old amount if the partner registrar it sold at had cached data .. I don't understand how there isn't a system of checks in place to block the sale, and then give the seller the offer to decide yes or no if they want to accept it at the old price. Much more importantly though .. it just boggles my mind how many bugs and errors are in GoDaddy's automated emails. GoDaddy most certainly does have some strong points .. but in the category of automated emails I'm not even sure I could give them a 1/10 it's such an epic disaster.

In this case the email template obviously calls it's data from the current price, instead of making a data call to their actual transaction records. Again this isn't a programming bug .. it's a result of the wrong person making a horrible decision of what specific dataset to draw from when directing the team building the email template.

Same as the auction end time issue .. painfully bad logical planning (which was programmed probably exactly as directed).


All that said .. at the end of the day I really don't think that was anything close to a 100k domain! Anything in the 5 figures I'd say was a win for this domain. In fact I would doubt even the much shorter roots "HempSociety" or "GlobalHemp" would ever sell at 100k, and I'd say each was a good 10x in value above the one in question here.


As for the other Afternic situation .. I'd have to agree with @xynames, I really don't see the issue AS LONG AS the price was changed to a price that was agreed by you and/or within your predetermined range. As far as I know, there isn't anything in our accounts that's hidden from staff aside from our C/C numbers and passwords. If all parties are clearly in agreement for the terms and price of a transaction, then you'd almost think it was their job to go in and make the technical changes in order to enable the transaction at exactly those terms.

Ategy.com said:

In this case the email template obviously calls it's data from the current price, instead of making a data call to their actual transaction records.

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Who on earth will ever believe this? ^^

How do you generate receipts from site content rather than the actual sell? What kind of receipt is that? Receipt is a summery of actual transaction, not something you generate randomly from any figure that comes to mind. That's why I believe that Godaddy may be at their usual game of profiting illegitimately unethically. Or at best, committed an unforgivable blunder.

Here's what I see: They sold for $99,999 (that's the only reason they sent $99,999 receipt) then crosschecked and discovered that the domain was recently listed for a lower price, and decided to play a "fast one" by trying to pay the seller the previous price. At least that's what the whole scenario suggested to me.

There are mistakes that shouldn't be made, not even by individual, let alone a corporation.

Imagine you listed a domain at Namejet auction with $100 reserve, the auction get to $10,000 final bid, Namejet sold and sent you $10,000 receipt, then later came back and said the domain actually sold at $100 reserve. Would you take that and walk away?

If this guy walks away with whatever Godaddy gave him without fighting it, then he's not telling us the truth. Period.

The OP’s old price was - maybe $500. He’s embarrassed to post it because it will establish how absurd it was for him to think that the domain sold for 99999.99 But really there is no shame in any domain sale. He should just disclose the pertinent facts as long as he went to the trouble of creating this now long thread.

As far as Donde’s “thought” that the domain actually sold for 99999.99 and GoDaddy pocketed the excess this absurdity is why it’s best to unwatch these threads after two days.

If OP comes back and decides to answer the repeated questions posed by several of us about what the old price was how long it had been in place whether there was a floor price too and what price the domain sold for and how much he actually received - I’ll come back from the unwatching dead. But I’m sure these numbers will simply corroborate that the domain sold at the old price and that the OP received exactly that correct sum minus commission.

Until OP decides to disclose those old numbers you may spin your conspiracy theories. The simple explanation of that the system hadn’t yet propagated the updated price is in fact the truth.

xynames said:

the system hadn’t yet propagated

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Propagated indeed!

The price is propagating and the receipt is propagating too?

@dande .. Seriously .. what you're talking about is pretty much criminal. It really wouldn't take much for the seller to contact the new buyer after WhoIs change or the site goes live. While it's certainly something somebody could hide short term, longer term is very different.

They are a MULTI-BILLION dollar company .. do you really think they're going to do something illegal and risk going to jail over 100k?

After seeing and reporting soooooo many bugs and issues at GoDaddy I'm fairly confident the erroneous "receipt" was simply due to EXTREMELY sloppy email logic.

Note that I am NOT saying that GoDaddy should or should not ultimately be held responsible (particularly IF their TOS said 24 hours and it was 36 hours as the seller stated above). In fact .. that's what the discussion here should actually be.

You are more than justified to question GoDaddy's competence in this instance with regards to platform/email logic. But again .. this constant rush by many people at NP to illustrate GoDaddy as this big evil empire out to INTENTIONALLY and wrongfully steal people's money is simply unfounded and unrealistic. Or at least in this direct way that could easily be verified later between the buyer and seller.

That being said .. at some point the question can be asked if such numerous long-term issues in of itself is an overarching negligence that could be viewed as "intentional ignorance"? I couldn't blame anyone from making that sort of accusation. But I'm pretty sure this, like most issues, comes down to sloppy logic .. which most certainly should not be acceptable from a multi billion dollar company like GoDaddy.

But again .. as I've said many times before .. this sort of thing is unfortunately normal in many larger institutions. And particularly when it comes to a multi-department giant like GoDaddy, it's almost impossible to expect perfection in such a platform .. but to have the number of issues that it does have also really should not be acceptable.

My stating what happened technically in my view is actually still a very serious issue .. it's something that should have been obvious and they need to look at the corporate structure that led to the creation of that email template logic. There isn't any real need to go searching for conspiracies and sidetrack the overarching issue that at some point GoDaddy really needs to get their act together on these sorts of things .. that receipt should never ever have been generated the way it was .. and there should have been some sort of error-checking done which would have flagged the transaction the second it was attempted. Then give bonus points if they actually implemented a system that notified all parties involved, but also quickly gave the seller the OPTION of selling at the old price .. AND/OR .. to invite the buyer to buy the domain at the corrected price (particularly after 24 hours after the change .. even if it should really be more like 5 minutes)

All these crazy conspiracy theories take attention away from these REAL issues which REALLY need to be addressed and corrected rather than be swept under the rug or dismissed because it's enveloped by all sorts of crazy and unfounded accusations.

For the most part GoDaddy employees are good people who want to do the right thing. With these sorts of issues it's often not a single person who is to blame, but instead it's a result of poor or inappropriate corporate structure for what is needed to put together parts of a platform that involve multiple departments. I'm sure many of them are just as frustrated as us (although probably not more than the original poster here).

@Ategy.com I think all these crazy conspiracy theories (mine inclusive) are coming in because the OP has refused to follow up with his thread. It's time we quit this thread for good.

You can't create such massive discussion with so much information at the beginning, only to disappear when it starts heating up, leaving room for all sorts of imaginations.

Godaddy on the other hand. While they may not have pocketed the money, have committed unforgivable blunder which they suppose to come here and clear their name in detail if they really consider us (their customer) as anything important. Until they do, I will continue to stand by my theory. Look at the following facts about them -

1. They've been accused of "front running" which seems to have turned out to be true.

2. They've been accused of allowing "shill bidding" in the past also.

3. The only platform that charges annual fees to participate in their auction. I mean the auctioning of their own expired domains which they are going to keep 100% of the proceed.

4. One of the few markets that charges 20% commission on domain sales despite being the biggest domain company in the world.

5. Accusations of various malpractices including evidence of bugs in their system (which may just be some intentional loopholes) designed to benefit them.

6. Smuggling countless of unnecessary add-ons to simple domain registration process in effort to make unsuspecting uninformed customers pay more. ETC.

When you look at these pattern, you see evidence of unethical company. A company that can do anything for the sake of profit and bottom line.

My sincerest condolences to you this was an informative but awful experience.

How much did the domain actually sold for?

dande said:

I think all these crazy conspiracy theories (mine inclusive) are coming in because the OP has refused to follow up with his thread. It's time we quit this thread for good.

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There is an easy way to investigate this...

SImply wait until the domain resolves and direct the new owner to this topic. Hopefully he/she will step up to the plate and put this thing to bed.

At this point I don't think we are going to get more details from the op nor from afternic.

Thread should be locked till Op is ready to be truthful

Thread should be locked till Op is ready to be truthful

I agree, you never know what the domain sold for. It's surprising that GD sent an email with the 99k price. It indicates that the system knew the 99k price. This should be a red flag to check with the seller. imo