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Recently I bought at Godaddy three domains that are/were also registered at Godaddy: GoSystems dot com, GoToys dot com and GoEducation dot com. A few days ago I got an email from attorney David E Weslow (who's a well respected attorney in the industry, to my understanding) about an intent to file a lawsuit on behalf of a client in order to retrieve 19 stolen domains. The 3 domains I mentioned were included alongside 15 other GoWord.com domains and one LLN.com. I remember seeing almost all of these domains listed at Godaddy recently with attractive Buy It Nows and they were apparently picked off by buyers. A few days ago I posted a warning, but took it off after I was told that the matter was already dealt with. Unfortunately this matter is still alive and kicking and that's why I'm posting this post.
According to historic whois the person who claims they were stolen from him was indeed the owner of these domains. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist so I think it's quite likely that these domains were indeed stolen. Most people wouldn't go to such lengths as to pretend that domains got stolen and then hire a respected attorney to try and get them back.
So I started going down the inevitable bureaucratic path. Godaddy's phone rep sent me to [email protected]. They said: "To the best of our knowledge, the complaining party is not pursuing this matter at this time. If we are notified of a legal dispute regarding the domains, we will further notify you". There's a letter of intent to proceed with litigation which I sent to them, the attorney also said he notified Godaddy about the upcoming lawsuit and at least two other buyers beside me also contacted them about it, but apparently this needs to get to an actual lawsuit in order for them to take interest.
I emailed Godaddy Auctions as well, but they just sent me to the next level support who then referred me back to Court Disputes. What's extraordinary to me is that nobody is saying: We're going to investigate and try to determine if these domains were indeed stolen and sold on our platform. I contacted @Joe Styler . I have much respect for him for being here at NP and for being available for help in the past, but he replied that he can't get involved in legal matters so that's another dead end.
What's the bottom line? 19 possibly stolen domains may have just sold at Godaddy but Godaddy doesn't seem to want to investigate. Probably because if they do investigate, they might have to refund 19 purchases that were done on their platform and lose to my estimate around $15K-$20K. The possibility that 19 stolen domains may have just sold there doesn't seem to concern anybody or make them want to try to check if it happened, at the very least in order to know and to try to avoid it from happening again, if it happened. Based on their responses up till now it seems like Godaddy is just waiting for their customers to be sued.
I, as a buyer, can't know who got the money I paid for the domains so there's nothing I can do but return the domains or wait for a lawsuit. Is this Godaddy's way of treating domain investors better and trying to look out for them and their needs? Godaddy's new CEO certainly talked the talk at NamesCon about embracing domainers and trying to help them. But can he and the rest of Godaddy actually walk the walk when domainers who spend a lot of money on their platform need help because of domains that are registered there and were sold on their platform, likely by a thief?
It remains to be seen. For now it certainly doesn't seem like it. But perhaps there will be a good end to this story. Be careful with GoWord.com domains in the near future. And make sure the registrar you use will be there for you when you need it and not just when it takes your money.
According to historic whois the person who claims they were stolen from him was indeed the owner of these domains. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist so I think it's quite likely that these domains were indeed stolen. Most people wouldn't go to such lengths as to pretend that domains got stolen and then hire a respected attorney to try and get them back.
So I started going down the inevitable bureaucratic path. Godaddy's phone rep sent me to [email protected]. They said: "To the best of our knowledge, the complaining party is not pursuing this matter at this time. If we are notified of a legal dispute regarding the domains, we will further notify you". There's a letter of intent to proceed with litigation which I sent to them, the attorney also said he notified Godaddy about the upcoming lawsuit and at least two other buyers beside me also contacted them about it, but apparently this needs to get to an actual lawsuit in order for them to take interest.
I emailed Godaddy Auctions as well, but they just sent me to the next level support who then referred me back to Court Disputes. What's extraordinary to me is that nobody is saying: We're going to investigate and try to determine if these domains were indeed stolen and sold on our platform. I contacted @Joe Styler . I have much respect for him for being here at NP and for being available for help in the past, but he replied that he can't get involved in legal matters so that's another dead end.
What's the bottom line? 19 possibly stolen domains may have just sold at Godaddy but Godaddy doesn't seem to want to investigate. Probably because if they do investigate, they might have to refund 19 purchases that were done on their platform and lose to my estimate around $15K-$20K. The possibility that 19 stolen domains may have just sold there doesn't seem to concern anybody or make them want to try to check if it happened, at the very least in order to know and to try to avoid it from happening again, if it happened. Based on their responses up till now it seems like Godaddy is just waiting for their customers to be sued.
I, as a buyer, can't know who got the money I paid for the domains so there's nothing I can do but return the domains or wait for a lawsuit. Is this Godaddy's way of treating domain investors better and trying to look out for them and their needs? Godaddy's new CEO certainly talked the talk at NamesCon about embracing domainers and trying to help them. But can he and the rest of Godaddy actually walk the walk when domainers who spend a lot of money on their platform need help because of domains that are registered there and were sold on their platform, likely by a thief?
It remains to be seen. For now it certainly doesn't seem like it. But perhaps there will be a good end to this story. Be careful with GoWord.com domains in the near future. And make sure the registrar you use will be there for you when you need it and not just when it takes your money.
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