GoDaddy ever Front Run you? Someone did it to me (I think)

MobyOne said:

ctrlnft.com

My receipt says "Sep 25, 2021, 12:05 PM" $11.99 for the domain and $0.18 for ICANN.

Then at 12:12pm I got an email that said the following:

We couldn't register ctrlnft.com.


This is the error message we got from the registry: The domain has already been registered in another account

We'll look into why this happened and try to fix it. But if we're still unable to register the domain, we'll go ahead and give you a refund (allow one business day for processing).


One of the other domains I bought on that order was bugctrl.com . You can see it processed to me like 11 seconds later or something. Check for yourselves.

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MobyOne said:

ctrlnft.com

My receipt says "Sep 25, 2021, 12:05 PM" $11.99 for the domain and $0.18 for ICANN.

Then at 12:12pm I got an email that said the following:

We couldn't register ctrlnft.com.


This is the error message we got from the registry: The domain has already been registered in another account

We'll look into why this happened and try to fix it. But if we're still unable to register the domain, we'll go ahead and give you a refund (allow one business day for processing).


One of the other domains I bought on that order was bugctrl.com . You can see it processed to me like 11 seconds later or something. Check for yourselves.

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bmugford said:

Thanks for providing the name.

What time zone 12:12pm?

Brad

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MobyOne said:

CST

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bmugford said:

Created: 2021-09-25 17:11:48 UTC. That is 5:11PM UTC.

CST is -6 hours behind UTC. That would put the registration at 11:11AM CST by my math.

It looks like it was registered before you tried to register it.

I am guessing it is related to this - https://twitter.com/ctrlnft

Brad

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MobyOne said:

No problem sharing the name.

Bad math is all. UTC is five hours ahead of CST. It was 12:11PM.

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bmugford said:

CST is -6 hours behind UTC.

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Joe Styler said:

We do not front run domains. If you got a refund it is because of what it says in the email. Someone else already had the domain registered or it was purchased before you purchased it.

It says we got an error from the registry that means we checked and thought the name was available when you tried to buy it. There a several reasons why this could happen. You put it into the cart but dont pay right away. Someone else buys it before you check out, at GoDaddy or anywhere else. It is already in the cart in your account so you can check it out.

We ask Verisign in this case (.com) they either say the domain is available or we don't get an answer, (downtime, Internet traffic is busy, technical issues, etc) so we go ahead and let the customer register it and then when we get an answer back from the registry we update it and refund if needed.

Either way we do not front run domains, period. We don't share lookups with anyone, etc.

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Joe Styler said:

Without an example I cannot tell you what happened. I can say we do not front run. There are various plausible scenarios that could have done this but I prefer not to speculate. Give me a domain.

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MobyOne said:

I did. CtrlNFT.com and BugCtrl.com were on the same order. You can see it was registered to Domains by Proxy six minutes after my order. BugCtrl went to me. Of course.

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Joe Styler said:

I took a look into it. You checked out with the domain ctrlnfts.com at 10:05 am and we held your order for 6 minutes before it completed. We hold orders for various reasons, this was held up by the payment verification team. There are various things that can trigger this but the order gets flagged for more review because we don’t like something we see. It doesn’t mean we think you are bad or doing something untoward it just means we see something we want to look into more before finalizing the order. Your order was flagged and then released to be processed in 6 minutes. In that 6 minute time frame another customer purchased the same domain, no flags or holds and they completed their transaction fully within the 6 minutes yours was on hold. It was not us registering the domain because you tried to buy it. I can also confirm that no employee of GoDaddy or GoDaddy itself registered the name. It was a 3rd party

In cases like this we give precedence to the order that fully completes first, even though you paid first we did not accept that order as completed for six minutes.

We do have this spelled out in our terms of service, Section 14. ADDITIONAL RESERVATION OF RIGHTS

GoDaddy expressly reserves the right to deny, cancel, terminate, suspend, lock, or modify access to (or control of) any Account or Services (including the right to cancel or transfer any domain name registration) for any reason (as determined by GoDaddy in its sole and absolute discretion), including but not limited to the following: (i) to correct mistakes made by GoDaddy in offering or delivering any Services (including any domain name registration), (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry or registrar, (iii) to assist with our fraud and abuse detection and prevention efforts,

I know this really stinks for you and you have a right to feel that way. I can tell you we didn’t single you out in any way vs other customers, they have the same checks in place for certain orders that meet the predetermined criteria. Having an order flagged by that team doesn’t mean we think you are guilty of anything or a bad person it just means we want to look into it a bit more before finalizing the order. This is done to protect everyone using the platform for purchases.

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Joe Styler said:

I took a look into it. You checked out with the domain ctrlnfts.com at 10:05 am and we held your order for 6 minutes before it completed. We hold orders for various reasons, this was held up by the payment verification team. There are various things that can trigger this but the order gets flagged for more review because we don’t like something we see. It doesn’t mean we think you are bad or doing something untoward it just means we see something we want to look into more before finalizing the order. Your order was flagged and then released to be processed in 6 minutes. In that 6 minute time frame another customer purchased the same domain, no flags or holds and they completed their transaction fully within the 6 minutes yours was on hold. It was not us registering the domain because you tried to buy it. I can also confirm that no employee of GoDaddy or GoDaddy itself registered the name. It was a 3rd party

In cases like this we give precedence to the order that fully completes first, even though you paid first we did not accept that order as completed for six minutes.

We do have this spelled out in our terms of service, Section 14. ADDITIONAL RESERVATION OF RIGHTS

GoDaddy expressly reserves the right to deny, cancel, terminate, suspend, lock, or modify access to (or control of) any Account or Services (including the right to cancel or transfer any domain name registration) for any reason (as determined by GoDaddy in its sole and absolute discretion), including but not limited to the following: (i) to correct mistakes made by GoDaddy in offering or delivering any Services (including any domain name registration), (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry or registrar, (iii) to assist with our fraud and abuse detection and prevention efforts,

I know this really stinks for you and you have a right to feel that way. I can tell you we didn’t single you out in any way vs other customers, they have the same checks in place for certain orders that meet the predetermined criteria. Having an order flagged by that team doesn’t mean we think you are guilty of anything or a bad person it just means we want to look into it a bit more before finalizing the order. This is done to protect everyone using the platform for purchases.

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boker said:

So, you hold an order for payment verification, but in the same time you send a email confirmation to the buyer that his order was accepted,(that includes accepting the payment, isn't it?)?
You can confirm that no one of the 5000 or so godaddy employees has registered the domain how, by checking them one by one or by knowing the buyer?
All that Section 14. ADDITIONAL RESERVATION OF RIGHTS will give godaddy the right to do whatever they want to whoever they want, including lock domains worth millions, without thinking about customers rights, everything at godaddy discretion, that sounds about right.
So, @bmugford 'more than likely' this sounds a logical explanation to you, no?

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bmugford said:

Joe gave a rather lengthy explanation. I am not privy to behind the scenes information.

The buyer is not really at fault in any way. They just submitted payment for a domain that they had no idea what going to be flagged, and didn't really have reasonable time to resolve it.

I think if an order is flagged though, it would be more reasonable to hold it for a longer period of time so a person can verify the information. That would avoid this type of scenario.

Brad

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Joe Styler said:

We do not front run domains. If you got a refund it is because of what it says in the email. Someone else already had the domain registered or it was purchased before you purchased it.

It says we got an error from the registry that means we checked and thought the name was available when you tried to buy it. There a several reasons why this could happen. You put it into the cart but dont pay right away. Someone else buys it before you check out, at GoDaddy or anywhere else. It is already in the cart in your account so you can check it out.

We ask Verisign in this case (.com) they either say the domain is available or we don't get an answer, (downtime, Internet traffic is busy, technical issues, etc) so we go ahead and let the customer register it and then when we get an answer back from the registry we update it and refund if needed.

Either way we do not front run domains, period. We don't share lookups with anyone, etc.

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MobyOne said:

-I have an email with a receipt showing I bought a domain, it's an NFT related domain, from GoDaddy.

-6 minutes later I got an email from GoDaddy saying:

"This is the error message we got from the registry: The domain has already been registered in another account

We'll look into why this happened and try to fix it. But if we're still unable to register the domain, we'll go ahead and give you a refund (allow one business day for processing). "

-I checked the ICANN registry and the domain was registered 5 minutes AFTER I received my receipt saying I bought it.

-It was registered to Domains by Proxy, LLC. a GoDaddy owned company.

Anybody else ever have this happen? I called customer service at GoDaddy and he got his two superiors involved and none of them had ever seen it or could explain what happened. They referred me to GoDaddy Legal. I'm hoping to hear back from my attorney tomorrow.

Just wondering if anyone else has seen this?

Thanks

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