warning A warning to customers having their domains registered through GoDaddy

[Future Sensors]

A warning to customers having their domains registered through GoDaddy.

GoDaddy customers have reported serious issues with their domain assets being silently removed from their registrar accounts without any notification. These domains are then transferred to a GoDaddy holding account, effectively changing ownership. If customers are unaware of this, the domains will remain removed and invisible to the registrant until they notice themselves, and contact GoDaddy to restore the domains to their accounts.

We've seen similar practices at domain registrar Epik.com, where customer domains were also quietly transferred to corporate holding accounts, leading to major issues with lost domains. Your domain assets should never leave your GoDaddy account, unless they have been paid for and sold in the aftermarket. At most, GoDaddy can just mark them as e.g. "pending sale" but beyond that, they don't have permission to remove your domains from your account.

This issue, which has been reported before by Domain Name Wire and by several members of this forum, is attributed to a glitch involving aftermarket domains placed in a cart through one of GoDaddy/Afternic's partner registrars, resulting in significant concerns about domain ownership, possible missed renewals, and possibly even denial of service for the visibility of listed domains on the aftermarket.

If GoDaddy will not resolve this serious issue promptly, despite the repeated attention from DNW and discussions on this forum, registrants may escalate this matter to ICANN to address policy violations.

Domain registrants with GoDaddy are urgently advised to thoroughly check their accounts for any missing domains. In general, regardless of the registrar used, it's always recommended to maintain an offline "master" list of all your domain assets.

More details can be read in this ongoing thread.

 

[sharfab]

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[Domain Pro Seller]

Τhank you for letting us know, I had no idea this was happening, it is unacceptable. One more reason to transfer my domains to another registrar

 

[HotKey]

Any action on domain name movements should have automated alerts sent to the account holders email, with an explanation of what transpired. None of us should be left scratching our heads. I can understand if we lived in pigeon mail delivery era but we don't.

Even if attributed to bugs, glitches or platform updates we are now in an age where communication of such
by the source entity isn't an attribute towards transparency, it's an adherence to user awareness.

 

[Embrand]

There is also the opposite problem. I sold a name by Fast Transfer recently. It was transferred from GoDaddy to Namecheap, and I have received my payment from Afternic, but the name still appears in my GoDaddy account. That is not great either.

By the way, GoDaddy.com changes to random languages and currencies almost daily (and I don't use a VPN).

 

[Gabriele]

By the way, GoDaddy.com changes to random languages and currencies almost daily (and I don't use a VPN).

With the problem that if randomly switches to the language of a country where VAT is applied, buyers will suddenly see prices increased by 20-30% compared to those set on Afternic. Another more reason why showing the correct taxes only at the point of entering billing information is crucial, as explained here.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/afternic-official-thread.1295231/post-9223741

 

[Domain Pro Seller]

By the way, GoDaddy.com changes to random languages and currencies almost daily (and I don't use a VPN).

All this time godaddyauctions.com was changing languages and currencies (don't use VPN either) but at least all the domains had the same currency. Now, it's so messed up that they don't even have the same currency!

 

[GoDaddy]

A warning to customers having their domains registered through GoDaddy.

GoDaddy customers have reported serious issues with their domain assets being silently removed from their registrar accounts without any notification. These domains are then transferred to a GoDaddy holding account, effectively changing ownership. If customers are unaware of this, the domains will remain removed and invisible to the registrant until they notice themselves, and contact GoDaddy to restore the domains to their accounts.

We've seen similar practices at domain registrar Epik.com, where customer domains were also quietly transferred to corporate holding accounts, leading to major issues with lost domains. Your domain assets should never leave your GoDaddy account, unless they have been paid for and sold in the aftermarket. At most, GoDaddy can just mark them as e.g. "pending sale" but beyond that, they don't have permission to remove your domains from your account.

This issue, which has been reported before by Domain Name Wire and by several members of this forum, is attributed to a glitch involving aftermarket domains placed in a cart through one of GoDaddy/Afternic's partner registrars, resulting in significant concerns about domain ownership, possible missed renewals, and possibly even denial of service for the visibility of listed domains on the aftermarket.

If GoDaddy will not resolve this serious issue promptly, despite the repeated attention from DNW and discussions on this forum, registrants may escalate this matter to ICANN to address policy violations.

Domain registrants with GoDaddy are urgently advised to thoroughly check their accounts for any missing domains. In general, regardless of the registrar used, it's always recommended to maintain an offline "master" list of all your domain assets.

More details can be read in this ongoing thread.

Good morning @Future Sensors. As we commented elsewhere, this isn't the case. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Typically, the GoDaddy checkout process is completed within minutes, so this temporary change in visibility is usually not noticeable. If a cart is abandoned, the domain will quickly become visible again in the registrant's account.

 

[Future Sensors]

Good morning @Future Sensors. As we commented elsewhere, this isn't the case. When a domain is added to the cart, it is temporarily not visible in the account view to ensure the sale can process smoothly. However, it is not transferred out of the registrant's account.

Good morning to you too.

If so, you should ask DNW to correct the 2023 article about this same issue. In that article it says that the domains are moved out of the GoDaddy account into a "special account". It appears that info came from a GoDaddy rep. Thank you.

From the DNW article:

 

[Future Sensors]

Thanks for finally looking into this matter @GoDaddy, and also for your additional clarification.

As you know, DNW wrote an article about the same issue earlier (2023). Other members had reported the issue to GoDaddy as well. It's unfortunate that no action took place earlier to resolve this issue permanently. But if it gets resolved, we can move on.

The DNW article mentioned that the domains are moved out of the GoDaddy account into a "special account". It's not something I came up with myself. See here.

I'd like to thank this community once again for providing more details.

 

[Name Manager]

Just stop using GoDaddy ©

 

[Samer]

Transferred out my last GoDaddy domain.
The sense of relief i feel is unexplainable.
Feels like i paid off my house’s mortgage.

 

[Samer]

GD has more DNs than next ten competitors.

The next 10 COMBINED.