Hello,
Brent Here. I had to create a new account as the old one had my old company Hostgator in the name. =)
I don't think a lot of you realize how serious this is. A scammer spent a little over $12 in India, and without proof, a contract, or even a court order, was able to abuse Godaddy's policy and lock over $10mm worth of my domains!
These names have been locked for over a year now, and I've spent $10,000's in legal bills trying to get a court order to get them unlocked as Godaddy requires. (covid hasn't made it easy with the courts) The legal fees pale in comparison to the millions in deals I've had to turn down. The lock prevents you from changing a domain's DNS or transferring it, which means you can't sell it.
This scam is pretty genius if you think about it. Just about any scammer in the world can file in their country courts for a small fee; email GoDaddy that the domains are under "dispute," and bam Godaddy will lock whatever domains the scammer asks them to in their email to
[email protected]. (at least that's what happened to me)
The scammer doesn't even have to show up for court to keep your names locked and most likely won't. Godaddy will lock the domains without a court order and then require you to get a court order to unlock them all.
Getting a court order to get your domains unlocked is very costly, time-consuming, and can take several years with how backed up most of the courts are from Covid.
If you're with Godaddy and you think your account is safe from this scam, I'd recommend you email them and find out for yourself that your names can be locked from a "dispute." and their UTOS says such.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had a few moments of weakness and offered the scammer Puneet over $10,000 to drop the "dispute" with Godaddy. I even had some of the potential buyers wanting to pay Puneet $10,000's in extortion money in order to close on the names locked. He was too greedy, demanding millions, and as a result, I'm not going to pay him a dime in extortion money. Instead, I'm paying lawyers in India to make sure he serves prison time for both extortion and fraud.
At one point, I even offered Godaddy full indemnification from the "dispute" if they unlocked my names. This is off the table now, but I can't for the life of me figure out why'd they turn this down and continue to keep my names locked without any proof or court order.
Below is the email in which I found out why my names were locked. In this email Godaddy lied about there being a court order to lock my names. I don't know why they lied about this but I'm guessing it's because the file Puneet attached was in Hindu and they took his word for it.
"Dear Brent,
We have been notified that per documents filed in the District Court in Alwar, Rajasthan, the domain names below are the subject of a legal dispute:
HYBRID.COM,
DISTRIBUTE.COM,
ADMIRER.COM,
DRONE.COM,
CIA.COM,
DEMOLISH.COM,
EMIR.COM,
DARM.COM,
BRIDE.COM,
ADVISE.COM,
FLUTE.COM,
LOANTAP.COM,
JEWEL.COM,
ITEM.COM,
PIANO.COM,
DEVOTE.COM,
VTOK.COM,
ATHLETE.COM,
BONJOUR.COM,
VALENTINE.COM,
DUST.COM,
DETECT.COM,
VIAJE.COM,
MESSAGE.COM
The court ordered that the domain names are to be locked pending further order of the court. Accordingly, we have locked the domain names.
If you have any questions regarding these actions or this court case, please contact the Court or Plaintiff’s Counsel directly. Contact information for Plaintiff’s Counsel can be found below:
Puneet Agarwal
** email removed **
Kind regards,
Lisa
Disputes Administrator
GoDaddy"
When I pressed them on there being no such legal ruling or court order, they quoted their UTOS:
"Per Section 14 of GoDaddy’s Universal Terms of Service (“UTOS”), we reserve the right to lock domain names to defend any legal action
or threatened legal action without consideration for whether such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually
determined to be with or without merit.
"
I had a registrar back in the day named launchpad.com and sold it with the sale of hostgator.com. I don't think anyone could ever picture something like this happening and it really doesn't make sense to have a registrar for less than 150 domains.
Had the domains that I bought before I launched Create been with Namecheap or Epik, this would never have happened!
I'm positive Puneet is insane. He has sent me thousands upon thousands of emails, messages, calls, etc, etc. Many of these messages involve death threats, talking about praying to the devil, drugs, pictures of mutilated naked bodies, and all kinds of craziness. In a few of the messages, he told me he got in trouble for waiting outside Prime Minister Modi's private house and office for trying to talk to him. I'm not sure I would have even believed this if it wasn't for him sending over a document that was an official complaint against the officer that questioned him for harassment!
through. Based off names; u deserved NP “Pro” Imo.
