Entire GoDaddy account repossessed!

[LordMomo]

Hi everyone,

Really in need of some help here...
So I changed payment methods about a week ago at GoDaddy. A day or two later I got an email from their Verification Office requesting that I submit some additional documents:
ID, Bank Statement showing latest transaction, Back and Front of card.

I did so.

Since I received that first email, my account has been locked. I get an update a few hours ago (after submitted all documents) saying that my account has been reviewed and is not eligible to be unlocked.

Around the same time I see the WHOIS on my domains being updated to [email protected] and I have still been locked out of my account.

In all honesty, I have done nothing wrong, and I am unable to speak to someone regarding the reinstatement (I only get computerized responses and the Call center can do nothing).

Does anyone know what I can do as I have spent a lot of money on some of the domains in that account (it is my primary account)?

I would really appreciate any advice.

Momo

 

[cdboard]

am I reading this right? sounds like that account now has chargebacks from two different credit cards.

that should end it.

 

[ustradebitcoin]

i m afraid now

 

[Joe Styler]

It's the weekend. I don't suppose we'll hear from @Joe Styler until after the weekend. But it's probably too late for this case since @LordMomo has already filed a chargeback claim. IMHO.

It will be Monday before we hear back from our fraud department. I can say that the chargeback is a bad idea as standard procedure is to refund all items in the account if the person cannot verify they have authority to use the payment method they have used. Time is given to help justify this and on most domains you have 6 months to straighten it out but of course most things are fixed very quickly if there is an error, before things are cancelled and refunded. Our team is very good and all of GoDaddy is focused on helping the customers.

 

[Joe Styler]

According to @LordMomo. There were no chargebacks in this case, UNTIL, after he received the permanent closure message with no possibility of reopening his account, from GoDaddy. At that point, he decided there was nothing to lose from reclaiming the money he had spent on prior purchase transactions. which were in his account, but no access. He also claims there were no chargebacks on the transaction which created this "storm in a teacup".

IMHO. He was too quick with his chargebacks. But I can understand, why he did that, when they tell him there is absolutely no possibility to re-open his account. That sounds pretty final to me also.

If an account is closed for fraud we proactively refund everything. So there would be nothing to chargeback. The reason for this is simple, if a merchant (GoDaddy in this case) loses a chargeback we have to pay the credit card company a fee on top of refunding the money to the buyer. If we suspect that there is a bad payment and we are right then we would certainly lose the chargeback, think someone stealing your credit card, you would recoup the money as it wasn't your charge.
So for us to avoid the extra fees from the chargeback we refund the money if we suspect a bad payment which avoids the possibility of a chargeback. If the money is refunded the credit card company cannot dispute the charge, there is no longer any money to get back and thus no longer any extra fee. This is standard for us in any situation where we suspect a bad payment and it cannot be quickly resolved.
Meaning - we don't have any money for the OP to charge back it would have already been refunded at this point.
This is also better for the person who has an issue as we can continue to straighten it out with them and avoid any chargeback fees making restoring their domains easier for everyone.

 

[Joe Styler]

i m afraid now

We have something like 14 million customers - bad payment issues are extremely rare. And as I stated above pretty easy to straighten out in most cases.

 

[Joe Styler]

If the topic starter was not a forum member and did not know about Joe Styler who can work magic sometimes, he would lose his domains forever. Therefore, there are other domainers, more solitary and less well connected, who probably have lost their domains forever. They did not know they can appeal to Joe Styler or to seek the support of the domaining community. GoDaddy really has to build an appeal system, so that Joe Styler, who has helped us numerous times, does not have be so often our "deus ex machina".

I appreciate your comment but I am no magician. We do have things in place to help customers, I just use them efficiently because I have been here a long time and know them from the inside out, but we do have processes in place to help anyone. In this case, if you are marked for a possible bad payment you receive an email telling you so and letting you know you can straighten it out in a couple ways and have the email that directly contacts the department that handles this so you should be able to appeal pretty easily and straighten it out. At the end of the day if it is a real charge we want it to work and move on to making you a happy customer

 

[Name Trader]

am I reading this right? sounds like that account now has chargebacks from two different credit cards.

that should end it.

No. You are not reading this right. According to @LordMomo he has only done 1 chargeback (for all domains in his closed account) , which occurred after he had been informed that his account would never be reopened.

 

[Name Trader]

It will be Monday before we hear back from our fraud department. I can say that the chargeback is a bad idea as standard procedure is to refund all items in the account if the person cannot verify they have authority to use the payment method they have used. Time is given to help justify this and on most domains you have 6 months to straighten it out but of course most things are fixed very quickly if there is an error, before things are cancelled and refunded. Our team is very good and all of GoDaddy is focused on helping the customers.

None of this was stated in the account closing letter with zero chance of it ever being re-opened. We don't know if this had been told to @LordMomo in any prior conversations.

I have a different interpretation to you on the facts we have at hand. I'd say GoDaddy are very good at mistreating it's customers, with bullying tactics. When this happened to me, I never got any offer that they would refund the couple of hundred domains in my account, bought on your auctions platform, either before or after they closed my account. But that's water under the bridge since they re-opened my account. Which must have been a 1 in 10M chance

 

[Kenny]

So far everything has been a one sided story and a screenshot of a chatbox message.(I never saw an Email) I'm not saying anything else, one way or the other.
Joe says he will have answers tomorrow so lets end the speculation and see what GD has to say.

Peace,
Cy

 

[todaygold]

I appreciate your comment but I am no magician. We do have things in place to help customers, I just use them efficiently because I have been here a long time and know them from the inside out, but we do have processes in place to help anyone.

I don't mean to barge in to the thread here, but how exactly are customers supposed to know about these processes? Are we given like a list of internal phone numbers of who to contact when we get locked out? Because if so, I must have missed the memo on that. I have no idea who is correct or telling the truth here, but if a customer is actually told by customer service that they are locked out with no hope of recovery...then what are they supposed to do? It would seem to me that customer service should be the one following these 'processes', not the customer?

 

[Name Trader]

If an account is closed for fraud we proactively refund everything. So there would be nothing to chargeback. The reason for this is simple, if a merchant (GoDaddy in this case) loses a chargeback we have to pay the credit card company a fee on top of refunding the money to the buyer. If we suspect that there is a bad payment and we are right then we would certainly lose the chargeback, think someone stealing your credit card, you would recoup the money as it wasn't your charge.
So for us to avoid the extra fees from the chargeback we refund the money if we suspect a bad payment which avoids the possibility of a chargeback. If the money is refunded the credit card company cannot dispute the charge, there is no longer any money to get back and thus no longer any extra fee. This is standard for us in any situation where we suspect a bad payment and it cannot be quickly resolved.
Meaning - we don't have any money for the OP to charge back it would have already been refunded at this point.
This is also better for the person who has an issue as we can continue to straighten it out with them and avoid any chargeback fees making restoring their domains easier for everyone.

But the big point you are missing here, is that you don't allow the customer to transfer all the other domains in their account. Just suppose, like many, many customers, they use GoDaddy as their sole registrar, and the have their business domain and maybe some other valuable domains in their account. You are basically bankrupting that customer because they have lost all the domains in their account. Which had zero to do with any faulty credit card transaction. You've destroyed their business, livelihood, and (dare I say) stolen their assets. That is hardly a fair way to treat a customer. It's a downright terrible way to treat a customer.

 

[Name Trader]

So far everything has been a one sided story and a screenshot of a chatbox message.(I never saw an Email) I'm not saying anything else, one way or the other.
Joe says he will have answers tomorrow so lets end the speculation and see what GD has to say.

Peace,
Cy

I'm not prejudging anything here. I'm just pointing out, what I see as flaws in the points @Joe Styler has raised. Which required rebuttal. I too am waiting to see what actually transpired. I agree, it's been a one-sided argument to date. But @LordMomo's story, pretty much matches my own experience with this process. At least from what he has revealed to us, to date. And I only came into this thread to say, the finality of their Fraud Squad, does have some wiggle room, if only a smidgeon. Because my account was reopened. After I had given up my case. For the same reasons, about the finality of the account never being re-opened.

 

[cdboard]

Thanks. My daughter already had that last small transaction refunded. The credit card dispute is for transactions on my own payment method

No. You are not reading this right. According to @LordMomo he has only done 1 chargeback (for all domains in his closed account) , which occurred after he had been informed that his account would never be reopened.

I guess it is possible that the "refund" was initiated by godaddy. seems like the OP would have described it that way.

OP, was the daughter's refund initiated by godaddy? or was that a chargeback, too?

 

[LordMomo]

Daughters refund was processed by GoDaddy. That was a single last transaction only.

I have yet to be refunded for any of the other purchases I made from my original payment method which is the reason I started the chargeback.

The screenshot is not of a chat box, it is an email directly from their verification office that I received in response to me resubmitting my documents and explaining the situation to them again.

The fact that they said in the email that my account will "never" be eligible for unlocking and the fact that telephonically the support team (J*[email protected]) told me that I will receive no refund, are the reasons why I started the chargeback. I had done nothing of the sort until then and followed their instructions and submitted all relevant documents before then.

@Joe Styler is the first person from Godaddy to tell me that I had any chance of receiving a refund or of resolving this issue.

@stub is 100% correct about the situation in all of his posts (as far as I've seen)

As said before, I am unwilling to cancel the chargeback however, as I have received nothing directly from GoDaddy stating that I will be refunded or that my account will ever be unlocked.

Momo

 

[Joe Styler]

Anytime we mark a purchase as problematic we refund it automatically for the reasons I stated above.

 

[Kenny]

The screenshot is not of a chat box, it is an email directly from their verification office that I received in response to me resubmitting my documents and explaining the situation to them again.
Momo

I realized what I had said was wrong 10 minutes after I said it. During supper.
After supper I hurried back here to amend that post, and will own up to it now.
Sorry.

Peace,
Cyberian

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Anytime we mark a purchase as problematic we refund it automatically for the reasons I stated above.

Fair enough. What about all the previous purchases unrelared to the problematic one?

From what I've read here, which is scary as hell, GoDaddy reposesses not only the problematic purchase domain, but the entire account with all the assets within - without any reimbursement! No offence, Joe, but this seems like outright theft from where I sit.

Heck, never mind reimbursement! As others have already pointed out, some domains, with functioning websites, may have value far beyond anything paid for them to GoDaddy!

Interesting what happens later to all those other reposessed not problematic domains, that had been previously purchased by the client, often at substantial expence? Are they offered on auction come renewal time, with proceeds adding to GoDaddy's profits? Or are they just hanging there, renewed in perpetuity, because your inhouse counsel wisely advised against selling them off?

 

[LordMomo]

Fair enough. What about all the previous purchases unrelared to to the problematic one?

From what I've read here, which is scary as hell, GoDaddy reposesses not only the problematic purchase domain, but the entire account with all the assets within - without any reimbursement! No offence, Joe, but this seems like outright theft from where I sit.

Heck, never mind reimbursement! As others have already pointed out, some domains, with functioning websites, may have value far beyond anything paid for them to GoDaddy!

Interesting what happens later to all those other reposessed not problematic domains, that had been previously purchased by the client, often at substantial expence? Are they offered on auction come renewal time, with proceeds adding to GoDaddy's profits?

Exactly! The purchase that was flagged and refunded was WHOIS protection for just $10 or so. My other purchases over the last 3 months alone were easily 50 times as much

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Exactly! The purchase that was flagged and refunded was WHOIS protection for just $10 or so. My other purchases over the last 3 months alone were easily 50 times as much

Why in the world are you burning money, paying for Privacy, when other, seems much more reliable registrars, are offering it free of charge? Namely: Namesilo and Epik.

 

[LordMomo]

Why in the world are you burning money, paying for Privacy, when other, seems much more reliable registrars, are offering it free of charge? Namely: Namesilo and Epik.

I don't usually use privacy. I needed it for just a single domain that was being brokered for me. But you're right, Namesilo does seem very good

 

[Joe Styler]

Exactly! The purchase that was flagged and refunded was WHOIS protection for just $10 or so. My other purchases over the last 3 months alone were easily 50 times as much

I don't know exactly what happened until I can discuss it with the fraud team. It is rare for them to refund an order and more rare for them to lock an entire account. We'll see what happened with the account when I speak with them this week.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

I don't know exactly what happened until I can discuss it with the fraud team. It is rare for them to refund an order and more rare for them to lock an entire account. We'll see what happened with the account when I speak with them this week.

Can't wait to see how this pans out

 

[jaydub]

Fair enough ...thanks Joe.
I will be interested to hear what happened as well.

I don't know exactly what happened until I can discuss it with the fraud team. It is rare for them to refund an order and more rare for them to lock an entire account. We'll see what happened with the account when I speak with them this week.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

Lets leave it at a technical error for now.
Momo will get his account back
Give Joe a chance to talk to people and have his questions answered.
Stub got his account back
Please stay on topic and stop talking about other registrars and why did you/didnt you do that
We all do things differently for different reasons

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Lets leave it at a technical error for now.
Momo will get his account back
Give Joe a chance to talk to people and have his questions answered.
Stub got his account back
Please stay on topic and stop talking about other registrars and why did you/didnt you do that
We all do things differently for different reasons

Seems you're missing the point here. I'm happy for @stub and hopeful about @LordMomo, same as you. However, this thread has hilighted the bigger and, frankly, very scary picture - see my question in red a couple of posts above...

As for leaving this as a "technical error", well, okay... thing is, 50,000* seems like a lot of "technical errors"...

I'm not sure how many domains GoDaddy has for registration, but 1/10th of 1% of 50M registrations is 50,000 domains. Sounds like a lot to me

We'll never know how many of those more or less 50,000* names have been reposessed due to fraud or perceived fraud, as in @LordMomo's case, and how many are... collateral damage. Judging by the @LordMomo case, possibly most of them!

* Disclaimer: I'm using the 50,000 figure, calculated by @stub, for illustration purposes. No one here knows how many such "technical errors" there really are.